Grandfather of African Film who made LOVE BREWED IN THE AFRICAN POT IN Nairobi

Ghanaian Kwaw Ansah urges use of film to reverse negative African image

Ghana’s great filmmaker Kwaw Ansah was back in Kenya an impassioned plea to the country's future filmmakers to tell their own stories and not try to imitate Hollywood. PHOTO | MARGARETTA WA GACHERU 

By MARGARETTA WA GACHERU

Posted  Friday, October 31  2014 at  13:07

Making an impassioned plea to Kenya’s future filmmakers to tell their own stories and not try to imitate Hollywood, Ghana’s great filmmaker Kwaw Ansah was back in the country this week after being away for almost 30 years.

The 73-year-old sage who’s often called ‘the Father of [Anglophone] African film’ had been invited by Kenyatta University’s chairman of its Theatre Arts and Film Technology Department, Dr John Mugubi to screen his most famous films and share insights with young KU students about the history of West African film.

But Ansah also told the students that film was an extremely powerful tool which they needed to use to reverse the negative images of Africa perpetuated by Hollywood films and Western culture generally.

Africa’s first award-winning filmmaker initially came in Kenya in 1986 to witness the phenomenal success of his film, Love Brewed in the African Pot.

“I was invited by Kenya’s Minister of Culture to come and show ‘Love Brewed’ here, but when I arrived, a man from the Kenya Film Board told me to go home because Kenyan audiences only like movies made in Hollywood,” Ansah recalled.

But the Ghanaian managed to convince the KFB man that he could at least show his movie on an experimental basis just to see if his assessment of Kenyans’ cinematic taste was accurate.

Ansah said Love Brewed opened the same weekend as the latest James Bond flick, but there was no comparison between the lengthy lines that came to see his film and the cinema seats left empty for Bond.

“There were full house crowds for three months,” said the man who not only scripted Love Brewed but also produced, directed and composed the sound track for the film.

Speaking last Wednesday at KU’s spacious Student Business Centre, Ansah insisted students first see his film before he spoke so they’d have some point of reference and something to talk about.

In fact, most of the youth that filled the KU auditorium hadn’t been born by the time Ansah’s film defied all the odds and proved to the international public that Africans could indeed make first-class films and tell their own stories at the same time.

Sharing some of the struggles he’d faced while helping establish Ghana’s fledgling film industry, Ansah described how he had been confronted with formidable odds, especially as he got no support from either the post-Nkrumah Ghanaian government or the private sector, including banks.

Ultimately, it was his father-in-law who volunteered to give him a house and title deed, so he could obtain a bank loan and proceed to make the film that he said cost more than $1 million (Sh89 million).  

Since then, he’s made two more feature films, ‘Heritage Africa’ and ‘Praise the Lord Plus One’ as well as several award-winning documentaries. He also founded his film production company, Film Africa Limited.

PARIS-BASED KENYAN FASHION DESIGNER RETURNS TO ROOTS TO SHOW ORIGINAL DESIGNS IN KENYAN TEXTILES

High fashion designed with kitenge and kikoi

Eva Rogo-Levenez at her ‘Back to the Roots’ fashion showcase at the Alliance Francaise in mid-October. Her necklace is a Maasai beaded wedding necklace and her dress is made using Kenyan kitenge. PHOTO | COURTESY 

By Margaretta wa Gacheru

Posted  Friday, October 31  2014 at  14:51

In Summary

• Eva is taking her Kenyan fashions back to Paris where she intends to put them on the global fashion map.

Eva Rogo-Levenez is one Kenyan fashion designer who has put her elegant Ler Ligisa designs onto catwalks on three continents.

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“There’s Europe,” said the Paris-based designer and managing director of Ler Ligisa fashions who’s lived in France for more than 20 years, “Then there’s North America,” she said. Eva recently displayed her designs during the last New York Fashion Week where she received exceptional reviews from the city’s fashion gurus.

“And then of course, there is Africa and specifically Kenya where I just organised my ‘Back to the Roots’ fashion showcase at Alliance Francaise.”

Admitting that she found it harder to put together a fashion show in Kenya than she had in Paris where facilities are more accessible, Eva said she practically put last Saturday’s fashion show together ‘single-handedly’ apart from working with Moses Mukiibi, managing director of Strut It Afrika, who provided lovely, lean and lanky models.

It was a serious challenge, she confessed, but the show itself went so well she said the labour was worth it.

“Many of my old friends were away when I arrived in Nairobi, but I was still determined to share my designs with fellow Kenyans,” said Eva adding she promotes Kenya while living overseas.

Her love for Kenya is manifest, she said, in her decision to only use Kenyan textiles in latest fashion line.

“I brought all my patterns from Paris and worked closely with a Kenyan tailor with whom I cut out my designs using kitenge and kikoi. That’s one reason why I called my show ‘Back to the Roots’.”

The only outfit that wasn’t made with Kenyan textiles was the chiffon wedding gown that she stitched together with lovely Kikoi cloth to enhance the elegance of the gown’s strapless bodice. The dress was the show-stopper of the night.

Eva’s designs included kitenge and kikoi pants and slim-line skirts with matching jackets. She also had full length kikoi skirts with contrasting suka-like capes with matching Maasai bead necklaces that were also show-stealing, distinctly Kenyan in design.

Eva is taking her Kenyan fashions back to Paris where she intends to put them on the global fashion map. In her mind, that won’t be difficult since she already has followings in New York and Paris.

“But I also wanted to establish myself on the Nairobi fashion scene since I know there is a lot of local talent, both in terms of designers and tailors [or seamstresses] as well as among models who have the potential to be international ‘top models’ starting right here in Kenya.”

Kitengela Glass Trust pioneered Glass Art in Keny

Why glass art is moving from churches to homes       

By Margaretta wa Gacheru margacheru@gmail.com

 

 

 

One piece of stained glass art by Tonney Mugo. PHOTO  by Margaretta wa Gacheru

Posted  Thursday, August 28  2014 at  16:02

Glass art is a universal art form that one can find almost anywhere in the world, find almost anywhere in the world, or rather in places where religions have taken root.

Glass art in the form of stained glass windows or intricate mosaics can be seen, either in Christian cathedrals, Hindu temples or Islamic mosques.

In East Africa, glass art came with Christian missionaries who built churches that used colourful stained glass windows to illustrate stories from the Scriptures.

Such windows inspired artists like Jak Katarikawe whose early paintings will be on display from September 1st at the Nairobi Gallery.

In Kenya, glass art is currently a thriving field that can be found not only in churches, temples and mosques but also in private homes, hotels and high-rise offices as well as in restaurants, banks and public parks.

Glass Dome in private home cum office in Karen by Nani Croze and Kitengela Glass. photo by Margaretta wa Gacheru

The most unusual place to find glass art in undoubtedly at the Kitengela Glass Trust where, since 1979, Nani Croze has created a veritable glass village in which one can find cement and mud huts covered in glass, chicken and turkey houses shaped like Maasai manyattas covered in glass and even a glass bridge that spans a wide, overgrown ravine enabling visitors to reach her picturesque glass ‘museum’ in record time.

But Kitengela Glass is not the only place to find glass artists, although a great many Kenyans have gotten their start apprenticing in glass with Nani.

Kitengela Glass Bead Hut designed by Nani Croze with glass mosaics made by Edith Nyambura. Photo by Margaretta
 

One is Edith Nyambura who’s assisted her mentor in placing glass tiles all over Kitengela’s swimming pool floor and on the front edifice of its brand new Bead Hut.

Edith Nyambura of Kitengela Glass created mosaic glass table and chairs perfect for outdoor gardens. Phonos by margaretta wa gacheru
 

A number ‘Kit’ novices have also been trained by the stained glass artist Bernhard Viehweber whom she called from the renowned Hadamar Glass Institute in Germany to help her teach members of her staff the art of creating stained glass.

Bernhard worked closely with Nani for several years before he shifted to Westlands where he set up his own Prisma Art studio.

It was there that he met Tonney Mugo, who was already apprenticing at the Glass Gallery with Philippa Simpson, a skilled glass engraver who has since left Kenya.

Tonney was keen to advance and diversify his own skills in glass art, so when he heard about the Hadamar Glass Institute, he applied and got into the German school, where he learned everything from engraving to glass painting and ‘fusing’.

Today, both Tonney and Bernhard are back in Kenya creating glass art and based at Kuona Trust.

Meanwhile, Bernhard worked for several years in Canada before returning to Kenya last year. Now he works part-time at Kitengela Glass. All three glass artists are frequently commissioned to create stained glass windows both for churches and private homes all over Kenya.

For instance, Nani’s glass art can be found up and down the Coast, in hotels and churches.

In Nanyuki, Bernhard has designed a glass wall at the Ol Jogi Ranch; and at the Nairobi National Museum, both Tonney and Nani have created formidable glass works.

Both artists have created impressive glass art pieces for hospitals as well: Nani, working with a group of Kenyan women artists, constructed an eight-foot tall cement and steel ‘African Mama’ covered in glass mosaic at Kenyatta Hospital, while Tonney created a stained glass window which was recently hung in the Pumwani Maternity Hospital.

But what’s equally exciting about the genre of glass art is that a number of up and coming artists are discovering its beauty and versatility.

Currently, at The Hub, a new art and entrepreneurship training centre on Waiyaki Way just past Westlands, a young painter named Kendi Mbabazi Mwendia has a small exhibition of glass art which is quite different from the stained glass and dale de verre pieces that the other three are creating.

Inspired by the functional art of Kitengela Glass as a child, Kendi said her father had bought a beautiful glass table from Nani around 20 years ago.

Edith and Nani and the rest of the Kitengela Glass team created this beautiful glass mosaic map of African. Photo by Margaretta wa Gacheru

“I remember lying under the table as a little girl and looking up at all the bright colours shining through the glass,” says Kendi who creates her art pieces by painting on glass.

That colour spectrum that she saw in the family table as a little girl apparently inspired two of her glass paintings, one that’s still at The Hub entitled ‘Psychedelic’, the other which was sold soon after her exhibition opened.

A graduate of Rusinga High School in Nairobi where she painted frequently and USIU where she majored in International Relations and rarely painted at all, at 24, Kendi plans to do lots more with glass.

 

                

 

 

 

           

 

 

 

 

Theatre: Accidental Death of a Terrorist is highly recommended at Phoenix Players

Thin line between madness and how con men exploit legal system    

Inspector Bruno threatens the ‘mad man’ who’s not afraid in Accidental Death. PHOTO | MARGARETTA WA GACHERU 

               

By MARGARETTA WA GACHERU

Posted  Thursday, October 16  2014 at  19:23

In Summary

• What’s stunning is how easily Phoenix Players adapted Fo’s play to a Kenyan context.

Accidental Death of an Anarchist by the Italian playwright Dario Fo was a brilliant political comedy that gave new meaning to the comedic.

It not only made fun of madness in ways that were irreverent, ridiculous and hilarious. It also revealed what a fine line there can be between being mad and being an incredibly imaginative, shrewd and calculating con man who knew how to manipulate the legal and judicial system to get away with all manner of apparent madness as a means of exposing corruption, police brutality, impunity and murder.

What’s stunning is how easily Phoenix Players adapted Fo’s play to a Kenyan context. Changing just one word in the title, Accidental Death of a Terrorist opened last Friday night at Phoenix, raising similar issues and meriting just as much praise as Fo’s original play.

Directed by Harry Ebale who also plays the medically certified ‘madman’, he too could truly be insane or he might actually be sane, lucid and rational, only playing the part of a mental maniac for his own reasons.

Ebale (who’s assembled a cast including Samson Psenjen, Sahil Gada, Martin Kigondu and Esther Muturi) keeps his audience guessing from start to end. We’re never sure if he’s mad or not. What’s certain is he’s outrageously audacious and apparently schizophrenic as he enacts an exquisitely crafted repertoire of characters that clearly leaves local police looking as frazzled, foolish and out of control as the madman might well be.

Hauled into the Central Police Station on charges he knows he can beat since he’s already done so a dozen times, he’s got the right medical records to retain a clean slate. His records show he is nuts. So legally, he cannot be charged since he’s been diagnosed as essentially ‘out of his mind’.

Is he really? He’s nutty enough to exasperate police inspector Bruno (Psenjen) so much that he throws the maniac out of his office. He can’t cope with this slippery maniac who can switch identities at the drop of a hat.

But what makes the madman’s quick-changing character so stunning is not just that he can credibly shift from persona to persona effortlessly. It’s also that he does it with so much audacious flare that he leaves the cops befuddled.

If he’s not insane, the game he’s playing is extremely dangerous since we gradually grasp that his interrogators are the type who torture, maim and kill in the name of finishing “terrorists.”

So either he’s immensely brave or utterly insane since he seems to know that both his interrogators (Kigondu and Gada) are complicit in the “accidental” death of a matatu tout who’s been deemed a ‘terrorist’.

The madman manages to fool his would-be interrogators up until Inspector Bruno arrives in the Superintendent’s office and eventually recognises the maniac who Bruno is convinced is nothing but a conman. By that time, the maniac has already recorded inadvertent confessions from his interrogators who admit they tossed the manamba (tout) ‘terrorist’ out the window; he didn’t commit suicide.

On the contrary, it was convenient for the two to eliminate an innocent (until proven guilty) man only to report to the media that he was a terrorist who killed himself.

The other accusations that the maniac makes against the cops and the whole political establishment are even more damning, since he alleges the police are tools of politicians who need terrorists to wage war against the State to justify curtailing people’s freedoms and human rights.

Implicitly what Fo and Phoenix Players are exposing is the whole idea that the so called war on terror is actually a right wing ploy to deprive people of their democratic rights by rousing fear of terrorists (not cops serving politicians’ interests) who supposedly plant bombs in buses and public places like Gikomba.

And while the allegations of the madman seem unbelievable, the play itself reveals that such claims are plausible.

                               

LAUNCH OF 2015 KENYA ARTS DIARY @ HEINRICH BOELL FOUNDATION OCT.21

PRESS RELEASE

ANNOUNCING THE LAUNCH OF THE KENYA ARTS DIARY 2015

October 17, 2014

The official launch of the Kenya Arts Diary 2015 will be held this coming Tuesday, October 21 at 6pm at the Heinrich Boell Foundation offices on Forest Road.

Guest of Honor at the Launch of this the 5th Kenya Arts Diary will be the German Ambassador, Mr. Andreas Peschke who will official launch the Diary and open the 2nd Kenya Arts Diary Artists Exhibition.

The exhibition will feature a portion of artworks by the more than 60 artists whose art is included in this year's Diary.

The Kenya Arts Diary is the brain child of glass artist Nani Croze who is also the founder of the Kitengela Glass Research and Training Trust. Since 2010 Nani has been working with a team of art-loving volunteers to assemble art works by the best and brightest young Kenyan artists around. Kul Graphics has also played an invaluable role in publishing the full-color diary every year.

Nani's initial vision from the beginning has been to create a diary that is both a calendar and a catalogue of contemporary Kenyan art which reflects the burgeoning nature of the local visual arts scene. She also has wanted to expose the amazing diversity, dynamism and determination of young Kenyan artists to confirm that there is indeed contemporary Kenyan art and that African art is not confined exclusively to West and South Africa but it is also thriving in East Africa, especially in Kenya.

That is why, in all five editions of the Diary, the KAD arts committee has sought to fill every new edition with the artwork of fresh, new Kenyan talents. It has also tried to include veteran Kenyan and East African artists every year. These have included painters like Ancent Soi, Elimo Njau, Yony Waite and Jak Katarikawe as well as sculptors like the late Samwel Wanjau, Elkana Ong'esa and Edward Njeng'a.

The Diary team has worked hard to seek out young and relatively unknown artists who haven't had much public exposure but their artistic talents are apparent. The team's commitment to giving young artists opportunities to develop their creative skills is possibly most evident in the Kenya Arts Diary Residency Award or KADRA that was launched last year. The art residency affords young artists the opportunity to work with experienced artists in stimulating studio environments for one month with all expenses paid, including art materials, accommodations, a stipend and the opportunity to exhibit the awardee's work produced during that one month residency.

Last year, the two KADRA awardees were Michael Kyalo and Ezra Joab. This year the awardee, currently working with Nani Croze at Kitengela Glass, is Kezia Nduta.

Early in 2015 a call will go out to young Kenyan artists to apply for KADRA and all Kenyans under the age of 25 years will be welcome to apply.

What makes the Kenya Arts Diary both a calendar and a catalogue of contemporary Kenyan art is because every week is given to one artist whose art work is featured together with a head shot of the artist, a brief bio and the artist's contacts so that the public can communicate directly with the artist. Aiming to foster transparency and independence among the artists, Nani says she feels strongly that artists need to have platforms that enable the public to easily access them. She says it's good for the artists and the public as well since art lovers can use the Diary like a directory to find the artists they want to know and potentially to invest in their art.

Any questions about the Kenyan Arts Diary 2015 can be sent to kenyaartsdiary@gmail.com or sent to the Diary's Facebook page.

The Diary is available for sale in all the local bookstores, galleries and art centres. For details about obtaining the Diary, call Diana at 0720624139.