YOUNG DESIGNERS REVEAL THEIR TALENTS AT TUK

                                                             TUK Design students display projects at Railways 

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted originally 11 April, revised 12 April 2019)

Technical University of Kenya, formerly known as Kenya Polytechnic, has spawned a number of important artistic figures in our time. Among them are Patrick Mukabi and Waweru Gitahi and others.

And now, after seeing what senior Design students are doing at TUK, one can forecast there are young Kenyan artist-designers coming up who’ll maintain the ‘tradition’ of creative excellence established by their Poly predecessors.

Granted TUK students were working more in multimedia than paint, charcoal, palette knife or pen. But similar artistic skills plus a fertile imagination are required in both careers nonetheless. And these were apparent in plenty last Thursday when both diploma and degree students displayed their final projects inside the Kenya Railways Museum and out among the vintage railway cars.

For instance, fourth year Design students like Joseph Musyoki and Anthony Waweru Kamuru created animated short stories on film for their final projects. Meanwhile, Mercy Mwangi created a magic carpet using recycled cement bags and scraps of multicolored kitenge. Having stitched an abundance of the scraps onto multiple layers of the cement bags, Mercy created a soft thick carpet that could be used either as a decorative floor mat or an attractive wall-hanging.

Mercy wasn’t the only TUK student to create functional designs out of recycled materials. Anne Wangari made an attractive lampshade out of plastic cups and a blossoming flower (complete with vase) out of plastic spoons spray-painted silver to look like stainless steel. Her floral design reminds one of the twelve-foot steel-spooned ‘Coffee Tree’ that currently stands in the central plaza of the Hub mall in 

Karen, created by the Thika-based artist, Peter Ngugi. Hers is on a much smaller scale but we applaud her upcycling plastic waste. Nonetheless, her plastic lampshade, while being decorative, doesn’t seem functional since the heat generated from lightbulbs is bound to melt the lampshade in no time.

Purity Igoki also upcycled ‘useless’ waste, transformed discarded cotton t-shirts into handbags, shoes and her idea of Maasai bead jewelry.  The ‘defective’ shirts had been rejected by clients of silkscreen printers who Purity says were happy to be rid of the ‘rejects’. So Purity took them home, tie-dyed them (as she had been taught at TUK) using bright sunny colors. After that, she sliced up the shirts according to the shapes she required to make matching sandals, clutch bags and necklaces.

Then there were designers like Stan Manthi whose full-time job keeps him on his computer throughout his working day. That’s how he knows about dysfunctional mouse pads. Noting that when the pads are made out of rubber, they tend to buckle rather than lay flat. Suspecting he was not the only one who found that tendency to be a nuisance, (especially when you work under serious time constraints), he decided to create a series of denim ‘jackets’ for several mouse pads. Then as a way of decorating the denim, he used a dual-purpose kitenge border, one side of which had pen-sized pockets so you could have all your essential tools literally at your finger-tips.

But it was the animated film shorts that attracted the most wide-spread attention at the TUK exhibition. Even the TUK Vice Chancellor, Professor Francis Aduol voiced his enthusiasm for the inventiveness of the animators who were required in their course to not just produce a finished short film. They also had to create multiple story-boards that illustrated the film’s screenplay. Plus they had to create visual profiles of their characters.

Joe Musyoki’s short film, entitled ‘Lost’, is about three characters: a paint can, a palette knife and a paint brush all of which are wide-eyed and fully-dressed when they wake up one day and find themselves in ‘a strange place”.

(“Their home was in the art room, not the living room where they had been left,” says Musyoki).

The story unfolds with the three characters stumbling from one obstacle to the next as they struggled to find their way home.

Since Musyoki was constrained by time, the film ends with a ‘To be continued’ as the three take a rest, exhausted by their difficult day.

The imagination that Musyoki displayed in his film could easily serve as a pilot to a charming children’s television series that one of Kenya’s TV station ought to pick up. In the meantime, one hopes this ingenious animator will follow through and create a sequel to “Lost’ in which the trio carry on with their journey, wherever it leads them.

AMREF ASSISTS MOST VULNERABLE ON THE GROUND AND IN THE AIR

                               Some of the Jua Kali Drummers (l-r) Kelvin, David, Evans, Paul and Daisy@PanAfric Hotel

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 10 April 2019)

Making musical instruments out of trash is one of the many skills that former street children learn once they reach the AMREF Child Protection and Development Centre in Dagoretti.

It’s the skill that enabled Martin Murimi to transform a nyatiti into a replica of the ancient Golden Lyre of Ur, both of which he now plays everywhere from Hotel Intercontinental and Sarova PanAfric to African Heritage House with his Papillon band.

It’s the same skill, among others taught at the Centre, that Evans Oluoch, 26, now teaches to other former street boys and girls who often become members of AMREF’s Jua Kali Drummers.

“It was Giovanni Lo Cascio, who came to Dagoretti from AMREF Italy who didn’t just teach us to make our own musical instruments from junk,” says Murimi who’s now known professionally as Papillon (meaning butterfly in French).

“Giovanni is also the one who started the Jua Kali Drummers back in 2009,” he adds, noting he first auditioned to be a singer with the group. “Then after two years of coming daily to the Centre and practicing with the group, I was promoted to drummer-composer.”

Both Evans and Martin are first generation Jua Kali Drummers. Both had the chance to perform with them in many places, including the Umbria Jazz Festival in Italy.

“While in Umbria, I received a certificate from the [prestigious] Berklee School of Music [in Boston] which has a branch in Italy,” says Murimi who completed Standard 8 in rural areas before coming to Nairobi looking for his father. He didn’t find him, only the dad’s second wife who didn’t welcome the first wife’s son into her home.

Cast out into the street where he says he hustled to stay alive for two years, Murimi was working as a cobbler when one client insisted on taking him to AMREF’s Child Protection Centre.

 Martin 'Papillon' Murimi playing his replica of 5000 year old Golden Lyre of Ur with band member Pradash on tablas @ African Heritage House

“I consider AMREF my mother since it was she who gave me an education and a future,” says Murimi who started off, like all children fresh off the street, in the Centre’s ‘rehabilitation’ program. That is where he began learning everything from painting, drawing and drama to music, dance and filmmaking.

Often taught by professionals like Giovanni, Murimi like everyone who goes through that first one-year training is called a ‘bingwa or Champion. That includes the music and theatre Coach Oluoch who had both his primary and secondary school fees paid by AMREF and is happy to be in a position to give something back to youth who, like him, found their way off the street and into the Centre.

Even the current eighth generation of Jua Kali Drummers are bingwa, adds Paul Otieno whom AMREF assisted to get all the way through Multi-Media University.

That includes Daisy Wambui, 18, who plays shakers (made out of iron sheets, seeds and stones) when she’s not studying to be an auto mechanic through the Centre. It also includes David Njoroge, 16, who studies auto mechanic with Daisy. But with the Drummers he regularly plays the Tuba-phone which is loosely modeled after the xylophone. “Only our tuba-phone is made with PVC pipes, the kind normally used on sewage lines,” adds Kelvin Ngaira who also had his primary and secondary school fees paid by AMREF after which he won a scholarship to study music at the National Youth Academy.

Founded by Sir Michael Wood, Archibald McIndoe and Thomas Rees back in 1957, AMREF was originally known as the Flying Doctors air ambulance service, which it still is. But AMREF’s vision is so large, they inevitable had to assist the most vulnerable on the ground, not just in the air.

FROM MURDER-MYSTERY TO BIBLE-BASED MUSICAL, THEATRE’S ON FIRE THIS WEEKEND

                                     Davina plays Esther in the musical staged this weekend by Potterhouse School\

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 10 April 2019)

This weekend will have plenty of theatre for everyone. There will be everything from a musical suitable for kids and adults alike to a murder mystery sure to show the dark side of human character to social commentary that will tackle heavy-duty themes like corruption and the judiciary but taken on with a light touch.

‘Esther’ is the full-scale musical that Potterhouse School is putting on at Braeburn Theatre, Garden Estate. Opening tonight at 7pm and running through Sunday, Esther is one of the great heroines whose spell-binding story of courage and selfless sacrifice for her people is contained in the Old Testament.

Transported to the stage by Martin and Janice Landry, ‘Esther’ is being directed by Julisa Rowe who is a veteran thespian and former theatre lecturer at Daystar University. Having directed scores of plays and musicals in the past, Julisa is well equipped to handle a cast of 63 students ranging in age from 9 to 16.

Promising to be a Broadway-calibre production, Esther the Musical is one of the three shows to see this weekend. Another is Hearts of Art’s ‘Necessary Madness II’, which its playwright-director Walter Sitati says is a new script altogether although it’s the sequel to the first ‘Necessary Madness’ that the public had requested and Sitati complied and supplied.

The cast will be nearly the same with just two additions in Gilbert Lukalia and Veronica Waceke. Otherwise, NMII will tackle themes touched on in the first edition of the drama. Corruption, of course, is inescapable as it creeps into so many facets of our everyday lives (from where most of Sitati’s scripts begin). The traffic cops are still there but there is more searing focus on the judiciary which should be hot.

Finally, after many months, the Festival of Creative Arts is making a come-back from tonight through Sunday at Louis Leakey Auditorium.

At last, Eliud Abuto has reassembled a cast of illustrious actors working under the direction of Maina Olywenya, who we are also pleased to see back in theatrical action.

Billed as a ‘comedy thriller’, ‘Enemy Within’ is adapted from a murder mystery by the British playwright Norman Robbins entitled ‘Practice to Deceive’.

The cast includes Johnson ‘Fish’ as General Theodore, Angel Waruinge playing Miss Morgan, Juma ‘Anderson’ Williams, Rosemary ‘Maya’ Waweru and others.

It won’t spoil the show to know ‘Enemy Within’ is a production about scams and bogus suicides.

LOCAL PLAYS END WITH A BANG UNRESOLVED

                                        Cindy Kahuha as the angry bride-to-be who's outraged by her mercenary family

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (Posted 9 April 2019)

Son of Man is a promising new theatre troupe that already has a following, plus an able-bodied playwright-producer in Mavin Kibicho who wrote ‘The Lady in Red’ especially for his company.

The play, which was staged last Sunday at Kenya National Theatre, explores the sensitive subject of religion. Set in the heart of a Muslim home, Ousmane (Makovo Mbatha) is a university student with a romantic spirit and poetic soul. Yet he comes from a strict Muslim family where non-Muslims are not welcome. That doesn’t stop him from finding a new girlfriend on campus who happens to be Christian. So you can be sure it’s his romantic rebellion that is at the crux of the play’s conflict, which never gets resolved.

                                                                               Cast of Son of Man's The Lady in Red

Ousmane tries to lead a double life, being a good Muslim as he still lives at home with his pious parents, but being a poet and a free spirit when he’s out and about. At home, he’s constrained by a mother (Boera Bisiera) who’s a terrible busy body who won’t even allow her son to use the loo without interrupting his privacy. That’s the opening scene, which would seem to be a peculiar way to start off a play. But apparently, it’s meant to foreshadow the way the mum’s intrusive style will have a catalytic effect, blasting open her son’s double life.

Ousmane’s old girlfriend, Oleymatai (Samba Zaddock) is a good Muslim girl and the mother’s preference. She’s also intent of keeping her claws in Ousmane. But to him, she’s a nuisance. Now he only has eyes for Eva (Naomi Mburuh), the beautiful half-caste girl from France.

By the time Eva arrives on the scene, she has missed Ousmane who’s not home since he never got the message she was coming. He might have waylaid her if he had. But Oleymata[ms1]  steals his phone, reads Eva’s texts and is hell-bent on getting this new girl out of Ousmane’s life for good.

                     Pregnant mothers in labor with no beds and no assistance in public hospital in 'For Better or Worse'

This is where the play gets ‘bloody’ (in a metaphorical sense). Eva only finds Oleymata at Ousmane’s house when she arrives. Not knowing only Muslims are welcome there, she allows herself to be taken in by Oleymata who’s a serious schemer. As she pretends to be Ousmane’s sister, she exploits Eva’s naivete and makes her look like a sacrificial lamb who’ll soon be slaughtered if she doesn’t get out in good time. Eva is unaware that she’s in danger, especially from Oleymata who insists on getting the inside scoop on the new affair. Eva foolishly tells her just enough to enflame Oleymata’s heart.

The climax comes when Ousmane, the parents and the two girlfriends converge in the family sitting room. Before anyone knows what’s up, Oleymata takes charge, spewing out a mixture of truth and lies that both incenses the parents and wounds Eva who feels betrayed and heartbroken. But she’s smart enough to before things get seriously ‘bloody’.

Kaboom! That’s how the play ends. Not that it feels concluded. Kibicho leaves us hanging without any sort of resolution. But maybe that’s his message.

In any case, ‘Lady in Red’ wasn’t the only show last weekend that went in for the  ‘cliff hanger’. Even Heartstrings’ comedy-drama, ‘For Better or Worse’ ended with a similar sort of inconclusive bang.

Designed to tell several stories in this four-act show, the one unifying thread seems to come out in the last explosive soliloquy of the bride-to-be who blasts her mercenary family for being just as money-minded and corrupt as the society as a whole.

The first two acts have a common thread as they are both set in a maternity ward, where one father (Paul Ogola) is forced to ‘steal’ his newborn from hospital since the bill far beyond his means. He’s caught as he slips past the pregnant women who, despite being in or nearly in labor, have to stand unattended since no beds are available.

The tragic truth about Kenya’s public health care services is followed by another tragicomic scene in a school classroom where kids are either left unattended or berated by a dysfunctional teacher (Cyrian Osoro) who should never have been allowed near a classroom.

The final scene takes us back to the village where one family is demanding an exorbitant dowry. This incenses the bride-to-be who blasts her people for being as heartless and corrupt as the rest of society.

Then, Kaboom. Play over. Was it too much to ask that the various plot threads be woven together in a concluding style? So it would seem.

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 [ms1]

WHAT'S HAPPENING 8-14 April 2019

                                              Michael Musyoka @ Red Hill Gallery

Assembled by Margaretta wa Gacheru

-Michael Musyoka @ Red Hill Gallery with ‘Time and other Constructs.’

-Wambui Kamiru Collymore @ Rosslyn Riviera with ‘Wakariru’

-Chela Cherwon @ BSQ Railway car behind RR Museum.

-Onyis Martin & Longinos Nagila @ Goethe Institute with Nairographia: Artists Talk 11 April
-Fatma Issa Holm @ Creativity Gallery, Nairobi National Museum with ‘Swahili People’.

-‘Tinga Tinga and the Legendary Artists of Tanzania’ @ Nairobi Museum, next to Nyayo House.

-Stickky Muriithi & Catherine Njora @ Talisman Restaurant

-Joan Otieno & Warembo Wasanii @ Landmark Karen

-Osborne Macharia @ Alliance Francaise with ‘Seven Years of Afro-Futurism.
-Ehoodi Kichapi @ One Off Gallery with 'Documentations'

A DOG’S TALE TO TOUCH THE HEART

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 8 April 2019)

One need not love domestic animals to be touched by “A Dog’s Way Home’. But you do need to like action/adventure films that even young ones can enjoy.

You also need to like a story that’s well-told, complete with bad guys who’d happily finish off every stray animal they can find, and good guys, like Lucas, a young psychiatric intern who becomes the dog’s best friend.

Granted it’s told from the dog’s point of view. Bella (Bryce Dallas Howard), the orphaned mix-breed mutt speaks on her own behalf. But as she’s a dog who travels 400 miles to find her way home, the film is filled of scenic views of some of the most beautiful lands in the US.

Just to see her making the perilous journey from Farmington, New Mexico on the southwest side of the States all the way across the Rocky Mountains to Denver, Colorado makes this film as much a beautiful travel documentary as a film about love and the indelible bond between an animal and a human being.

Yet the film, which premiered in January, might be too much for anyone with super-sensitivities to bear since the story has many heart-wrenching moments. Bella meets all kinds of individuals in her three-year trek, including one homeless beggar who chains her like a slave so she can elicit sympathy and cash from passers-by.

Bella also meets a pack marauding stray dogs whom she initially links up with who teach her how to survive on the street.

She meets another far more dangerous pack of wild dogs who nearly tear her to shreds. But she is miraculously saved by a cougar cat whom she met right after its mother was killed by human hunters who almost shot the cougar kitten and Bella as well. The baby cougar and Bella became bosom buddies. But they are pulled apart by two guys who run from the cougar but grab Bella to take her home as their own. They treat her well, but the mutt misses her first master, so she gets back on the road. Her only road map is in her heart.

Lucas (Jonah Hauer-King) had also come to Bella’s rescue when she was still very young. She’d been orphaned but by the time the film begins, she’s found a ram-shackled hide-out where she’s ‘adopted’ by a mother cat and her kitten family.

Since the property is condemned, it’s about to be bulldozed when Lucas arrives and saves the mutt puppy. In the process, he incurs the enmity of the property owner who gets an Animal Control man (John Cassini) to go after Lucas and his pup.    

In certain cities in the States, stray dogs, particularly pit-bulls, get euthanized regularly. So despite Bella clearly being a mixed-breed, the AC man deems her a pit-bull and says the next time she’s caught on the street, she’s dead.

To protect her, Lucas sends her to stay with friends in New Mexico. But that’s where her journey begins. Lucas had taught her many games, one of which was to ‘Go Home’. It’s the one Bella takes to heart as she decides to find her way back to Denver.

Adding interest to the tale is Ashley Judd who plays Lucas’ mother Terri, a war veteran who like many vets had been traumatized by war. Before Bella gets grabbed by the AC man, she had become a comfort to all the emotionally-damaged veterans with whom Terri communes. It is they who ultimately band together to save Bella once and for all.

‘A Dog’s Way Home’ is literally a touching tale of the underdogs finally getting their way.   

A TINGA TINGA RENAISSANCE AT NAIROBI GALLERY

                              Original ES Tinga Tinga painting that sold for Sh5.6 million at Art Auction East Africa.

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 8 April 2019)

Kenyans initial encounter with Tinga Tinga most frequently has come from the Saturday morning animated television show, ‘Tinga Tinga Tales’ that has been turned into a meta-franchise featuring Tinga Tinga toys, games, videos and DVDs.

Alternatively, more Kenyans might have heard about ‘Tinga Tinga the Musical’ that was such a big hit at Kenya National Theatre last year that it went all the way to New York where it got rave reviews when it was staged on Broadway.

But quite possibly, none of those viewers had ever heard of the late Tanzanian artist Edward Saidi Tinga Tinga whose paintings not only inspired a cultural revolution in his country since he died in 1972. His art as well as his name has also gained iconic status as a short-hand term for East African art generally.

What recently attracted public attention to the name E.S. Tinga Tinga was the sale at the Art Auction East Africa of an original Tinga Tinga painting. The untitled ‘Elephant eating from the Marula Tree’ went for a whooping Sh5.635 million, the highest figure that any East African artwork has sold for at the auction.

The sale was a surprise even to the auctioneers who had listed in their catalogue the probable bidding price of between Sh600,000 and Sh940,000.

But according to Alan Donovan, curator of the Nairobi Gallery where second and third generations of ‘Tinga Tinga artists’ works are currently on show, that price might seem like an outlier.

“But as E.S. Tinga Tinga died in 1972 at the age of 40, the limited supply of his art is bound to drive the value of it up as time goes by,” Donovan said last Sunday at the opening of the exhibition “Tinga Tinga and the Legendary Artists of Tanzania.”

The show itself doesn’t include a single original work by the Master. Yet what it reveals is the extent to which Tinga Tinga triggered what Donovan describes as a ‘revolution in Tanzanian art.’

Placing the elder artist and his disciples within an historical context, he recalls that the precursors to Tinga Tinga’s artwork were sculptures by Makonde carvers who were based in both Tanzania and Mozambique.

In fact, Tinga Tinga may or may not have been acquainted with Makonde sculpture. He started out as a bicycle repairman, but like so many local artists who have an impulse to create, Tinga Tinga began his illustrious career humbly. He created his art using the enamel paint that he’d previously employed when fixing bicycles and he scavenged for Masonite ceiling boards on which he drew in place of costly canvas.

Quickly he discovered his paintings earned him more in sales than his bicycle repair, so he began doing his art full-time.

The fact that Tinga Tinga sparked several generations of young Tanzanian artists to follow in his footsteps can be viewed severally. For on the one hand, it can be said as Donovan has that Tinga Tinga triggered a ‘renaissance’ in Tanzanian art. Certainly, there are now hundreds of young artists who consider themselves part of the Tinga Tinga School since they also paint African animals as the elder did. They paint elephants, leopards, hyena and the most distinctive Tinga Tinga bird, the Hornbill which is often viewed as a messenger sent from the ancestoral spirit world.

But on the other hand, some critics claim their artistry lacks originality and individuality. They say it is being mass produced with artists painting the most typical Tinga Tinga creatures on everything from handbags and keyrings to wooden trays that constitute what has been conventionally called ‘airport art’ or ‘souvenir art’.

Either way, Donovan’s appreciation of ‘Tinga Tinga and the Legendary Artists of Tanzania’ compelled him to put up an exhibition of extremely affordable art inside the Veteran Artists’ wing of Nairobi Gallery. And whether you think works by the second or third generation of Tinga Tinga artists look a little or a lot like the original’s did, it doesn’t really matter.

What is of interest are the colors, creatures, designs and whimsy of these works which are bright, well-crafted and fun. For anyone wanting inexpensive yet attractive artworks for their living room walls, these could be right for you.

But if someone is looking for art that’s affordable now and likely to accrue in value over time, these Tinga Tinga offshoots may not be right for you.

Nonetheless, who knew an original Tinga Tinga was going to sell for Sh5.6 million? Anything can happen in the crazy world of fine art.