ENDO AND ONDITI COLLABO AT TRIBAL

By margaretta wa gacheru (xomplwrw 29 Novwmber 2022) Patti Endo’s collaborative exhibition with Paul Onditi which opened last weekend at Tribal Gallery isn’t the first time she’s collaborated with a fellow artist. “One of my most successful collaborations has been with Sandstorm,” says the creative who, besides being a professional artist, has a brand that she shares with her sister, Yvonne. “It’s Endo Squared [Endo2],” Patti tells BDLife. That’s the company she started with Yvonne upon her return from her art studies in UK in 2016.

In fact, the Sandstorm leather and canvas bags that she adorns with her distinctive single-line drawings are works of art, not just merchandize that monetizes the creative work that she does. The heavy cotton bags that Endo2 shows off on Instagram are also reflective the collaborative spirit. It is one that Patti and Yvonne have shared for the last 25 years, ever since she was born in a suburb outside Tokyo two and a half decades ago. The art featuring the Endo2 logo and sold in Sandstorm shops is different from the work that she is currently showing with Onditi in Loresho. Both reflect her love of line drawing and her focus on the figurative. But the collaborative works found in the exhibition bring together two radically different modalities with varying degrees of success. “We have very different styles,” Patti admits. “I’m in minimalist which may be a function of my Japanese background. And he is a ‘maximulist ’ [if such a word exists] meaning his art fills all the space available,” she adds. But despite their stylistic differences, the idea of illustrating a meeting of the minds and hearts in a series of delicate figures is an evocative one. It comes out most literally in their ‘Beyond Self’ series where their minds seem to almost merge into a reassuring oneness. Yet anyone can see how difficult that process can be, given the psychological boundaries associated with the human ego and a sense of self or identity. There are only five collaborative works that Endo and Onditi produced for this exhibition. Otherwise, both artists seem to take this opportunity to display some of their more experimental works.

For Onditi, Smokey is still with us, looking quite a bit stronger and more decisive as in a piece like ‘Sporadic 3.’ And Smokey’s cities no longer look hopelessly shattered as several did during one show that he had during the darkest days of the pandemic. Now, in spite of his ‘cityscapes’ (Apart Apartments, No Title, and Melting Series 3) looking damaged, they no longer emit a dystopic feeling of despair. Now he even gives his ‘skyscrapers’ color to compliment his lines. Meanwhile, Patti explores the same theme of self and oneness with another human being in the solo piece ‘Reflecting the Self’. Using Japanese ink on Japanese calligraphy paper, she also depicts two heads knocking together but in no way do they transcend the ego boundaries of separation. They look willing but unable. What works more comfortably is their collaborative “Dance of Minds”. Where the two are now in tandem, expressing their shared spirit in their movement of body and mind.

One needs to spend a bit time with their art at Tribal Gallery to get a feeling for this specific show since there is a lot that might not be seen if one passes judgement on the exhibition hastily. For there are hidden secrets in both artists’ works. For instance, Patti points out that in every one of their joint works, there’s a subtle visual component that she created as a backdrop behind their larger philosophical constructs, translated into human forms. One has to look closely to see the tiny faces that Patti has drawn delicately and decisively on each of the five completed for this show. Her faces are there in a work like ‘The Battle with One Self’ and also with the one on the program cover titled ‘Beyond Self.’ For me, they act as a kind of mental cushion easing my eyes into an appreciation of their art, be it collaborative or solo. Patti admits that people wonder how the two of them came up with this collaborative program since they knew it was not easy. “It came out of a conversation,” she says, noting that she has known Onditi since she was a little girl. “My parents knew Paul and we even owned some of his art,” recalls Patti. “He was also one of the first people who really encouraged me to pursue my art.”

NAIROBI HALF LIFE CELEBRATES A DECADE OF GROUND-BREAKING SUCCESS

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 29 November 2022) Nairobi Half Life was a game-changer for the Kenya film industry when it premiered on August 10th, 2010. It ushered in an era described as “a golden age of Kenya film” by the film’s director, Tosh Gitonga who was speaking at an all-day event recently at the Zehneria Portico in Westlands. The event, ‘Maisha ya Half Life’ was designed to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the film’s world premiere and to see whether the film is as relevant today as it was a decade ago. Nairobi Half Life was also seen as a trail blazer that dared to expose some of the most sinister and seedy sides of crime in the city. It was praised by many Kenyans for giving a realistic portrayal of the painful struggle to survive in Nairobi. The film went on to win international awards and be shown all over the world as film distributor Trushna Patel of Crimson Multimedia explained last Saturday during a series of panels organized by the filmmakers, Ginger Wilson of Ginger Ink and Sarika Lakhani of One Fine Day Film. The film was the fruit of a Kenyan-German collaboration including cooperation from GIZ and the Kenya Film Commission. The three panels featured the distributors, the producers, and the actors, all of whom were moderated by Mugambi Nthege who co-starred in Nairobi Half Life with Joseph Wairimu, Paul Ogola, the late Maina Olywenya, and others. Speakers on the panels included distributors, producers, and artists, including Paul Ogola and Tosh. The last panel also featured Serah Mwihaki, the lead scriptwriter of the film. “But I was not alone,” Mwihaki told BDLife shortly before her panel was called. “I was joined by Billy Kahora, Joy Wayodi, Sam Munene, and Potash, plus we skyped frequently with our German counterparts as we developed the ideas and the script,” she added. “Ultimately, what we wanted was to write a film that was truly Kenyan,” she said. The panels were attended by a room-full of young filmmakers, many of whom were eager to ask questions of panelists. It was during these queries that Gitonga told the youth they were living in a ‘golden age of Kenyan film’. The implication being that the effects of Nairobi Half Life were ground-breaking. One might even suggest that the history of Kenyan film could be written in terms of pre-NHL and post-NHL since the world looks very differently upon African film today than it did a decade ago. In 2010 there was no African film industry apart from an incipient Nigerian one and in Kenya, you had Ginger Ink and a few filmmakers on River Road, but little more. But today, the film industry is reeling with activity as witnessed by Kenya Film Commission’s CEO Timothy Owaso who attended the panels. We have films like Wanuri’s Rafiki going to Cannes and Super Moto nominated for an Oscar and countless other films coming up which we’ll be hearing about shortly. We even have a Nairobi Film Festival and a DocuBox helping more Kenyan documentaries to be made. And now we even have Netflix picking up four Kenyan German collaboration. They include ‘Something Necessary’, Lusala, Super Moto, and Nairobi Half Life. Plus, Gitonga is coming out with Disconnect 2 on Netflix very soon. “It’s important that Kenyans watch all of these films because Netflix keeps count of the eyeballs watching their films. The more eyeballs watching our films, the more they will support the making of more Kenyan films,” Ms. Wilson told BDLife. Meanwhile, on Saturday night, Nairobi Half Life Live took place at Westgate Mall where four of the filmmakers, including its executive producer Tom Tykwer, gave a running commentary as the film was being shown to a full-house crowd who had come to see the Kenyan film that some had seen and some had not since they were too young at the time to come to the cinema to watch films. “There will be ear phones on every seat plus a box of popcorn to munch,” explained Mugambi who was also MC-ing the event as well as being one of the four spokesmen observing the film. “You could either wear the earphones and listen to comments and critiques of the film by its makers, or you can flip the switch on the earphones and listen to the film itself,” Mugambi said. [[For me, I listened to both the commentary and the film, finding Nairobi Half Life even more relevant today than when I saw it ten years ago. Its one element of nostalgia: the Phoenix Theatre existed then but not now “We are also celebrating the film’s arrival on Netflix together with three other Kenyan films produced by Ginger Ink and One Fine Day Films,” says Ginger Wilson, CEO of Ginger Ink which co-produced Nairobi Half Life with German Cooperation. Finally, in the new year, Nairobi Half Life the play will be staged by Nairobi Performing Arts Studio. Stay tuned for news on that score.

DANCING INTO A WORLD OF WONDER

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (Posted November 29,2022) For those looking for a way to escape the stress and strain of the week, the Dance Centre Kenya offers them a beautiful way into a world of wonder and enchantment in watching their annual performance of The Nutcracker ballet this weekend at Kenya National Theatre where the Gala is Saturday. It's also where you will see the way DCK’s Cooper Rust has transformed children into masterful mini-ballerinas. Both boys and girls have been taught to express the grace of professionals. They have also achieved an athleticism fit for gymnasts aiming to make it one day to the Olympics. Granted the pre-primary dancers who make sweet appearances in the show need more time to achieve the rigor and stamina of the older ones. But even their dash across the stage while keeping time to Tchaikovsky’s majestic music is a sweet reminder that the story itself made room for little ones to be present and play their part.

For The Nutcracker takes place at a time of year that we know well. Most of us tend to be busy before Christmas, if not shopping for gifts, then getting ready to go to parties that celebrate the holiday season. The Nutcracker takes us back in time when ladies and gentlemen as well as their offspring dressed first for winter and the cold climate, but also in different fashions. It’s in costuming that one sees no expense has been spared to dress up everyone, including the party-goers in act one, with beautiful attire—long elegant gowns with matching capes and men wearing dapper hats like the one worn by the good Herr Drosselmeyer (Henry Mwaniki). He’s the special guest of the Christmas party’s host and hostess, Herr and Frau Stahlbaum, and he has brought a magical gift to his favorite god-daughter, Clara, played by the talented 10-year-old, Keri Yamane. It is a mysterious toy that looks like a uniformed soldier but is actually a device used to crack nuts, like walnut shells. Clara adores her god-father and also his gift, which her brother Fritz (Hyogo Yamane) immediately grabs and runs away with. He envies Clara’s toy, and understandably so since he didn’t get one. But he definitely has potential to become a kleptomaniac.

Clara does her best to chase him and get it back. But it requires the intervention of adults to stop the steal and return the nutcracker to Clara who sleeps with her toy. And that is when the story begins in earnest. First, we see the toy transformed into an actual dancer-soldier (Eugene Ochieng) who’s suddenly got a little army fit to battle and win against the Rat King (Aske Ballan) and his troops of fellow rats. Then in Act 2, Clara’s dream continues as she is swept into the mythical Land of Sweets by elegant angels. She is accompanied by the Nutcracker who is now a Prince. She is also crowned a Princess as they journey into this vibrant space where the backdrop is heavenly and the performances that follow are international. Clara and her Prince are given a throne to sit on as they witness dancers who perform national steps that come all the way from Russia, China, Spain, and the Middle East. This is also when the wee ones get a chance to reveal the way their Teacher-Artistic Director and Founder of DCK, Cooper can create graceful dancers out of pre-teens. The original choreographer, Maruis Petipa, included a Shepherdess (Pauline Okumu) and her Lambs in the ballet. They come just before the Candy Canes and the high point of Clara’s time in the Land of the Sweets. It is when she first gets to meet and watch the beautiful Dew Drop Fairy (Flora Liu) and then, the Sugar Plum Fairy (Pamela Atieno) and Sugar Plum Cavalier (Shamick Otieno). Their performances are meant to be the high point of the ballet. But we have been watching lovely dancing by young women and men as well as by children throughout the ballet, so it might be difficult to say which dancers are the most proficient and professional. The point is that Cooper lifts the amateur performance into another realm altogether. The discipline that she demands of her students is rigorous and watchful. It pays off in the end. This year, DCK has attracted ABSA as its biggest sponsor but others have also come on board, knowing that ballet is a beautiful business that teaches lessons their children won’t learn anywhere else. Especially appreciation of beauty, good taste, and elegance.

POETRY AND PAINT GO TOGETHER AT CIRCLE ART

BY Margaretta wa Gacheru (written 26 November 2022) Circle Art Gallery has outdone itself with the launch of ‘The Forest and Desert Revisited’ exhibition last Wednesday night. Curated by the South African architect, researcher, and curator, Michelle Mlati, the show brings to mind the concept forwarded first by the British imperialist Cecil Rhodes who was intent on dominating Africa “from Cape to Cairo” for his empire. Michelle is no imperialist although she has been intent on capturing some of the finest contemporary artworks “from Cape to Cairo” as seen at Circle Art where she represents the Cape and Souad Abdelrassoul represents Cairo.

In between, her regional focus has primarily been on Sudanese artists whose artworks could correlate in some way with the core concepts found in the poetic tradition and literary movement defined in the Sudanese Forest and Desert School. The main one relates to identity, with the forest representing South Sudan and Africans while the desert represents the North and the Arab. The ideas emerged in the 1960s in the poetry of Sudanese poets and they still resonate for some in literary, social, and political realms today. But could they be visible in the visual arts as well? This was just one of the questions Mlati addresses in an exhibition which she tells BDLife was collaborative, enhanced through her association with friends from Circle Art and elsewhere.

The other key concept reflected in the show relates to hybridity, or the mixing, blending, and thus breaking down boundaries and constructing new forms of life, literature, and creative expression in visual as well as literary terms. Hybridity is the key that enables Mladi to explain how two Kenyans, one Ugandan and a Palestinian artist all have relevance in relation to the Forest and Desert School. It’s because hybridity, like cross-breeding, means one can take totally different concepts and blend them together to see what comes out.

Hybridity also enabled her to broaden the scope of the show to examine aspects of color, texture, and technique. It also serves to explains how she can not only correlate poetry and painting, but also break down regional borders and cultures barriers. There are 11 artists in ‘School revisited’. Seven are Sudanese, two Kenyans, one Ugandan, and one Palestinian.

It’s an eclectic lot, challenging one to see any singularity of focus. But no matter. Color coding can provide an organic clue as to why or what, for instance, Tabitha wa Thuku has in common with Sudanese Salah Elmur or Egyptian Souad. All three lean towards green verdant stories. At the same time, Elmur epitomizes Mladi’s hidden argument that the binary notions of black sub-Saharan being ‘forest’ and the desert being Arabian no longer apply across the board. For his work contains verdant greens as well as sandy brown hues representing ‘desert’ ideas. And he is not alone. The Ugandan sculptor, paper-maker Sheila Nakitende would have been considered a forest-dweller in days gone by. But the beige-brown bark paper that she has shaped into a tapestry-like textured ‘sculpture’ could have come straight out of the desert color-wise. But on the contrary, she tells BDLife:“Bark cloth is traditionally known in my country as a fabric that one can wear; but I discovered that the cloth could be made into [textured] paper which I have layered.”

The Forest and Desert School itself was started by several Sudanese poets who cultivated conversations about identity, especially as it related to Sudanese society where the tensions between Africans and Arabs led to powerful and passionate poetry that developed into an artistic movement. “This exhibition started as a conversation with [the Sudanese artist] Abushariaa when I visited his studio in Kampala,” says Mlati who was managing the Afriart Gallery at the time. “He is the one who spoke to me first about the influence the Forest & Desert School had on many young visual artists. That’s what triggered my curiosity and my research,” she adds. Ironically, while she proposes breaking down borders between the artists, she also suggests there are three ‘generations’ of Sudanese artists represented in the exhibition. The ‘elders’ include Mohamed Abdella Otaybi and Elmur, while the younger are Tibian Bahari, a Nairobi-based painter and installation artist Reem Aljeally.

In between are Abushariaa, Eltayeb Dawelbait, and Issam Hafiez. The Egyptian, Ugandan and one Kenyan all are women as are Tibian and Reem. Then again, Gor Soudan’s shift to Kisumu landed him in lush gardens as seen in his floral watercolors which effectively explode the binary of forest and desert forever. The one anomaly of the exhibition is the Palestinian Khaled Jarrar whose broken football symbolically represents the plight and possibilities of a Palestinian future.

WASWA'S RED FLAGS OF WARNING GO UNHEEDE

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 11.28.22) Derrick Waswa is a gender genius, a playwright willing to explore the illicit intrigues and intricacies of socio-sexual relationships with a sharp eye of truth. The challenge posed when watching his latest script, called ‘Red Flags’, which was staged last Sunday at Alliance Francaise, was to keep track of all the secrets being kept by most of the key characters in the play. The initial scene was embedded in an evocative video which introduced the Dorian Production cast. Then it seamlessly slipped into addressing the issue of men who skip out on relationships and the consequences of that dereliction of duty. After that, the show comes alive at the university graduation of several young women, including Camille (Eugenia Kamau). She’s got a heap of secrets starting with her new boyfriend who she doesn’t want to tell her mother, a single mom, about. He’s a slippery young guy named Oliver (Keith Maina) who she finds more interesting than her boring boyfriend, Tom. But Camille is in the mood for risk-taking and Oliver seems to offer her that. He also works for her father, Mandela (Humfrey Atsenga). As it turns out, Camille’s dad is a crook, a human trafficker specializing in shipping young women to the Gulf where they are either turned into prostitutes or domestic laborers, both of which are invariably abused. Mandela’s wife, Camille’s step-mother, Aurelia (Angela Atieno) has secrets too. She is also involved with the trafficking business, only she doesn’t let her husband know about it. Nor does he tell her what he does. Aurelia is also a ‘cougar’ whose young boyfriend is Oliver. He is a messenger liaising between Mandela’s side of the business and her own. He is also a cheater, pretending to be Camille’s boyfriend when he’s more seriously involved with Aurelia. Camille discovers Aurelia’s affair with Oliver and threatens to tell on them to her dad unless Aurelia lets her go freely to a mysterious graduation party that she and her friends are meant to attend. We never quite get to that party. Or maybe the ‘party’ became a flight to Dubai. There were several confusing moments in the play and this was one of them: how did Camille, her sister Samira, and two other girlfriends get to the Gulf? One need not ask since they were destined to get there, only all four went under false pretenses. They had met two friends of Auralia who persuaded them to go. All they needed to do was to bring their passports and take an oath of secrecy and allegiance to the organization that got them there. The scene in Dubai has a festive, colorful set design. But as the girls figure out quickly, the place might look festive but they didn’t come to indulge men’s lusts, to prostitute themselves, or to accept anything other than what they’d been promised. Demanding to go home straight away, the scene gets bloody as three male clients arrive expecting ‘ladies in waiting’ available to them. Instead, they find militant women insistent on rejecting their games. In the process, two of the women die and two more, Camille and Samira, are tortured and abused. But they somehow get back home. Fortunately, there are two ‘good guys’ who have been working undercover to get sufficient evidence on the sex traffickers. Absalom (Brian Ngugi) and Gabriela (Trizah Awuor) apparently got all the evidence they needed from Camille and Samira. They arrest Mandela and Aurelia who are stunned momentarily to discover they both do trafficking. Ultimately, Waswa addresses the issue of consequences of the walk-away dad whose daughters’ lives were nearly spoiled by him twice, first, when he left their mom, and second, when he nearly got them transformed into slaves after getting into the business of human trafficking. Waswa likes to raise multiple issues in his scripts. Sometimes too many. In what we imagine are the final moments of the play, his narrator (Gadwill Odhiambo) asks this difficult question: Can men and women be friends? Why ask it now? Perhaps it is because Camille returns to look for her old boyfriend Tom whom she had spurn for his being so ‘boringly’ studious and smart. But Tom has moved on. His start-up bio-gas company has won some big environmental award which comes with cash. He offers Camille a job as a sweeper, that’s it! It was after that that the narrative asked his question. A query requiring another play, something Waswa must have in his pipeline already.

FRAN’S FLAMINGOS GIVE US HOPE

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (written Nov 20th, 2022) Frances Simpson was a flutist and a pianist before she became a painter and flamingo advocate. Having been born and raised on the lake-shores of the Great Rift Valley, first in Nakuru and later in Naivasha, she’s especially concerned about the bird once seen as East Africa’s symbol of freedom, elegance, and delicate natural beauty. “It’s not only the elephant and rhino who are endangered species,” she told BDLife. “For thousands of years, the flamingos have inundated lakes in the Rift Valley. But I have seen their numbers diminish dramatically in recent times.” Noting that the bird had been the embodiment of resilience for centuries, she said they had survived and thrived under harsh circumstances, including the hard volcanic rocks surrounding the lakes, the salt and soda that made lake water undrinkable to humans, and even the hot springs where she had seen them walking in their unrelenting search for algae to eat from the springs. “The irony is that it’s humans who are disrupting nature by polluting the lakes with [industrial] effluents,” she said. “That’s why people are protesting the construction of another factory on the shores of Lake Natron [in Tanzania],” she added. Yet Frances isn’t a politician or a political activist. Her passion for flamingos and her protest on their behalf are expressed in her paintings, especially those she showed in her recent solo exhibition at One Off Gallery. Painting in mixed media, Frances combines acrylics with ink, charcoal, and pastels to create vivid Kenyan skies and earthy landscapes often filled with acacia trees of the kind one finds all around Naivasha. Yet in her recent exhibition, it was Frances’s flamingo paintings that enabled one to see the individuality of every bird and appreciate the delicate, shapely beauty of each one. Evolving into a ‘plein air’ painter in order to capture the full feeling of the flamingos’ movements on the various lakes, Frances also conveys the colors most reflective of their identities. That means she doesn’t just paint them in pinks. She also dresses their feathers in indigo and ochre, deep grey and white, all of which these so-called ‘lesser’ flamingos wear with delight. One reason the artist often paints outside on the lake shore is because it’s such an adrenaline-filled feeling when flocks of flamingos who are feeding on the lake suddenly decide to rise up and move out of their unassuming space. It’s a thrill to see them all rise in unison and fly together as one body, one being. Whatever the reason for them to move, it’s that mystery itself that makes the flamingo an object of myth and magic. The flamingo is often correlated with the phoenix which always rises from the ashes and gives one hope to endure and transcend one’s trials, knowing that if the phoenix and flamingo can withstand the harsh reality of everyday living, so can we human beings. Frances’s most intriguing work in the show was the one entitled ‘Survival in a Harsh Environment I’. There is a lot going on in this piece. The flamingos are in a corner, as if they are being squeezed out of their long-standing space. One can only vaguely see a house hinted in the background but definitely too close to terrain that had been previously reserved for the birds alone. Then on the ground, below them, one can see what looks like the natural volcanic rock and possibly even the suggestion of hot steam. But then one can see what explicitly looks like human footprints interjecting an annoying appearance of this trouble-maker, the man who has come to subdivide the plots and make humongous profits off the land previously reserved for mother nature’s loved ones, the high=flying flamingos. Fortunately, Frances also created a second version of the same-titled piece. It’s one in which the birds are resisting encroachment and fighting back. A small flock of five flamingo are literally up in arms. Their wings are upright as they are all on the verge of taking off and flying forward into the fray. Fortunately, we know flamingos cannot actually fight physically against the polluting power of humans. But they can give us hope in these times when it looks like the possibility of reversing the deadly effects of climate change ha passed. The flocks have diminished to where five can constitute a team but not a flock. Nonetheless, Frances makes clear that to fight for the flamingos is to fight for life itself. We have no other choice but to do that.

CRONY COMPARED TO HEARTSTRINGS ON WOMEN

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (drafted 13 November 2022) Crony productions has the problem of being born from a gigantically popular theatre company, Heartstrings Entertainment. It’s a problem only because Heartstrings is renowned for its theatrical, social, and comedic excellence, which is something Crony is bound to be compared to. That’s no problem in the sense that the three ex-Heartstrings members who came out to produce Crony were among Heartstrings’ best, namely Nick Kwach, Cyprian Osoro, and Victor Nyaati. All three were widely popular and had fans who followed them into the Crony camp. What enhanced Crony’s ability to come out theatrically with a clear sense of direction is its director, Dennis Ndenga who served for years as Heartstrings’ deputy director, second only to the boss, Sammy Mwangi, one of the company’s founders some twenty years ago. Asked recently how he felt about the formation of Crony, Mwangi told BDLife, “It’s a healthy sign of growth in the theatre industry, and we are happy for them.” As to whether he felt Heartstrings had been betrayed by the troika’s shift in loyalties, Mwangi said, “Absolutely not,” since it opened up space in the company for another crop or generation of young actors to emerge on the Heartstrings platform. Yet it is difficult not to compare the two troupe, because Heartstrings has developed a powerful template for theatrical presentation. And Crony has drawn a lot of inspiration and style from it. For instance, both companies entitle their plays with oblique phrases that seem to have little or no relevance to the story or context itself. The title of Crony’s production, staged last weekend at Alliance Francaise, was ‘Are you still coming?’ which is speaking to whom about what? The comedy itself doesn’t really answer those questions. Meanwhile, Heartstrings is notable for never (or rarely ever) giving its plays a title that made sense as it relates to their plays. Last week, they staged “Here comes the bribe” where again, one couldn’t find one person in the play being bribed or bribing another human being. But titles are just one of the ways that Crony emulates Heartstrings. There are the explosive electronic videos at the outset of their plays, something Heartstrings invariably does. And it is during those brief electronic interlude, presented in both cases on a big white screen, that the cast is identified. Finally, even the performance venue of both companies, Alliance Francaise, is the same. So what’s the difference between them? Apparently, it’s not in the scripting since just as Heartstrings doesn’t claim one person writes their plays, so Crony also doesnt identify one person as their playwright. Instead, both casts normally devise their scripts by brainstorming a story collectively, after which one person writes up all the ideas into the script. It's the content of the story that’s the difference. In ‘Here comes the bribe,’ a bunch of relatives are coming together to celebrate their patriarch’s birthday. The old man’s younger wife is putting up decorations in the home, but the men don’t pay much attention to her. All the action revolves around the reunion of the menfolk (including Osoro Cyprian, Victor Nyaati, and Nick Kwach) meeting and making fun, up until the time when they get the news that the dad is dead. Suddenly, the family goes to court since the men are apparently challenging the wife’s right to inherit the estate of her spouse. Yet here is where we have to quibble with Crony since something doesn’t quite make sense. First of all, it’s typical to find men muscling in on women’s right to own property. Widows especially have a hard time with men believing it’s their entitlement to take over the deceased brother’s or father’s properties. In some cultures, it’s even the women who are still seen as property to be inherited by the men. But now, it’s the court that’s supposed to decide. The lawyer defending the mama (Marion Chike) is Kwach while the men’s lawyer is Osoro. After shallow explanations of the legal claims and counter-claims, the Judge (Nicky Onyieni) is called upon to give her Judgement. But she basically reads the will of the late patriarch which gives the men ownership of the land. But the mama is executor of the will and she has the full power to decide who gets what when and how. It’s not exactly a punchline, especially as the will must have been read before. In any case, Crony like Heartstrings is standing up for the rights of women, and that’s a good plan.

SILVIA’S NEW PLAY A REVELATION

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (WRitten November 23, 2022) It was a revelation for playwright Silvia Cassini when she came across the hint that there had been witch burnings in the tiny mountain town of Triori, Italy, back in 1587. “I’ve always loved Arthur Miller’s ‘The Crucible’, but I never imagined I would find an equivalent story of my own,” the writer of ‘A Man like You’ told BDLife just hours before her latest play, ‘Speak their Names’ premiered last Friday night at Muthaiga Country Club. And like The Crucible, the pivotal issue is the power of women and the efforts by malicious men to quash that power through the combined means of the Church and the State. Cassini economizes on her cast in ‘Speak their Names’. Working with just five actors, she compensates for the fewness by selecting five of the finest actors in Kenya that she could have hoped to find. And of the five, it is Brian Ogola who embodies the spirit of the playwright as Cassini casts him as her mental mirror image. He plays the artist-writer, Federico Taverio, who struggles to bring out ‘the witches’’ story. But he does it by a mode of time-travel that takes him all the way back to 1587 when the Church conducted an Inquisition of women and girls who were arbitrarily deemed witches. Some were healers, others housewives, herbalists, or midwives. There were even little girls as young as 13 who were grabbed, abused, interrogated, and ultimately disappeared. In every case, these women had agency as they exercised their capacities to serve their communities and assert their power and positive influence. Cassini didn’t give us enough of a backstory on any of them, not even for Giovanina Ausenda (Nixsha Shah), the 13-year-old whose breakout role makes her a leading luminary in Cassini’s mind-boggling play.

But backstories are not required since this play is all about the revelation that comes to the writers as they both realize their importance in telling the women’s torturous tale. In the beginning, the writer Federico isn’t fully cognizant of the value of his role until he downloads the images in his head. That only happens in his dreams, when his characters come alive to him as he sleeps. To attain that somnambulant state of consciousness, he takes pains and also pills. One might think the process of his getting inside his dream state takes time. In fact, it does. Silvia, who also directs her play, gives her avatar, Federico, a magic cape which he wears when he’s either inside his dream or on his way there. Either way, he wears two sets of shoes, depending on which way he’s going, either casual when he’s at home, haunted by his beautiful wife (Nini Wacera) or covered in soft leather boots when he’s in his dreams. And because he’s so keen to discover how the story ends (since the characters that pop up in his sub-conscious mind apparently have agency of their own), he resorts to sleeping pills, pills that cause suspenseful concern since they might have dire side effects on the writer. But it is also the characters in his dream, especially Giovanina, the child, who compel him to come back into his dream so he can complete the project of writing the women’s story. Otherwise, the dark injustice of the women’s death and the truth of the Church’s cruel complicity and the State’s inability to stand up for half its population will be lost. They’ll be disappeared in the back alleys of history, which is where Cassini found the first clues that led her to dig deep into libraries and archives until she discovered possible connecting links leading to the women’s story. “There was a huge gap between the fact of the [Triori witch] trials and the way the witch hunt began,” Silvia told this writer. “The gap could only be filled with an artistic license to devise a script with my own imagination,” she added.

Fortunately, she was able to assemble an amazing cast. Both Martin Kigondu and Matthew Ondiege are marvelous in their malevolence towards the women they claim to be witches. Sharing misogynous attitudes that mirror many Members of Kenya’s Parliament in their backward stance against respecting women as equivalent co-partners in governance, they both wear the most elaborate costumes, illustrating their vanity and love of status. Ultimately, it’s Nixsta and Nini, playing the heroic martyr Franchetta Borelli, who shake up this story and inspire Federico to fulfill his destiny and immortalize the women by telling their tale and giving them an eternal life.

SPINNERS WEB SET FOR THANKSGIVING AND SUPER-SALE THIS WEEKEND

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (Posted November 22, 2022) Spinners Web is a cornucopia of crafts and ingenious creativity that takes shape in the form of an abundance of functional and decorative items. It is also a kind of one-stop-shop in Kitisuru where one can find almost anything he/she needs in the way of gift-giving, including giving to one’s self as well as to others special to you. That means everything from handmade soaps, creams, and gels to hand-woven capes, coats, and jackets made from Kenyan sheep’s fleece to African dolls and other toys made from either cotton, wool or colorful flip-flops footwear. They sell exotic lamps decorated with West African masks as well as lampshades made out of either metal, cotton, sisal, kitange or macrome. They even have furniture made from either wood, glass, metal, wool, leather, or beans. They are bountiful when it comes to a wide assortment of bags and baskets made with either sisal, banana fiber, baobab bark, or plastic.

But plastic kiondos are rare, given one of the main reasons for establishing Spinners Web was and still is to promote the use of organic and indigenous materials first from Kenya. But now, the range extends beyond our borders to includes items from all over Africa. For instance, one wooden cat-like creature is a sculpture from Congo. At the same time, it is a drum used for ceremonial or celebratory occasions. The celebratory occasion that Spinners Web is about to honor this Thursday is Thanksgiving. Invariably, Americans celebrate it the last Thursday in November. And whether someone is religious or not, whether they believe in the traditional narrative about how the first Thanksgiving was celebrated (with hungry European settlers being assisted with food by the indigenous landowners), many Americans (excluding vegetarians) celebrate with roasted turkey with stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce, topped off with either pumpkin or carrot pie.

“Our chef Regina, who’s come to us from the Lord Errol, is also preparing my grandmother’s special recipe of scalloped potatoes for lunch,” Jacqui Resley, SW’s owner and CEO tells BDLife, referring to this Thursday’s traditional American meal. And while she knows most Turkey-lovers also expect pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, Jacqui prefers carrot pie with whipped cream so both will have on the menu. But thanksgiving isn’t the only day that SW’s Café offers freshly baked pies. “Every day, we feature pies,’ says Jacqui who has even taught Regina her grandmother’s German recipe for Apple Pie Crumble. “It’s one of our customers’ favorites,” she adds, noting that the pies will be there over the weekend when SW is having a super-sale on everything in the double-decker shop discounted by 10 percent.

That will be important to the artisans working in the over 500 workshops that regularly supply SW with their various items. “We have a section on the ground floor where we display the newest items brought in every day by our venders,” says Nacita, Jacqui’s general manager. Started almost 30 years ago by three adventurous women, Jean O’Meara, Betti Mburu, and Jacqui Resley, the shop eventually devolved into the hands of Jacqui whose hard work, architectural and interior design background equipped her to transform their small shop into a vast open-air space filled with light and fresh air as well as a myriad of home decorating ideas made tangible by mainly Kenyan artisans. “Many customers come here regularly just to see what new items have turned up,” remarks Nacita. “Fridays are special because we have a farmers’ market and Tuesdays are when we have a Maasai Market where one old mama has been coming for years, bringing her women friends to sell their jewelry,” says Jacqui who is excited about the underground parking that she is finally putting in to alleviate the problem of insufficient parking space. What I find more exciting about SW are the warm woolen wall-hangings that Jacqui designs and hangs all around the shop. At a distance, they look like canvases painted in oils, not hand-woven organically-dyed, hand-woven wool fabric.

Some critics might suggest that Spinners Web is just an upscale curio shop that one used to see on Biashara street in the CBD. But while there might be a vague resemblance, the difference is quality, originality, and freshness of design. For instance, one won’t find elegant hand-woven capes from Jacqui’s own Weaverbird factory on Biashara street or lamps accessorized with masks from Gabon or DRC. So if you’re struggling with what gifts to give, Spinners Web is the place to go.

RASHID’S PASSION FOR PRINTMAKING REVEALED

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 21 November 2022) Rashid Diab was the first in a stream of brilliant Sudanese artists who came flooding into Kenya from the early 1990s. He has been a way-shower ever since. Experimenting with technical skills that he’s acquired and mastered over the years, it is his awesome etchings that have come to Nairobi’s Red Hill Gallery in an exhibition entitled ‘A Trajectory of Etchings – 1980-2000’. A trip up to Hellmuth and Erica Rossler-Musch’s ever green gallery is well worth the trek, if for no other reason than to meet two of the most hospitable art-lovers around. But then, to see the Gallery’s pearly white walls covered in a rich array of Rashid’s colorful etchings is all the more reason to come and see.

They are mainly abstract works, but one can see so many influences surfacing through his swirls of colors, two-dimensional lines, and calligraphic curves that disclose his Sufi upbringing. There are more than 50 etchings, all of which are beautifully framed and displayed in geometric clusters of both miniature gems of genius dressed in sepia and ochre ink as well as larger works suggesting symbolic forms such as are found in northern Sudan, in the ancient murals of Meroetic and Kush civilizations.

The venerable Sudanese artist flew in from Khartoum specially for his exhibition opening last Sunday, November 20th, having been preceded by his son Yafil, who prepared the way for Nairobi to see facets of his father’s art other than the style of painting that he is currently passionate about and which we have seen in recent exhibitions of his work in places like Tribal Gallery, One Off, and Gravitart. “We met Yafil more than a year ago when he came and suggested that we have an exhibition of his father’s etchings,” Hellmuth told BDLife shortly before the exhibition opened. “We were impressed with the etchings, especially as they cover a span of 20 years, but we couldn’t hold the exhibition until now,” he added.

There had been many steps involved in bringing Yalif’s idea to fruition, especially as he had to return to Khartoum and the process of curating the show had to proceed online. The fact that none of the etchings had ever been seen before in Kenya made the preparation process all the more exciting for Hellmuth who relished the challenge. But once he’d selected his favorites from the hundreds that Yalif had shared, Hellmuth insisted on framing all but ten of them to show them in their best light. “My father was impressed to see the exhibition as he had never seen so many of the works shown so well in one space,” Yalif said. Rashid himself hadn’t actually discovered his passion for printmaking, and specifically for etching until he was introduced to the technique in Spain, at the Complutense University of Madrid where he had been awarded a fellowship to attend. That discovery led to his getting advanced degrees in both painting and etchings, including a Ph.D.

But after years of working as a scholar and university professor in the field of fine art, he felt compelled to return to his homeland where he has been sharing his knowledge, skills, wisdom, and experience with his fellow Sudanese ever since. Since 2000 when he returned to Khartoum, he established the Dara Art Gallery. And several years after that, the Rashid Diab Art Centre was borne. “As we don’t have a national art gallery in Sudan, the Centre has played an important role,” Yalif said. It has also given Rashid the visibility required for the world to recognize both his talent and his leadership role in the arts of Sudan. For instance, he has won the King Juan Carlos of Spain award for Excellence in Service. He has also won ambassadorial status from the Japanese and the British governments for his concern for peace and the environment. He’s also exhibited his art all over the Middle East and Europe. So, while he hasn’t lost his passion for printmaking, he had to put it on hold while shifting artistically as well as socially and culturally from his Spanish to his Sudanese circumstance. “I’m concerned about the role of women in our society, which is why they appear so frequently in my art,” Rashid told BDLife at the opening of his first solo exhibition at Red Hill.

But it is thanks to his son, who discovered hundreds of his etchings while archiving his father’s art that we have the opportunity to see this treasure trove of an earlier phase of Rashid’s artistic ‘trajectory.’

WHAT’S ON IN NAIROBI November 24th onward

WHAT'S ON IN NAIROBI NOW THEATRE: *‘Speak their Names’ by Silvia Cassini at Peponi Primary Auditorium, Westlands, November 25&26. *Derrick Waswa’s ‘Red Flags’ at Alliance Francaise, November 27, 2pm, 4pm, and 6pm. *Too Funny Production presents ‘Maternity Call’ at Kenya Cultural Centre’s Ukumbi Mdogo, November 26, 3pm and 6pm. DANCE *Dance Centre Kenya presents ‘The Nutcracker’ at Kenya National Theatre, November 25, 26, 27 and December 3&4. VISUAL ARTS EXHIBITIONS *Rashid Diab’s ‘A Trajectory of Etchings’ at Red Hill Gallery. Free entry, weekends. *‘The Forest and Desert School Revisited’ at Circle Art Gallery, James Gichuru Rd. *Ehoodi Kichapi’s solo exhibition opening Saturday, November 26 at noon at One Off Gallery, Rosslyn. *Shabu Mwangi’s ‘Winter Memories’ at Gravitart Gallery, Westlands. *‘Mwili, Akili,na Roho: figurative painting from East Africa’ at NCAI. *’’Under her eye’ by Migwa Nthiga & Pie Herring at Matbronze Gallery, Langata. LAUNCH *Kenya Arts Diary 2023 launch on Thursday, 5pm at King’s Post, Westlands, 5pm. Free entry.

NUTCRACKER BALLET BACK WITH LIVE ORCHESTRA

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (Posted 21 November 2022) Performing ‘The Nutcracker’ at Christmas time is a tradition shared among nearly all the ballet dance companies around the world. It’s certainly what Cooper Rust, the artistic director and founder-mother of Dance Centre Kenya (DCK) did in South Carolina, USA, from the time she was age three. That is why DCK is continuing the tradition over the next two weekends at Kenya National Theatre. There will be a number of significant differences in this year’s Ballet. The first one is musical. It is the fact that DCK now has its own orchestra, including some of Kenya’s finest young musicians who have been drawn mainly from other leading orchestras, such as the Nairobi Philharmonic, Nairobi Orchestra, Safaricom Youth Orchestra, and Kenya Conservatoire of Music. There will also be two guest musicians, one a bassoonist from the US, the other from the Netherlands who plays the clarinet. And their conductor will be Levi Wataka, Kenya’s most acclaimed conductor who is currently the principal conductor of the Nairobi Orchestra, as well as Music Director with the National Youth Orchestra of Kenya and Nairobi Youth Orchestra among others. “We are excited that Levi, who’s a Kenyan orchestral superstar, will be conducting the ballet for the first time,” Cooper told BDLife during a dress rehearsal of the ballet that Russian composer IlyichTchaikovsky wrote the dazzling musical score for. Also included among the guest artists performing this year is the Ghetto Classics Children’s Choir. This is a group of youth from Korogocho who study music with the Art of Music Foundation. The choir will be singing the chorus in the Waltz of the Snowflakes which takes place towards the end of Act One. The actual story of the Nutcracker was written by E.T.A. Hoffman and first performed in 1882 in St. Petersburg’s Imperial Marinsky Theatre. The original choreography was by Maruis Petipa; it has been adapted and revised in recent times by Cooper Rust who previously has put in ‘guest appearances’ either as ‘Arabian Coffee’ (which is being danced by Rani Shah this year) or as Frau Stahlbaum whose home is where the Christmas party takes place. It is her daughter Clara (Keri Yamane) who receives a Christmas gift, a toy Nutcracker shaped as a uniformed soldier, from her Godfather Herr Drosselmeyer. Once the party ends and Clara falls asleep, she is awakened (while still dreaming) to find her Nutcracker (Eugene Ochieng) is alive and looking more like Prince Charming than a toy. He and his troops fight with Rat King and his rat-pack. Fortunately, he triumphs over the rats. Then to the intermission. The whole Nutcracker is a joyful collection of eclectic dances, rich with colorful costuming, designed and produced by the Centre’s costume mistress, Antonia Mukandie who has been assisted by volunteers, parents, and her team of tailors who dressed up more than 120 dancers. Most of them I watched last Sunday as they rehearsed a whole series of exotic dances shared with Clara as gratitude for ‘saving’ the Nutcracker prince from being defeated by the Rat King. If The Nutcracker sounds surreal, it is. But it is also a fantasy meant to charm and enchant children. That is why the little girl Clara travels to far away lands in her dreams. Accompanied by her Nutcracker, she meets everyone from the Snow Queen (Joy Gitonga) and Snow Cavalier (Alex Stow) together with their snowflakes to assorted Angels (from Arch angels and cherubs to Guardian angels and Seraphim). She meets a Chef who introduces her to Spanish Chocolate (Watiri), Arabian Coffee (Rani Shah) and Chinese tea (Charles Irungu, juhi Nanji). She meets a Dragon (Francis Kibe) with long legs, a group of Russians headed by Aske Ballan and a shepherdess (Pauline Okumu) with baby lambs, a big bundle of beautiful flowers and the graceful Sugar Plum Fairy (Pamela Atieno) and Cavalier (Shamick Otieno), both of whom have been with DCK since it initially opened in 2015. Both came from her first-time teaching ballet to children in Kibera. There are other dancers in the ballet who came from either Kibera or Kuwinda. They came on scholarships the Centre was able to provide thanks to local supporters of DCK as well as those from overseas who hear about the Centre through the efforts of the NGO, Artists for Africa which has enabled many young Kenyan from ‘under-served’ communities to attend workshops, advanced studies and dance programs abroad. Some are professional dancers, like Joel Kioko who joined the Joffrey Ballet and now is with the Nevada Ballet Theatre.

SILVIA’S NEW SCRIPT A TOUR DE FORCE

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted November 20, 2022) Silvia Cassini’s brand-new play ‘Speak their Names’ which had its world premiere last weekend at the Muthaiga Country Club, is a tour de force. It’s a powerful indictment of misogyny as depicted by a sensitive man, the Italian playwright Federico Taverio, played with all the essential insight and sensitivity by Brian Ogola. The play is also a form of protest told politely about the torture of women and girls, which is only depicted two or three times momentarily in the play. Those flash moments are meant to reveal the brutal injustice inflicted on women in the late 16th century Italy. But clearly, Cassini like the playwright Federico felt compelled to tell their truth in the dramatic form at which she is best known.

Her most recent production,“A Man Like You” also premiered in Kenya but has toured the world ever since and established this former architect on solid theatrical ground. But being a single mother with part of her family living abroad, she has been away for a time. Fortunately, it was just long enough for her to write about the little-known tale of the Witches of Triori. These are the women and girls whose stories of suffering and torture might have been lost in one writer’s footnotes if Cassini and her playwright Federico hadn’t felt compelled to tell their story, including the damnable roles of the Catholic Church and the City State in destroying the lives and livelihoods of women who were otherwise recognized as worthy healers, homemakers, and midwives who’d provided essential services in their mountainous community of Triori. The structure of Cassini’s play is fascinating since she could only find a fragment of the story as the events of 1587 had already been buried in the women’s undocumented history. So she invents an interesting avenue of flashback as we witness the writer transcending time and space in his dreams. That is where he meets Giovaninia Ausenda (Nixsha Shah), the child who tells him the story. She is also someone who wants him to feel the pain of the women’s subjugation so she insists they do a role-play in which he plays the victim with hands bound behind his back.

Meanwhile, she plays the grand inquisitor and torturer who humiliates him even as she ensures he feels a fraction of pain that women and girls deemed witches endure before they get ‘disappeared’, never to be seen or heard from again. Only one woman emerged from the torture and impunity of Italy’s ‘Salem witch trials’. Yet no one could explain the survival of the beautiful Franchetta Borelli (Nini Wacera). Cassini strategically weaves her story into the play, first at its very outset, when some late-comers might easily miss this essential moment when the torture and cruelty of men are manifested in that first flash scene. How it fits into the remainder of the play is one of the reasons someone needs to give the play their full attention since it unfolds like a flower, or is it a jigsaw puzzle? Nini Wacera, like Martin Kigondu and Matthew Ondiege, are double cast, in the show. But it is she as Franchetta who conveys the full might of a woman’s mind to withstand the heinous rack for nearly 24 hours, and still she does not break. She will not confess to the lie of being a witch which she is not. Whether all the other women who were arrested, interrogated, and tortured finally confessed under extreme duress, we will never know. But in his dream, Federico promises to tell the women’s truth. In his dream, he confronts the women’s oppressors and risks his own life in the process. In fact, when he’s awake, we worry that he might overdose on the sleeping pills he consumes as means of slipping quickly back into his dream and having Giovanina tell him the remainder of the women’s tale. It’s finally the shock of finding her tortured and fated to die that he fully accepts being the one to Speak their truth to the world and ensure their lesson is learned.

Yet if, after hundreds of years, their story still resonates as a reality inflicted in one form of abuse or other on women, (be it FGM, domestic violence, rape, or incest), then a play like ‘Speak their Names’ is still necessary to rouse awareness of the ongoing need for equity, gender equality, and most importantly, justice for all the women and girls deemed witches, be they from Salem or Triori or even Endor.

SHABU PREFERS TRUTH TO BEAUTY

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted November 16 2022) Shabu Mwangi doesn’t pretend to care about using his art to paint beautiful pictures. Beauty is not even an issue for this award-winning artist from Mukuru Lunga Lunga. “I paint to liberate,” he told the curator of his current solo exhibition at Gravitart in Westlands, Veronica Dura. “I am not painting for beauty [‘s sake]. I am painting to start…a conversation,” he explained to her before the opening of his exhibition entitled ‘Winter Memories’ on November 5th. The conversation that Shabu started years ago and continues even now relates to the injustice of social inequality and the structures that sustain and maintain that injustice. Sensitive to the struggles of the poor and oppressed, Shabu’s art interrogates issues that affect them directly. But not just the obvious concerns for hunger and unemployment. His vision penetrates political and historical problems to explore the hidden ramifications left behind by colonialism and the capitalist system that propelled it.

For example, a work like ‘The Surrogates’ paints a raw portrait of two ugly men who are equivalent to ‘Home Guards’ who served as loyal African stand ins for the colonizer. So, for Shabu, while colonialism may be officially dead and gone, he sees its continuation in surrogates who still serve foreign interests over those of their own people. One thing the surrogates are meant to do is keep a lid on public dissent. This is where a work like ‘Motion in Misinformation’ comes in. Shabu seems to understand the role that media (including social media) can play in distracting, distorting, and deluding the public into believing untruths and thus losing sight of their role in affecting social change.

One of the central untruths that Shabu challenges is that no one can change the status quo. Yet social change is exactly what Shabu’s art is all about. He’s like a lightning rod, electrifying and exposing the plight of the poor. It’s evident in works like ‘Waiting in Agony’ and ‘State of Agony’, which portray tragic yet impactful figures, faces that fascinate not for their beauty but for their emotional resonance. In fact, one might be revolted by some of Shabu’s art, yet that in itself reveals how powerful are the emotions emanating from his imagery. One such painting that might be difficult to see is ‘Unwrapped self’ since the ‘unwrapped’ face reveals a bloody image that is red, raw, and deeply unsettling. It’s as if he dares you to look and live with the reality that the pain of poverty is an experience that most people cannot walk away from.

Giving ‘voice to the voiceless’, Shabu created several paintings marked with bright red lines. They are lines which apparently signify the boundaries beyond which the poor and oppress are not meant to trespass. One can see them in Shabu’s most recent work entitled ‘Winter Memories’. In it, a mother and child are positioned behind several red lines, all of which are indicators for them to stay where they are. They are supposedly stuck. There is also a red line through another one of his recent paintings entitled ‘Supreme Cages’ which provides the clearest cue. The poor and oppressed are encaged in their poverty and require a radical change, possibly even a revolution.

One of the most provocative political statements that Shabu makes is in the piece, ‘Flags that bleed’. “His point being that whenever men make flags, wars tend to follow,” says Veronica. The beneficiaries of those wars might be found in his mixed media piece entitled ‘Old and Power’. Three old men are seated in a board room where ground-breaking decisions are made. This portrait of power elites was painted in 2017, five years before his ‘Dimming Stiffness’ which reveals one man wearing a crown apparently falling off his head. Winter Memories is an assemblage of nearly 30 paintings, many of which are visual metaphors for deeply personal as well as political concerns of the artist. But without an appreciation of Shabu’s vision, one cannot easily grasp the authentic beauty of his art.

Shabu’s artistry has been recognized and lauded several times this year, first when he and the Wajukuu Art Project that he founded were invited to exhibit at the prestigious German art fair, documenta15. Then, while still in Germany, he and Wajukuu won the Mario Bochi Award followed by the Arnold Bode Prize. After that, he was invited to Brazil to participate in the Biennale Mercosul13. Previously, his work has been represented in shows and art fairs in Europe, US and Kenya.

10TH ANNIVERSARY ART AUCTION MOST SUCCESSFUL TO DATE

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted november 15, 2022) For a lover of fine art, the opportunity to watch an art auction is comparable to the way a football fan must feel when he or she gets to watch their favorite team engage in a much-anticipated football match. Either way, the occasion is a thrill. At least that is what one art critic felt when she learned she couldn’t attend the 10th Anniversary edition of Circle Art’s Art Auction East Africa in person on November 8th because all the seats at the gallery had been fully booked for weeks in advance. But she could watch it online if she found the link to apply, and potentially get admitted among all the others who were intent on bidding for this year’s assemblage of East African art. Having only attended one ‘hybrid’ art auction before, (hybrid meaning witnessing and bidding in person, online or by phone), the critic had previously been in the room, not online while the auction took place. “The pandemic taught gallerists how effective online activity can be,” Thaddu Tewa, a previous art auction volunteer told BDLife. “Even before COVID, they were accepting bids by phone and what’s app, so the format wasn’t terribly new,” he said. But this year’s Art Auction East Africa was new in the sense that it was the first time the auction took place inside the gallery itself. Previously, it happened in a five-star hotel. But since so many Circle clients are either out of the country, out of Nairobi, or simply happy to attend the auction online from home, it was also a way to economize for the gallery. Fortunately, the way Circle had set up their online auction was user-friendly. Once you opened up the live web page with a split screen, you were able to keep track of all the important information as well as, if not better than, a person seated inside the gallery. On the left-hand side of the screen were the auctioneer, the numbers, including estimated final bid, and the bidding process happening in real time. And on the right were the work of art and the bio of the artist And just as soon as the auctioneer hit the final hammer of sale on a piece, the next work immediately flipped into place for our consideration. The only problem in the process was technical, something that brought the whole event to a halt for several minutes. But bidders were patient as there was much more to come. Last Tuesday from 6pm, if one had been vetted and approved, we could watch nearly every relevant detail of all 57 lots or works of art being sold at the auction. The works themselves came from Kenya as well as from Uganda, Tanzania, Eritrea, Seychelles, Rwanda and Mozambique. The auctioneer, Chilson Wamoja from Antique Auctions deserves praise since he did his job methodically, swiftly, and effectively, stating every bid so that the process continued quickly, efficiently. He wasn’t pushy, but he definitely was intent on moving the numbers forward to ensure each painting or sculpture was bid upon to its maximum potential. For instance, when it was clear that at least two parties were bidding aggressively for one item or other, he didn’t push either way. He just let the bidding flow freely, enabling works by Peterson Kamwathi, and Beatrice Wanjiku, and E.S. Tingatinga to be bid on and bought for well over a million shillings each. And while it momentarily felt as if the bidding process had cooled down by the time Chilson reached Lot 50, there was a surprise run on a work by Sane Wadu which ultimately sold for 1.9 million shillings. It was the stunning star sale of the night! At the same time, there were several works that didn’t initially find buyers either because there was little interest in the work or because the beginning price was too high for bidders to bear. That might have been the case, for instance, when the starting number for bidding on one of the beautiful paintings by Geoffrey Mukasa was 1.2 million shillings. But just because a piece did not sell up front, a prospective buyer could easily make an offer after the auction. Indeed, Danda Jarolmjek invited anyone interested to meet her after the event. This year several pieces were sold after the official auction. “Ultimately, it is up to the artist if they wish to sell their work at the offered price,” Danda said. Ultimately, the auction made Sh30.5 million, making it the most successful edition to date.

WITCHCRAFT CLAIM DEBUNKED AFTER CENTURIES

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted November 14, 2022) Witches have a different social status today than in centuries past when women like Joan of Arc were burnt at the stake and New England women were tried and tortured to confess being witches, rather than healers and midwives. Today, Harry Potter has transformed witchcraft into a reputable profession and turned JK Rowling into a multi-millionaire. But around the same time as Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, recalled the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, a similar sort of misogyny was taking place in the mountain village of Triori, Italy in 1587. The Italian women’s little-known story was discovered by Kenyan-Italian playwright Silvia Cassini while traveling round the region and visiting a museum where a tidbit of their tale was revealed to her. But the writer of ‘A Man like You’ felt compelled to dig deeper into their story. “I couldn’t find much more information on them, so I chose to take what little I knew and fill in the gap with my play,” Cassini tells BDLife during one of her troupe’s dress rehearsals before the play’s world premiere tonight at the Muthaiga Club. Noting that she has been blessed with a brilliant cast in the form of Brian Ogola, Nini Wacera, Martin Kigondu, Matthew Ondiege, and Nixsha Shah, Cassini says she often has taken months to write her plays. “But I completed ‘Speak their Truth’ in just a month.” Clearly inspired to tell their truth, the author of ‘A Man like You’ admits that one of her favorite plays is Miller’s Crucible, about comparable trials, torture, and the tragic execution of women deemed witches due to pettiness and power games played among men using women as their pawns of war. The power brokers in Cassini’s compelling play, dramatized with lights carefully choreographed by Alacoque Ntome, are played by Martin Kigondu representing the State and Matthew Ondiege representing the Church. Both are malicious, and despite having conflicting interests, are united in their desire to bring down women-power. Both are prepared to blame women for a multitude of sins, from talking too much and murdering babies to being buddies with the Devil. In the play, their accusations lead to hundreds of trials, torture, and the disappearance for countless women and girls. “Only one woman returns,” says Cassini, referring to the beautiful Franchetta Borelli played by Nina Wacera who is just back from Zambia where she won an award for Best Supporting Female Actor in the Netflix hit, Country Queen. (She’s also up for a similar prize at this year’s Kalasha night) No one knows how Franchetta managed to survive. But that is just one of the mysteries addressed in Silvia’s masterful play. The central story revolves around the writer, Federico Taverio, who is called upon to ‘Speak their Truth’ by a 13-year-old Ghost played by Nixsha Shah, 26, a young Kenyan recently returned from studies at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Cassini has taken a fascinating approach to exploring all these themes. She chooses a contemporary playwright to be drawn into the girl’s ghostly world in his sleep. It is there that he obtains an intimate view of the Inquisitors so keen to deprive women of their freedom, power, and innocence. Time-travel is nothing new to science fiction, but one hasn’t seen it so much on stage. Yet Brian Ogola is more than up to the task of slipping in and out of a dreamy medieval realm where this youthful ghost shows him the ultimate cruelty of the church elder, Deputy Bishop (Ondiege) and the equally malevolent Deputy Commissioner (Kigondu). Who is equally capable of making ghostly time travel a reality is Ms Shah who can easily pass for 13 even as she implores Federico to tell the world what really happened to the women and the way their lives were sacrificed. The writer is married to the beautiful Lily (Nina is transformed with awesome switches in attire, hair, and makeup) who threatens to leave him if he doesn’t come back from his intensely private realm. But he has his own personal reasons for taking on the task of telling their story. Besides that, he couldn’t help falling in love with this beautiful child. I suspect audiences who attend the show this weekend at Muthaiga Club or see it next weekend at Peponi Prep School Auditorium will feel the same way. ‘Speak their truth’ is a haunting and tender-hearted tale that confirms Cassini as one of Kenya’s and also, Africa’s leading contemporary playwrights.