'Lwanda Rockman' the play by JJ Jumbi, based on Luo legendary hero

PORTRAITS WITH A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE BY GRAVITART

                                                                                  Artwork by Elias Mung'ora

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 22 July 2019)

Anyone with even a fleeting interest in Kenyan or African contemporary art should have gone to see GracitArt’s superlative exhibition entitled ‘Behind this Face: The Human Face Evolution in Painting’. Better still, anyone who had interest in fine art generally should have made their way to Westlands’ Peponi Court to see a fascinating show that framed African art within a global art context.

But not just any African art. What makes this show so special is the way Kenyan and Kenya-based artists are appraised on the same plane and platform as world-renowned painters like Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, Leonardo di Vinci and Henri Matisse.

GravitArt founder Veronica Paradinas Duro is an architect, fine artist and gallerist who doesn’t define or confine artists according to age, environment or artistic background. Her concern is the art itself. She says she had wanted to create an exhibition that linked artists whose works convey comparable styles.

Having studied centuries of Western art and currently collecting African art to present at her online gallery and at pop-up shows like the one that just closed, she sought to convey the unity of artistic expression that transcended time and space. Initially, she wasn’t sure how to present that unity until she thought of portraiture as one genre of painting that presented itself in practically every age. It was there in the ancient art of Egypt all the way up into present-day Graffiti spray painting.

Such an undertaking had been devised once before in Nairobi by the former director of the Italian Institute of Culture, Francesca Chiesa. But hers was on a much smaller scale, with just one painter, Longinos Nagila. Hers was also an impressive undertaking; it also placed the Kenyan artist’s works in a broader, deeper and historically wider context, placing Nagila’s art in a global art realm.

But Veronica didn’t limit herself to one country or person. The African countries represented in ‘Behind this Face’ included Egypt, Ethiopia, Egypt, Kenya and Sudan. But the preponderance of contemporary artists that she and the newest member of GravitArt, Hiroko Ishikawa, selected to compare and contrast are Kenyan. 

They included Anthony Okello, Boniface Maina, Dennis Muragura, Elias Mung’ora, Elungat Peter, Lincoln Mwangi, Onyis Martin and Shabu Mwangi. Also featured are Nairobi-based Pan-Africans like Eltayeb Dawelbait and Hussein Halfawi, both from Sudan and Fitsum Berhe from Ethiopia.

What made the Gravitart show so fascinating is the way Veronica and Hiroko compared artists we know locally with internationally acclaimed painters. For instance, they saw similarities between Boniface Maina and the Surrealist Spanish Salvador Dali, Lincoln Mwangi with another surrealist, the Belgian Rene Magritte and Peter Elungat with not just the neoclassical Spanish painter, Francisco de Goya and the art nouveau Austrian artist, Gustav Klimt. She even correlates aspects of Elungat’s art with the Italian Renaissance artist, Leonardo Da Vinci.

 

They identified elements of Shabu Mwangi’s art with those of the ‘New Figurative Art’ of the British painter Francis Bacon. They did the same for Onyis Martin and the conceptual artist, American Joseph Kosuth. And their comparing Elias Mung’ora’s paintings of ordinary working people and local street scenes with artwork by the American realist, Edward Hopper, was a ‘no-brainer’. Both are straight-forward in their clear-sighted style. Yet as realistic as their images may seem, both create paintings that are distinctive. One can identify a Mung’ora on sight just as easily as one knows a work by Hopper.

The other thing that made the Gravitart exhibition so exciting is the fact that no one has previously perceived contemporary Kenyan art so broadly as to view it within a global art context. The closest comparison to Gravitart’s curatorial design is the exhibition curated several years back by the former Italian cultural director Dr. Francesca…. She mounted a show especially for Longinos Nagila, correlating his works from one particularly exhibition with mainly Italian Renaissance painting.

Francesca’s was an excellent, eye-opening show. But Gravitart’s exhibition was wider both in depth and scope. For instance, she related the Egyptian artist Mohamed Rabie’s painting with ancient Egyptian art from the 31^st century BC. But in another respect, she could see elements of Rabie’s work that correlated with those of Peterson Kamwathi.

In most cases, we agreed with Veronica’s and Hiroko’s comparisons as for instance, Shabu Mwangi’s compatibility with Bacon, Peter Elungat’s with Da Vinci and Boniface Maina with Salvador Dali. But whether one agreed or not, it was a revelatory exhibition that one can only wish Veronica would bring back to a more accessible space.

Sarafina makes a comeback at the Kenya National Theatre

SARAFINA SETTING A HIGH BAR FOR KENYAN THEATRE

By Margaretta wa gacheru (posted 18 July 2019)

                                       Sheila Munyiva as Sarafina and Fanuel Mulwa (Crocodile) in NPAS's Sarafina

Sarafina the musical exploded on the Kenya National theatre stage this past Thursday night. The return of this iconic story of anti-Aparteid struggle came back as a result of popular demand. The Theatre had to turn away a multitude of theatre-lovers the first time Nairobi Performing Arts Studio put on the show, making it an imperative for NPAS’s director Stuart Nash to reassemble his cast and crew.

                                                    Stuart Nash in rehearsal for Sarafina (Sheila Munyiva @right)

This time around however, more than half the cast is new. One need not say ‘improved’ since one must see for him or herself. But having Martin Githinji play Constable Sabela, the Home-Guard-kind of villain who’s an instrument of Apartheid oppression against his own African people, is incredible to see. One has rarely watched such a wicked bad on our local stage. What’s more, Martin says he loves playing the part of a nasty guy since villains tend to be the most complex characters in any production.

                                        Martin Githinji (Constable Sabela) threatening Sarafina (Sheila Munviya)

He also says he loves playing opposite Sheila Munyiva who, this time round, stars as Sarafina, a role previously played by Brenda Wairimu.

Martin is not alone in describing Munyiva (who starred in Wanuri Kahiu’s film, Rafiki) as an energizing force in the production. Fanuel Mulwa who comes back in the same role of Crocodile in this award-winning production, also has loved working with this lively lady who is likely to be the show-stealer as Sarafina.

Yet Mkamzee Mtalele is also a shining star in NPAS’s ninth musical. Playing the role of the much-adored history teacher, Mistress, whose defiance of the Boer-brand of Afrikaner education gets her into big trouble with the System, personified by Ian Barton and his son Chris who both play Afrikaner cops who surveil the Soweto school and find Mistress to be a militant menace.

                                           Mkamzee Mwatela being tortured by Boer/Afrikaner cop (Ian Barton)

More than half the cast is new. Most are in their twenties, being students at NPAS for whom their participation in a live Studio production is mandatory. It’s a rigorous commitment since Nash is a professional performer, having been on West End stages (UK’s equivalent to Broadway in New York) from the age of nine. He not only directs the whole show, but produces it and assembles the cast, crew and band which are performing all the magnificent music live for the next few weekends.

For those who don’t know or remember much about the heinous Apartheid regime or the racist, white supremacist system that prevailed in South Africa for many years, it’s important to recall that Soweto youth like those in the play, originally written by Mbongoni Ngema, are the ones whose courageous confrontation with the System’s racist bigotry effectively launched the mass movement that ultimately led to the freeing of Nelson Mandela after 27 years locked up on Robbin Island and to the Independence of South Africa.

Sarafina was actually staged twice before, once in 2018 and previously in 2003 when Mkamzee played to title role of the girl whose passionate prayer for the liberation of Mandela fueled first the play, then the musical and finally the film.

Stuart Nash combined elements of all three to create an original production that will surprise those who have watched the film, which starred the African American actor Whoopi Goldberg.

                                                     Sarafina also being tortured by the Black apartheid interrogators

Come to the Theatre prepared for an electrifying experience as this cast has imbibed the spirit of liberation struggle set to music and marvelous dance, choreographed by Alexus Mwangi. Come prepared for a first-class production, even if you saw Sarafina in 2003 or 2018. It’s a show for the now!

FRED MBOGO'S STUNNING TWO-HANDER SPARKS DEBATE AT NATIONAL THEATRE

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 17 July 2017)

Fred Mbogo has all the makings of becoming Kenya’s version of an Athod Fugard. Not that he has to imitate or take the lead from any other African writer. But to note that both have a penchant for producing intense two-handers that grapple with complex contemporary social issues in surprising and original ways is to appreciate the compatibility of the two playwrights.

Both also create complicated characters who explore explosive themes in an edgy, emotionally-risky way. That’s what Fugard did in plays like ‘The Island’ and ‘Sizwe Banzi is Dead’. It is also what Mbogo has done in ‘The Dying Need No Shoes’ which was staged last weekend in the Cheche Gallery of the Kenya Cultural Centre.

Directed by Esther Kamba who did the same for Fred when they co-produced ‘Ajali Kwenye Ndoto’ among other plays, the stage design of a sort of theatre-in-the-round by Pauline Sifuna made the performance all the more intimate but frankly shocking.

Shocking in several senses, first because we rarely see plays that address the issue of incest; yet Mbogo does it in a way that only comes to light gradually. For when the show opens, Nice Githinji as Purity is knocked out flat on the ground and shoeless. Her first words are incoherent, but we soon learn that’s intentional. The girl had been drugged.

In the opposite corner, on the diagonal across from Purity’s prone body is a half-naked man who we quickly learn is her father (Ben Tekee), a university professor who has a preference for plucking innocent freshman females from his classroom and charming them into bed. We don’t initially ‘get’ that Purity is one of those innocents. It only comes to light as the soporific effect of the drug wears off, and she remembers where she is and why.

That recollection is one of the other stunning aspects of ‘Shoes’. For Purity is unintelligible in her early utterances, even as she speaks of death and makes an effort to commit suicide herself.

Her suicide attempt is one of the many surprises one watches unfold in ‘The Dying need no Shoes’. She tries to drown herself in her father’s bathtub and nearly succeeds, only that the Professor arrives in the nick of time and drags her from the tub.

Purity is literally drenched. To remedy the situation, the father effectively changes her clothes right on stage. That act alone might have alerted some keen observers to the intimacy the two have shared. It also suggests that just as she had little to do with the clothing change, so she wasn’t cognizant of her father’s sexual abuse while she was drugged.

It’s not clear why the father wants her dead although he sounds like a cultic fanatic when claiming death will take her to paradise. He even tries to convince her to write her own suicide note to justify why death is the right path for her to take.

Nonetheless, it’s around this time that the drug’s effect starts to wear off. When she refuses to write the note, the ‘domestic violence’ takes a more physical form as his ugly patriarchal attitude towards women, including towards his late wife and Purity, comes out.

The more she resists, the more she comes to realize she’s been drugged and raped for nights on end. But for some reason (possibly because he thinks this is the day she’ll die), he skips drugging her that day.

Now is when Purity challenges not only his authority, but also his innocence of her mother’s demise. Hers is a damning indictment of him, and by extension, of every misogynist male who can’t cope with women’s right to choose how they want to be, independent and free from a ‘big man’s ‘permission’.

The ending of ‘Shoes’ is also disturbing as Purity finally gets the upper hand. The revenge she inflicts on her dad is as flabbergasting as is much of this amazing one-hour two-hander. But the set falls into total darkness before we can be assured the Professor drown in the same bathtub that Purity almost did.

The ending of ‘The Dying need no Shoes’ should generate controversy, especially as Purity has all our sympathy up to the end. Ultimately, Mbogo has scripted a spell-binding show and selected two very versatile actors who made their characters utterly credible. The Professor has been obsessed with death for years and written tomes about it, so it might seem appropriate for him to finally get a taste of his own medicine.

IS THERE A CAREER PATH IN THE PERFORMING ARTS?

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted July 16 2019)

The performing arts have always played a critical role in the education of Kenyan youth.

Through the Music, Schools and Colleges Drama Festivals, students have had opportunities to perform and even compete for local, regional and national awards. Churches have also played their part in giving youth the chance to act in Scripturally-based productions so that a professional actor like Martin Githinji (best known for playing Johnny in the popular TV series ‘Sue and Johnny’) can admit he’s been acting in church plays from the age of four.

Yet until quite recently, very few Kenyans have dared to enter either TV, film or stage as a professional. It was considered risky business, and most parents counselled their kids to become doctors, lawyers, accountants or engineers, certainly not professional thespians. For example, one of Kenya’s leading actors in the Seventies was Stephen Mwenesi who starred in several different interpretations of Dedan Kimathi. Yet when he had to make a choice of career, he went into law, not theatre.

John Sibi-Okumu is another thespian who has come close to being a professional, having starred on stage, television and film as well as scriptwriting and directing award-winning productions like Eric Wainaina’s ‘Mo’ Fire’. But even Sibi had a full-time day job teaching French at primary and secondary school levels.

But the tide is turning. Despite dismal signs of a declining theatre scene as witnessed by the demise of Phoenix Players in 2018, there are many more signs that the performing arts can become a career option for Kenyans.

For one thing, Kenyan filmmakers are being recognized both locally and internationally. Films like ‘Supa Modo’, ‘Rafiki’, ‘Nairobi Half-Life’ and ‘Subira’ have won awards and reflect the health of an industry that is getting stronger by the day.

Television has also taken off ever since the rule went down that a high percentage of shows had to be produced locally. “Some people feel it was the opening up of television to local scripts and the call for local content that paved the way for ‘creatives’ to start producing and performing in original Kenyan scripts,” says Mkamzee Mwatale, one of the professional performers who costars in the musical production that opened last night at Kenya National Theatre.

‘Sarafina’, the electrifying tale of Soweto youth standing up to the heinous Apartheid system in South Africa, is being staged for a second time by the Nairobi Performing Arts Academy, much to the delight of the local audiences that missed the first run of NPAS’s ninth (mainly musical) theatre production.

Mkamzee stars, both currently and in the first NPAS Sarafina, as the teacher who strives to instill a sense of revolutionary pride and anti-Apartheid purpose in her students. But back in 2003, she starred in the title role as Sarafina when the musical was first staged in Kenya and the playwright Mbongeni Ngema came to here from South Africa just to see that performance.

Mkamzee is also one of those who has personally witnessed the rising tide of appreciation for the performing arts. She works full time in the field either as an actor, scriptwriter, film producer (for her own ‘8278A Film Studio’). “And I even stage managed [NPAS’s production of] ‘Grease’. She has even served as an acting lecturer at NPAS. “But I got too busy doing other things, so I had to stop,” says the actress possibly best known to TV audiences for her performances in ‘Mali’, ‘Siri’ and ‘Stay’. She also starred in the Kenyan film ‘Lusala’ that just premiered at the Nairobi International Film Festival in June.

‘There’s a sort of symbiotic relationship between film, theatre and TV,” she says. “They are interdependent such that one feeds off the others,” adds Mkamzee who gets paid for all the performance work she does, including when she played Herod in the second NPAS production of ‘Jesus Christ Superstar.’

That symbiotic relationship has been stepped up since Stuart Nash came to town. Invited here from the UK to produce musicals at the Potterhouse School, he got his first interns working with him from Kenyatta University while he was staging ‘Annie’ followed by ‘Oliver’.

Both Mercy Wangui and Fanuel Mulwa worked as interns with Stuart and they’re still with him. Mercy is currently his stage manager for Sarafina and Fanuel plays Crocodile just as he did in the September 2018 staging of the same show.

When asked whether either of them believes the performing arts can provide a viable career path for Kenyan youth, both are emphatic that they certainly can. Wangui, like Mkamzee, says she has never been out of work since she started off with Stuart in 2016. Granted she isn’t always working with NPAS, especially when Stuart is not producing a show. But thus far, with NPAS she has stage-managed everything from Jesus Christ Superstar (twice) and Grease to Caucasian Chalk Circle, Kidogo and both productions of Sarafina. “And when I am not with the Studio, I have stage managed for shows like Dr Zippy Okoth’s ‘Stranger in my Bed’ and the East African Fashion Gala.”

Fanuel feels the performing arts are already providing employment and careers to many Kenyans. And while he’s been in several NPAS shows, including Grease, Caucasian Chalk Circle and both productions of Sarafina, he like Mkamzee has launched his own production company, albeit in theatre not film. That means he also plays multiple roles in the performing arts.

That’s the same strategy Martin Githinji follows. Playing the villain Sabela in Sarafina, Martin like Mkamzee, is probably best known for his TV role as Johnny in the award-winning series ‘Sue and Johnny’. Yet he says the way he succeeds in doing film, TV and theatre professionally is by taking on multiple roles. “When I am not acting, I am either scriptwriting, directing or producing new works,” says Martin who starred as Jesus in NPAS’s second run of ‘Jesus Christ Superstar.’

But probably the most high-profile performer in Sarafina is Sheila Munyiva who costarred with Samantha Mugatisia in Wanuri Kahui’s trail-blazing film, ‘Rafiki’. “She’s great fun to play opposite,” says Martin who admires her passionate, high-energy approach to her character.

The challenge of musical theatre is that one must not only be able to act; she or he must also be able to dance and sing well. All that is what someone learns at NPAS, although some students have to get used to Stuart’s professionalism which is a strict, no-nonsense style that is unfamiliar to many local thespians.  

“It’s true, Stuart is a perfectionist,” says Mercy who adds she has learned so much from him in the more than three years that she has been with NPAS.

“Stuart knows what he wants and has high standards,” says Martin. “Once someone figures out what he expects and strives to meet those expectations, he will have no problem with Stuart.”

Having performed on the West End (London’s equivalent of Broadway in New York) from the age of nine, Stuart has also been a multi-tasker, having written musical scores for an acclaimed TV series like ‘Brideshead Revisited’ as well as producing, directing, conducting and finally founding a school to teach the performing arts.

Currently developing the first performing arts curriculum together with the Curriculum Development Assessment and Certification Council (CDACC), Stuart says NPAS hopes to soon be offering certificates and diplomas in the field.

In the meantime, he has exciting, ambitious works in the pipeline, including plans to produce the stage version of ‘Nairobi Half Life’ and ‘Lion King’.

WHEN GRAFFITI BECOMES FINE ART

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 15 July 2019)

Kenya art came alive last weekend at the Railway Museum where the Graffiti artists group BSQ (aka ‘Bomb Squad)’ opened their first ‘Fine Art Exhibition’ with an interactive public art invitation.

Based just behind the Museum in and outside one of the train car that they have transformed into a studio cum art gallery, the three BSQ artists, invited members of the public to not just ‘leave their mark’ on the outside of their train car but to actually participate in creating a mural using all the same art tools that BSQ do.

“We invited them to try using everything from paint [and brush] to spray paint and air brush on Saturday morning,” says Brian “Msale” Musasia, one of the BSQ trio. The other two are Kenneth ‘K-Mist4’ Otieno and Bebetu (‘Thufu B’) Ochieng.

“We’ll invite the public again to leave their mark on the BSQ car at the closing of our show on August 3^rd,” adds Msale who is also exhibiting his work inside the train car together with Paul ‘Gicci’ Gichia.

Inviting us to climb up into their car (which has been beautifully spray painted by BSQ and other graffiti artists), Msale and Gicci show us around the studio-gallery which is covered literally from floor to ceiling with amazing graffiti art.

But all that graffiti is separate from the air-brush art that Msale and Gicci have created on canvas. “We wanted to show how graffiti art can be transformed into fine art,” says Msale whose calligraphic artworks on canvas also cover a big chunk of the studio’s ceiling.

“I used a brush to paint those [calligraphic pieces],” he adds as he shows us how an air-brush works compared to both a simple paint brush and a can of spray paint.

The other two BSQ artists, K-Mist and Bebetu still stick with spray paint as one will see as you come check out the Railway wall that leads from the main gate down to the actual Museum. There you will see a wonderfully rich array of graffiti art which has been spray-painted mainly by the BSQ trio, but also by graffiti artists like Swift Elegwa, Kerosh Kiruri, Stickky Muriithi, Chela Chewron and Eljah Mutua.

All of these artists have spent time at the Dust Depo Art Studio with Patrick Mukabi who mentored most of them as they developed their knowledge and skills working closely with the mild-mannered Master that Mukabi is known to be.

Paul Githia is still based at Dust Depo, but as both he and Msale like the air-brush, they decided to hang a proper art exhibition. ‘Gicci’ says he prefers the air-brush because it allows him to exercise more control over the creative process.

“It’s a technique that allows one to give more clarity of detail to their art,” adds Msale who actually graduated in fine art from Kenyatta University’s fine art department.

Msale is part of the reason KU art students have started coming to the BSQ studio to complete their three-month attachments. Currently, there are four KU students being mentored by the trio and getting exposed to a much wider range of arts activities going on in Nairobi than students can easily see from the confines of KU.

“It’s partly for them that we decided to hold this Fine Art exhibition,” confesses Msale. “We have their sketches, as well as our own, pinned up outside the train for the public to see. That way, if someone likes a sketch, they can either buy it on the spot or ask for a specific artist to do a commission for them.”

Nairobi’s graffiti art scene is growing fast, having been popularized by street artists like Bankslave, Swift and many others. Some say it exploded thanks to a British Council initiative several years back when BC invited artists to come create murals on their many walls.

The graffiti art movement was also nurtured at the GoDown Art Centre where everyone from Michael Jackson, Miriam Makeba and Lupita Nyong’o were spray-painted by Bankslave, Uhuru B, Swift and others.

Then a couple of years ago, the Railway Museum agreed to cooperate with Kenyan artists, spurred on by Patrick Mukabi who’d moved next door to the Museum and started up Dust Depo. “Street Diaries 1 and 2” were the first public exhibitions to elicit an overwhelming response from both aspiring and seasoned artists who covered the quarter-mile of wall with amazing graffiti art. And since then, a myriad of Kenyan youth has taken up graffiti art.

                                                                                       Msale Masasia of BSQ