/ARTS WEEKLY/THEATRE: Exploring Modern Day East African Identity

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Katy Salmon

NAIROBI, Oct 1 2002 (IPS) - Self-analysis is a popular theme with Kenyan artists these days, reflecting a widespread desire to move on from the days of colonialism and one-party oppression and to explore the modern day Kenyan identity, in all its complexities.

In ‘The Voice of A Dream’, writer Mumbi Kaigwa uses true-to-life stories to dig deep into the psyche of her fellow Kenyans.

"One of the things I think about Kenyans is that we’re in a lot of pain. There’s a lot of things that we can’t express ourselves about," she explains. "Talking to my friends, we thought maybe the reason why we can’t talk about these things is because there are dreams that we put to one side," she says.

That is how the idea of collecting people’s stories began.

"I started to interview people and ask them what those dreams were. And that was what we presented – the actual stories that came out of people’s mouths about the things that are keeping them blocked," she explains.

‘The Voice of a Dream’ was one of several pieces performed at the Festival of Storytelling and Dance (SANDD), which Kaigwa recently organised in Nairobi. The festival brings together Kaigwa’s Theatre Company, Uganda’s Footsteps Dance Company and Tanzania’s Parapanda Theatre Lab.

All three companies explore the theme of East African identity and culture, using music, dance, storytelling and song.

The results are often disturbing. One of the stories Kaigwa narrates was told to her by a 50-year old man who dreamed of being a FRELIMO fighter in Mozambique in the 1970s.

He told her that he had just woken from a dream of being smeared in shit û only to be attacked in exactly the same way by a street boy in downtown Nairobi later on in the day. He believed the dream symbolised a desire to get rid of something nasty inside of himself.

Another interviewee, Bee, a woman in her 40s, reflects feelings common to many middle aged Kenyans. Acting as Bee, Kaigwa narrates how she hated history at school, hearing how Speke and (David) Livingstone and other white explorers "discovered" East Africa. There was no place for her in those stories.

So Bee went to the Kenya National Archives where she spent a year "looking for myself", questioning what is really African and what values were brought from outside. She asks whether African men, naturally, have many partners or if that is a stereotype that was imposed by the colonialists.

Bee also talks about the shock of seeing the first advert that appealed to her, as a black woman. "I don’t have to have blonde hair," she exclaims excitedly.

"We were cleaved from our roots. We are uncomfortable with ourselves. We need to stop apologising for being who we are," she urges.

Uganda’s Footsteps Dance Company explore similar issues in their dance piece ‘Slave Trade’ which was devised after a visit to the former slave market in Bagamoyo, Tanzania.

"The dance tells a story of people taken from their roots and violently plunged into a foreign culture. History books do not deal with this aspect of our painful history in a way that shows that Africa was changed forever," explains artistic director Roger Masaba.

"They had been disconnected from their tradition and they were getting exposed to a new kind of tradition," he says.

This is illustrated on stage when a pile of jeans is flung among the cowering slaves. At first they are afraid to even approach, touch or smell the clothes. Slowly they pick them up and try to decipher how to put them on.

"They had to figure out how to go about with the clothing. Although they were forced on to that, they had to find a way of keeping their tradition, but secretly. They had to take on the other one but they still kept their tradition," explains Madaba.

The modern day slaves adapt their dances to suit the new environment they find themselves in, for example, using their brooms not to sweep the floor but to tap out rhythms.

Parapanda Theatre Lab uses song and dance to celebrate East African culture and tradition, which is coming under assault from modern values.

The poem ‘Mother’s Breast’, by Shaaban Robert, praises the Kiswahili language, encouraging people to use and love their language and culture as they would their mother’s breast.

‘Shujaa wa Jando’ is a story about the heroes of initiation rites who died for their culture.

"It talks about unsung heroes. We think they are heroes. Apart from the politicians and those who fought, there are also other people who did a good job in defence of traditions," says the group’s founder Mgunga mwa Mnyenyelwa.

"In our days, people look on culture and traditions very negatively. They don’t give themselves time at least to sit and discuss and see what can be taken and what, of course, can be modified. The language of today is bad, bad, bad," he explains.

The story compares the way parents were involved in young people’s lives in the past, preparing them for the future with the way children today are left in the sole care of house workers. It shows that the Jando tradition of initiation rites provided society with a form of defence and security.

"Our idea is to show that so that people can sit and discuss their traditions before they make any legal enforcement," Mwnyenyelwa explains.

Audience response to the festival has been phenomenal.

"Members of the audience have come backstage after the show and said that that was so important for them to hear because now they are going to go back home and reflect and think about those things that they put aside and see if they couldn’t revive them," says Kaigwa.

She now plans to make the festival an annual event.

"Both from a performance point of view and the audience’s point of view, it’s been a long time coming. We should be celebrating ourselves. Although a lot of the subject matter was about pain, I think as we begin to shed this pain we’ll begin to celebrate happy events as well," she predicts.

/ARTS WEEKLY/THEATRE: Exploring Modern Day East African Identity

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Katy Salmon

NAIROBI, Oct 1 2002 (IPS) - Self-analysis is a popular theme with Kenyan artists these days, reflecting a widespread desire to move on from the days of colonialism and one-party oppression and to explore the modern day Kenyan identity, in all its complexities.
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