LUNATIC EXPRESS STAGED AS DANCE AND AUGMENTED REALITY

 

BY Margaretta wa Gacheru (14 July 2022)

In recent times we have seen storytelling take on a variety of forms and genres. We’ve seen straight plays, everything from dramas and melodramas to comedies, fairy tales, and farce.

We’ve also seen a lot more musical theatre lately wherein music and dance play increasingly important roles in dramatizing tales ranging from Jesus Christ Superstar and Sarafina to Ngaahiki Ndeeda staged in both English and Kikuyu (and shortly, on July 29, it will open in Limuru where Kamariithu Theatre once was).

And just the other day, we saw stories like ‘Peter Pan’ (by the Academy of Dance{ and ‘Sleeping Beauty’ (by Dance Centre Kenya) portrayed purely through dance. We saw ballerinas on their toes using their whole bodies to signify fantasy tales filled with passion and set to symphonies by world-class composers.

We even listened to an award-winning audio-plays like ‘Song of the Humming bird’ that reminded us of the importance of listening to narrative as well as to nature’s beautiful sounds. It also reminded us of the environmental crisis that the humming bird and all of nature is being threatened by, namely extinction.

And just recently, we saw a whole new generation, structure and style of storytelling in ‘Raundi Mwenda’ which was staged for one night only at Kenya National Theatre.

A collaboration between Dance into Space, British Council, and the Repertory Theatre of Birmingham, the production combined everything from historical fiction and contemporary dance to digital technology, specifically augmented reality, ballet and straight storytelling as well.

Loosely based on story of the Lunatic Express, the train the British decided to create linking Mombasa and Kampala. Raundi Mwenda (or Crazy Trip) explores the story of the railway, both as an historic event and a symbol of colonialism. It takes us on a journey from pre-colonial times up to the present day. Events are revealed as sound and light combine with dance, augmented reality that flashed images of slithering snakes morphing into a railway train shaped just as the prophets had foreseen.

 

 

There were lots of cryptic elements in the production, starting with a ragged old man (Steenie Njoroge) slowly pushing a grocery cart full of unidentifiable objects across the back of the stage. Meanwhile, in juxtaposition to the aged beggar, a lively team of contemporary dancers came on stage, waving and stretching their arms. Their characters were unclear but perhaps they were land surveyors preparing the path for the railway. Otherwise, why were they there?

The show had a shaky start when the lights went off and there was a lapse before a spotlight came on, undecided on what diameter of light to flash on an empty stage. Then, finally some sound switched on. After that, there was smooth sailing.

Once the show took off, there was clarity in the angry figure of Joseph Wairimu enacting lines from the Peter Kimani novel, Dance of the Jacaranda. He made clear that the locals were displeased with their treatment by colonizers who came, pretending to  be friendly while planning how to rob the Africans of their lands and their freedom.

After that, the dancers came in, miming the historical narrative, period by period up until the present day.

Ultimately, one had to appreciate the experimental character of the show, both because the Birmingham people had never worked with Kenyans in Dance into Space before. Nonetheless, one feels there needed to be more rehearsals and more collaboration on the script which basically related the conventional story as told from a Western perspective and not paying much heed to the plight of the workers who were often mauled by the notorious lions of Tsavo.

That Western perspective was best expressed by two beautiful Kenyan dancers, she dressed in an elegant gown and the man in a suit that might have been a tuxedo. Either way, their dance was graceful but reflective of a Western lifestyle that suggested either that the Africans associated with the railway were made over into black ‘Wazungu’ or that Britons were enjoying their transplanted Western ways into Kenya in high style.

The ending of ‘Raundi Mwenda’ was particularly confusing. The young dancers were having fun, dancing in current dance style. But that was how the show stopped.  There seemed to be no resolution and nothing clear about what the message of the production was.

Perhaps that was the point, but at least we must have seen some reference to our new SGR train designed by the Chinese which, as it is turning out to be yet another style of ‘Lunatic Express.’