ESCAPE THE MUSICAL NEEDS OUR SUPPORT

By MARGARETTA WA gACHERU (composed 8.22.23) It was an awesome phenomenon. Escape the Musical was a fabulous expression of soulful Kenyan genius. And I don’t use that word lightly or hyperbolically since I recently had the privilege of watching several scenes from the musical at Alliance Francaise. I saw a stage filled with individuals who had not only mastered their musical instrument, be a traditional Kalimba, acoustic guitar, lyrical voice, or electronic keyboard that could create practically any sort of sound, beat or rhythm of your choice. It also included the composer herself, Lydia Akwabi, who had collaborated with Eric Wainaina to create an exquisite musical score, sung by a dazzling chorus featuring Liboi, Ngartia, Timothy Arinaitwe and occasionally, the man who plays Jamo, the escapee and spoken word rapper, Vincent Ngugi. But ultimately, it was Eric whose musical performance ignited the rhythmic vibrancy that set the musical aflame with passion and a beautiful purpose. A part of that purpose was to show how dazzling Kenyans’ notion of musicals can be as it transcends the sounds of Western ones which cannot be easily compared with Kenyans’ soulful sounds, spiced up with Sheng, Kiswahili, KiMeru, and English, the languages that permeate the Nairobi-based musical. But another part of the purpose of presenting Escape the Musical when it is incomplete (but nonetheless replete with a captivating story and breath-taking sounds) was marketing and fund-raising (to spell it out plainly). Sitawa Namwali, the award-winning poet, playwright, and performer is also the founder-mother and producer of ‘Escape: The Musical’. She has also taken on the vanguard role of fund-raiser for her show. “Musicals are expensive to produce,” she told BD Life last weekend after her solo-fund-raising performance at Cheche Bookstore and Café. “We don’t need that much more since so much work has already been done, but more funds are still required to take us over the finish line,” she added. The show itself came out of another brilliant initiative purposed by Eric Wainaina and Sheba Hirst which was and still is the Nairobi Musical Theatre Initiative. NMTI has served as a seed bed for playwrights like Sitawa, Aleya Hassan, and another dozen other writers working with composers and musicians to create new musicals that were strictly Kenyan. Sitawa’s show has been greatly assisted by TICAH (Trust for Indigenous Culture and Health) which has played a major role in helping the show to progress and develop. But as Sitawa explained just before several scenes from the actual story came alive and these creatives began to sing and rap as if their lives depended on it. (And in a sense, they do.) For Sitawa wasn’t shy about explaining that the group welcomed support for their worthy cause, knowing that art and culture have the means of changing society. “But what was refreshing about working with TICAH,” Sitawa explained, “was that they didn’t step in at the last minutes to suggest that we add a bit in the show about the donor’s pet issue.” Not wishing to offend anyone, the playwright spoke with confidence about the show she was about to share with friends and prospective project supporters at Alliance. “Can anyone take a guess at how much a musical can cost to make?” she asked a full-house of creatives and donors who in the past had expressed their support of the arts as change agents worthy of public and private support. From the audience, Sitawa received shout outs suggesting everything from Sh200,000 to Sh2 million, Sh20 million. And the latter figures she said were still a fraction of the cost for making a high-quality musical which Escape the Musical clearly revealed itself to potentially be. Looking at and listening to several scenes from the musical itself, showed that anyone supporting the show’s completion wouldn’t regret so doing. In fact, Sitawa was so brazen as to ask everyone who could to sign up outside and indicate what you can bring to become one of the contributors. Personally, I admire her style since she knows herself and what she and this beautiful assembly of creatives are capable of doing artistically. For that reason alone, she is shameless in asking for help from people and organizations that understand the beauty of Escape the Musical. She and her team are not beggars as we saw when the backers of the evening’s event, TICAH’s Eric Manya and Susanne Mieko both testified how happy they were to include the musical among its finest projects. Sitawa reciprocated by thanking them for their support as it’s exemplary.

SET IN THE SLUMS, MATUMAINI TELLS YOUTH’S STORY VIA HIP HOP AND RAP

By margaretta wa Gacheru (8.27.23) Matumaini, Youth Theatre Kenya’s latest production staged recently at Nairobi Academy, has all the makings to perform a musical masterpiece. First and foremost was producer-director Jazz Moll’s ability to assemble a classy creative team of musicians, choreographer, costume and stage designers, and scriptwriters to ensure that all the moving parts of this ambitious show come together harmoniously. He’s even got voice and acting coaches to assist his cast of 100 youth, ages 9 to 19. Especially important to the accuracy of the tale which is based on recent history, are his researchers. They clearly dug deep into the local scene where the story is set. It’s the Dandora dumpsite where there’s a thriving local economy based on trash collection and its trade as well as crime. There are also countless youth who’ve got hopes and dreams as well as big problems related to poverty and unemployment. To bring out their idioms of expression as well as their emotions, anxieties, and aspirations was the challenge of both the researchers and the writers who were led by YTK’s long-time colleague, Lizzie Jogo. The set designer was another important character since the choice of venue, Nairobi Academy’s Sports Centre, had its plus and minus points. On the positive side, the spacious Centre lent itself to the creation of a theatre-in-the-round experience. It also afforded room for the 100 cast members who danced and sang throughout the show, occasionally creating a cacophony that conflicted with the lines of lead actors like Anna (Amie Rae Katta) and Joseph (Lali Abdalla). It was their story that was at the centre around which swirled themes like teenage pregnancy and the impact of political corruption on vulnerable youth desperate to find ways to escape poverty and get a new lease on life. Music and rapping were Joseph’s starring talents and he hoped they’d lead him into wider harvest fields than trash collection in Korogocho and Dandora. This is why YTK’s musical team were so important. This time round, the company attracted musicians who came from as far as UK and US to perform for the show and bring wonderfully nuanced music even as they had an impressive team of local musicians performing on everything from violas, violins, and xylophones to flute, keyboaord, sax, trumpet, trombone, and drums. Even the set changes were impressive and quick, thanks to the innovative use of mabati sheets backed by wooden handles and carried as a means of making new configurations of rooms and mabati homes. On the negative side of the Sports Centre were the acoustics which I found horrible, making it hard to hear the story at times. But one thing that puts Matumaina in the running for winner of KTA’s kikwetu award were the range of local languages, Sheng, Kiswahili, and English all used to enhance the authenticity of the show’s portrait of life in these so-called informal settlements or slums. The love story between Anna and Joseph was complicated from the beginning since the first thing we knew about her, besides her being daughter to the community leader (Mtele Mohammed) is that she was pregnant and had’t told Joseph about her condition. Incidentally, this was the perfect moment to hear local views on pregnancy, abortion, and family planning, and thereafter inject at least an idea that Anna had options other than giving birth at her tender age. But for some reason those topics are not discussed. The scriptwriters had other issues to explore, particular the universal themes of hope and despair. We also saw what a Mafia-styled operation the land-grabbing politician (Nelson Safari) was running, using his minion, Pinches (David Katana) to manipulate vulnerable youth with promises the politician never planned to keep. Having the poli standing high overhead of the slums and the poor people beneath, was symbolic of his dominance over them. He was the one who raised the issue of building a recycling plant in the heart of their land. He said it would bring much needed jobs and revenue to the unemployed. But by his hiding the title deed and pretending it was lost, he only offered a ploy to distract the youth whose leader, Anna’s father, was getting in his way by asking too many questions. He had to go. The play ended abruptly just as it did in act one, with a gun appearing and then somebody getting shot. But did the father die or not? So, the show’s a cliff-hanger and a story well told. Perhaps YTK can get a better sound system next time.

KITFest offers capacity building WORKSHOPS

By Margaretta wa Gacheru There were so much positive vibes that came out of collaboration between the Czech Republic artists, Mirenka Cechova and Pete Bohac and the Kenya International Theatre Festival (KITFEST) Trust. It was best seen when they spent almost a month in Kenya in June. The first big one derived from their agreement to jointly run a ten-day acting workshop for Kenyan artists who were invited over social media to apply to participate in the event which transpired towards the end of that month. The second positive feature of their cooperation was what happened as the culminating moment of the workshop. That was the performance by 15 Kenyan artists, selected on a first come, first served basis (not by favoritism, nepotism, or tribalism). Their performance was stages at Kenya National Theatre with musical accompaniment by the American cellist, Nancy Snider, who travels and works closely with the Czechs. As a rule, she provides backup sound to whatever project the Europeans are working on. An ‘Anthology of Everyday Struggle’ was an amazing achievement of the fifteen Kenyans who hadn’t worked together before. Yet they were transformed into one harmonious ensemble by the time the ten days were up. “We agreed that at the end of the Workshop, we would produce a show to reveal what the actors had learned during the workshop,” Mirenka told BD Life on the first day of the workshop when warm up exercises were about to begin. “I spent the first four days just listening to the artists’ life stories before we scripted the show,” She explained just at the workshop’s end. “In a real sense, everyone had a hand in the creation of the program,” she added. Coming to Kenya with a bio that tells us she is a leading Czech stage director, producer, actor, and playwright, Mirenka was asked to describe her theatre life back home, during a Q & A session held after the performance. What she shared was a sobering moment of revelation. She explained how her country held artists in such high esteem that the Czech Government helped subsidize actors’ education, theatre centres, specific performances, and even offered them health insurance. What was also striking was how organized the theatre scene is in the Czech Republic. That might have to do with the fact that the Republic’s first President was award-winning poet and playwright, Vaclav Havel. One point that Mirenka made elicited an important response from one of Kenya’s leading female actors, Marrianne Nungo. She noted that Mirenka told us she writes her own Grant proposals to raise funds for her forthcoming productions. “I understand KITFEST conducts workshops, so I would like to suggest that they run one on how we artists can learn to write Grant proposals so we can fund our own production and not expect someone else to do it for us,” Marrianne proposed. That put the onus on KITFEST Chairman Ben Ngobia and Workshops Director Dickens Olwayl who kept that possibility open. Meanwhile, the performance itself was a rich blend of mime and mimicry, contemporary dance and acrobatics interspersed with a cascade of complaints about the way artists are neglected, undervalued, underpaid, and often cheated at the end of the day. Yet what Mirenka managed to infuse into the production was a beautiful sense of a unified ensemble. Backed by a rhythmic drum beat and mellow cello accompaniment by Nancy Snider, the entire troupe moved onto the stage like a magnificent wave. They looked like an organic ensemble of fish as they swirled and swarmed around one another as if they were one united body. The beauty of their performance was that they never lost that sense of unity, even when they hemmed and hawed about the injustice of the status quo who didn’t give the artists or the arts the respect and pride of place that they should be due. But their first utterances in the show were their life-long dreams and aspirations. Each one in their turn told of ‘when they were little’, they used to dream. One wanted to be a dancer, another a super-hero, another a super-star, and so on. But then came the disappointments, the negative stereotypes to quash those dreams. Meanwhile, there was always a feeling of defiance as they danced to the dreams they retained. They also mimed parts of their stories and struggles. And they even mimicked a government’s spokesman who promised so much, but ultimately came up with nothing much other than a flash in the pan. In short, their Anthology encapsulated so many aspects of performing artists’ life struggle, from the competition among them to the pittance they get paid to the rejections that can lead to depression and a loss of hope. Yet through it all, the actors were clearly pleased to have this rare opportunity to be mentored by Mirenka, Pete, and Nancy, courtesy of KITFest.

WILD ABOUT ART

Wild about Art is a tented showcase of four artists, two painters, one photographer and a guest sculptor whose identity was kept secret until the exhibition’s opening last Friday afternoon at Utawali Place, in Kitisuru. Yet the sculptor, Oliver Weichelt serves in a sense as the glue that holds together this three-tented show. That’s because his stylish lamps, made from gears, air filters, and other auto spares collected from garages all over Nairobi, are displayed in all three tents. Otherwise, the other three, Niketa Fazel, Imran Awan, and Milena Weichelt each have a tent of their own. “We chose to have our exhibition here because there’s a lot of space and a beautiful garden that visitors should enjoy,” Milena told BD Life. But Utawali didn’t actually have a gallery per se, so the artists had to create their own art space inclusive of walls on which to hang their works of art. Fortunately, oliver didn’t have to engage in the wall hanging issue since many of his sculptures are either floor lamps or chandeliers, one of which hangs from each of the three tents. What he may have had was the challenge finding tables large and sturdy enough to display all of his table lamps, made out of everything from fly wheels and brake disks to oil plates, and ball bearings. Happy to share the exhibition with his painter wife, Milena, oliver also appreciates his colleague, kahindi katena who helps him assemble and weld together the auto spares of his choice. ‘Kahindi serves as both my eyes and my hands,” Oliver tells BD Life, after explaining that he is blind. But the oliver-milena connection is only one of several links that brought the foursome together. Milena and Nikela have been exhibiting together for years, both at village market, at Tribe Hotel and the UN recreation centre. But in this show, Milena also connects with Imran to create several diptych-like paintings on canvas. One side is an actual photo featuring a portion of either an elephant, rhino, zebra or lion. And on the other side is milena’s painted reflection of the same creatures’ prominent parts. Inran doesn’t consider himself a professional photographer, but their diptychs suggest otherwise. Practically all of Milena’s tent is filled with semi-abstract chunks of local wildlife that one can still see around the country. Admitting that she takes photos to use as reference points to work with once she gets home to her studio, her tent finds space for everything from a majestic leopard and giraffe to a hornbill, beekeeper, zebra, and genet cat to a chameleon, elephant, and Lake Nakuru filled with pink flamingos. But as Milena is also a book illustrator, a few of her original paintings created for the books are also included in this show. Finally, Niketa’s art is a radical departure from a focus on wildlife apart from her delicately drawn wild flowers. These include everything from Blue Iris, Hibiscus, dahlia, stedihia, to one giant sunflower. Niketa’s real strength is in her portraits of urban and intercity sites, like the blue oil barrels piled high at the junction and round-about where Laundies Road meets Njogo Road. Or the view from the top of KICC where Nikita painted the view running from City Hall Lane down Wabera Street straight to Jamia Mosque. At the same time, in her previous working life, Niketa assisted her father who was in construction. It was in that line of work that she often made her way around the city, including to so called ‘informal settlements’ or estates like Kibera where she snapped a quick shot of the Kibera railway line and the chicken casually crossing it. After that, the photo was transformed into a painting based on both her recollection of the event and the photo meant to ensure the realism of her portrait. She even found an old photo of a charcoal dealer selling his giant bags at a site near githurai but snapped before thika road became a super highway. “Back then, I think that area has been called roy sambo, but now I’m told it’s called Homeland,” Niketa says. Her glimpses from Nairobi’s past were actually not so long ago. But the rapidity with which the country has changed, especially with regard to our skyscrapers and super highways, makes us forget our heritage. Yet it also leaves us grateful that artists like Niketa have painted portraits of the city that are grounded both in memory and her photos which are reflective of the past. her way all around the city, including to so called ‘informal settlements’ or estates like Kibera where she snapped a quick shot of the Kibera railway line and a chicken casually crossing it. After that, the photo was transformed into a painting based on both her recollection of the event and the photo meant to ensure the realism of her portrait. She even found an old photo of a charcoal dealer selling his giant bags at a site near githurai but snapped before thika road because super highway. “Back then, I think that area has been called roy sambo, but now I’m told it’s called Homeland,” Niketa says. Her glimpses from Nairobi’s past were actually not so long ago. But the rapidity with which the country has changed, especially with regard to our skyscrapers and super highways, makes us forget our heritage. Yet it also leaves us grateful that artists like Niketa have painted portraits of the city that are grounded both in memory and her photos reflective of the past. her way all around the city, including to so called ‘informal settlements’ or estates like Kibera where she snapped a quick shot of the Kibera railway line and a chicken casually crossing it. After that, the photo was transformed into a painting based on both her recollection of the event and the photo meant to ensure the realism of her portrait. She even found an old photo of a charcoal dealer selling his giant bags at a site near githurai but snapped before thika road because super highway. “Back then, I think that area has been called roy sambo, but now I’m told it’s called Homeland,” Niketa says. Her glimpses from Nairobi’s past were actually not so long ago. But the rapidity with which the country has changed, especially with regard to our skyscrapers and super highways, makes us forget our heritage. Yet it also leaves us grateful that artists like Niketa have painted portraits of the city that are grounded both in memory and her photos reflective of the past.

KENYAN ADAPTATION OF FRENCH PLAY HITS THE MARK AND BREAKS THE HEART

By Margaretta wa Gachery (posted 18.9.23) Having devised a stunning adaptation of the 19th century French literary classic, Cyrano de Bergerac, Nairobi Performing Arts Studio together with Alliance Francaise produced this entertaining romantic drama, Sirano wa Begeraki, that had audiences weeping by the story’s end. It was the French poet, playwright Edmond Rostand who set the ball rolling, scripting and producing his play in 1897, and publishing it the following year. Subsequently, there have been several iterations about this romantic military man who was frustrated in love due to his self-consciousness about his physical appearance. For Sirano had a nose nearly as long as Pinochio’s. Yet his peculiar appearance didn’t stop him from excelling in intellect and military prowess. In the original, he was a 17th century nobleman and skilled swordsman; while in the Anglo-Swahili adaptation, he is a martial artist of black belt calibre and nearly super-hero status.

The Kenyanisation of the English translation of Rostand’s script was devised after cast members read the original work and watched everyone from Steve Martin to Gerald Depardieu play Cyano. “We took snippets from the films based on the original work and the recent English translation,” the show’s producer-director Stuart Nash told BD Life. “Then we put all those ideas together and had Gadwill Odhiambo [who plays Christian in the play] polish them for our Kenyan adaptation.” Nash added.

The original script was set during the reign of Louia XIII, while Sirano is set against the backdrop of war in Somalia against El Shabab. But the central story belongs to Sirano (Benson Ochungo) who’s in love with Roxanne (Nixshah Shah), his distant cousin and dearest friend. They are so close that she confides in him that she’s in love. He is hopeful that her secret will make his heart sing. Instead, she says she has fallen for the handsome Christian. Naturally, Sirano is devastated, but he doesn’t let her see his disappointment. Instead, he offers to help bring the two together. That won’t be easy since she is bequeathed to General Digishi (Sam Psenjin) who her father wants to happen. So to keep her feelings a secret from her family, she asks Sirano to have Christian write her a [love[ letter. Sirano just happens to have one for Christian to use. Not that he wrote it for her, he claims, but for lovers generally. Roxanne is thrilled with that first letter supposedly from Christian and all the many more love letters Sirano writes on Christian’s behalf. Unfortunately, once they finally meet, she is so unimpressed by Christian’s monosyllabic professions of love, she’s inclined to drop the guy altogether but then the letters start flowing again, and once again, she falls for the one who writes the letters, not suspecting they’re from anyone other than Christian.

The story gets ugly once the war against El Shabab hots up and all the Kenyan forces are meant to go into Somalia and finish the terrorists. It’s around this same time that General Digishi discovers Roxanne has a crush on Christian. The General behaves in a way similar to what David in the Old Testament did when he wanted Bathseba who was already wedded to Uriah. He sent Uriah to the frontline of battle just as Digishi sent Christian to the war front. And as Roxanne had begged Sirano to take care of her Christian while they were away at the war, Sirano went with Christian even though he foresaw that they were walking into a deathtrap.

There was a double dose of intense climactic moments in this devastating drama. The first was between Christian and Sirano, when the prettyboy finally realized that Sirano was in love with Roxanne, so much so that every letter he wrote came straight from his heart. Christian felt betrayed in his naivete and in what he felt was Sirano’s duplicity. So in the heat of that moment which was heightened by the blazing sounds and sights of war, Christian lept out of the trenches right into a barrage of bullets that must have killed him on the spot. The second and final climax is back in Roxanne’s hospital where the wounded survivors land. Among them is Sirano who shares Christan’s last letter with her. That is when she realizes it is he who’s written her love letters, not Christian. She’s heartbroken that he hadn’t told her sooner. But now its too late. And this is when there was nary a dry eye at Alliance Francaise. NPAS assembled a marvelous cast and crew who performed wonders last weekend.

CYRUS KABIRU, THE JUA KALI GIANT AT GOETHE INSTITUTE

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 9.11.23) Cyrus Kabiru is such a humble man that the public might never know that he is globally-acclaimed as well as the artist who create all the jua kali junk radios being shown as part of the current Goethe institute exhibition-installation ‘Amplitude of sounds”. Curated by the eclectic team of techy-artists, Down River Road, they apparently forgot to attribute the radios’ creator, this jua kali giant. But don’t expect any complaint coming from Cyrus. He has got too much on his mind to give his lack of attribution a thought. He has already received so much adulation from elsewhere, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York which recently acquired one of his radios. And that is just one of the many cultural capitals on the planet where his radios, spectacles and bikes have been appreciated. His public lecture, given in LA on ‘Giving Junk a second life’ is even on YouTube. But part of Kabiru’s appeal generally is his fascinating life story which you can see revealed through his art, in both two and three dimensions. Each reflects a different facet of his life, including generations that preceded him. For instance, his jua kali radios relate to his grandfather who was the first person in their village in Murang’a to own a short-wave radio. “Every evening ten minutes before 6pm, neighbors would come to our home just to listen to BBC‘s Swahili version of the News of the World,” Cyrus told BDLife when we met recently at One Off Gallery. The radio shaped villagers’ mind-sets, he said, so that if they heard about Oxford, they would vow to send their child to Oxford. That went on until AM/FM radio arrived in Kenya and his ‘Guka’ got one of them. “After that, he handed down his trusty shortwave to my father who in turn eventually handed it down to me.” Cyrus said, noting that Guka’s radio is actually in the Goethe exhibition. He received it while still commuting between Murang’a and Korogocho where he grew up but was sent to stay with his grandparents for fear that he’d ‘get lost’ like his friends who Cyrus said, today are either in jail, drug dealing, or dead. That decision to shift him out of town was a life-changer for Cyrus. He had already found his love of art in primary school where he’d draw caricatures of his classmates for pennies. So, by the time he got to rural areas, he was prepared to get to work. The only problem was he had no art materials. But he found them amidst the junk that people throw away, starting with bottle tops which he could easily get from local bars and cafes. By the time we first met Cyrus at Kuona Trust, he was still creating smashed bottle top sculptures, like the giant crocodile which he’d shaped with chicken wire and flattened bottle tops. “I had guys go to local bars and collect the tops for me,” he told me back then. He said he wanted to create art that spoke to him, like the radios he eventually made, after he’d become world famous with his C-Specks, and which also had a family story associated with them. Like the Guka who wouldn’t allow anyone to touch his radio, Cyrus’s dad wouldn’t allow him to touch his spectacles. As a result, the fruits of that suppression inspired Cyrus to create his own glasses, which he named C-specks after the public took note of his unique form of sculpted ornamental eye-ware. As it got more intricate, symmetrical and beautiful, and ever-worn by the artist as model, they were also shared online, in international art centres, magazines, and even by big-name Black musicians who wanted to know more about the artist and his art. That is also when Cyrus got invited everywhere from Hollywood and New York to London, Berlin, Milan, Tokyo, and even Cape Town where the brand new Zeizz Museum of Modern Art gave him an entire room to display his C-Specks. Meanwhile, Cyrus was starting to develop his Black Mamba bicycle series, based on the bicycle his dad wouldn’t allow him to ride. Again, he decided to create his own jua kali bike. Another unique creation was born, which also grabbed global attention. But it’s still the spectacles that are his greatest attraction and what hurled him into an international spotlight few Kenyans know about since Cyrus is still a humble man, even as he opened up his studio to apprentices whom he mentors up to now.