Getting Heard: [Re]claiming Performance Space in Kenya

Front Cover

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Title Page, Copyright

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Dedication

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pp. iii-

Table of Contents

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Acknowledgements

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pp. vii-viii

This book is the result of ongoing work on media, art and culture at Twaweza Communications with funding from the Ford Foundation, Office of Eastern Africa. The project involves important discussions between academia and practitioners in media, art and culture...

1. Njia Panda: Kenyan Theatre in Search of Identity

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pp. 1-24

Nestled in a corner of the capital city Nairobi is an area whose relatively small size belies its importance as a significant historical site performing the evolving discourse on Kenyan identity. Separated from the heart of downtown Nairobi by the busy University Way which...

2. From Intellectual Space(s) to Performance Space(s): Strategies of Speaking ‘Truth to Power’ in Bole Butake’s Drama

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pp. 25-44

This chapter, in various ways, attempts not only to exhibit Bole Butake’s deployment of body and space as sites of performing and undermining power, but more importantly, his location within the black intellectual traditions. Similar to other black intellectual...

3. Sigana and the fight for Performance Space in Kenya: A case for Indigenous Theatre in Kenya

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pp. 45-56

Over the years, theatre has been performed in various forms and during occasions of varying significance. In Kenya, theater has indeed been under intense pressure, to an extent whereby it is seen as producing nothing. Nothing notable is reported about theatre in national...

4. Fabricating Nationhood: Sigana (Narrative) as Theatre in Post-colonial Kenya

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pp. 57-81

This chapter examines how popular theatre initiatives fabricate alternative nationhoods within the prevailing morass of a post-colonial polity. Whether it is in the representation of historical figures or the attempt at reconstructing new meanings from ancient mythologies...

5. Radio Theatre: Interrogating the Developmental Narratives of Radio Drama in Kenya

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pp. 82-96

Studies in the field of radio have explored the vastness of the medium and its usefulness in society. Specifically, the medium of radio is looked at as a relevant means of communication in Africa. These studies including those carried out by Richard Fardon and Graham Furniss...

6. The Task of the African Translator

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pp. 97-110

Given the number of languages and cultures, different histories either before or after the advent of colonialism, and uneven support of African languages in individual countries such as Kenya and Tanzania, anything loosely termed African translation will have to flow...

7. African Languages as Key to African Identity

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pp. 111-121

It is a known fact that languages are key to any people’s identity. However, in as much as this is a universal truth, African languages have not been given prominence in the African setting to play this major role effectively. Immediately after African states gained independence...

8. Kiswahili: The Language of National and Regional Integration

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pp. 122-147

The 2008 post-election violence in Kenya challenged in fundamental ways the country’s national identity. As a geographical space, the nation-state was put in jeopardy and risked fragmentation. Young people, angry and disappointed at the declaration of contested presidential...

9. Politics as Performance: Disposession, Elite Transition and the Performative Exercise of Power

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pp. 148-163

Performance is generally taken to be a measure of the net output of an action pegged or commensurate to the highest degree of a perceived expectation. Resultantly, the drive to perform has emerged as one of the leading push and pull factors of today’s world...

10. A Kenyan Intro: Identity Politics in the Performances of a Kenyan Popular Music Band

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pp. 164-174

The chapter describes the opening formula in the performances of a Kenyan popular music band, Ja’mnazi Afrika. The interest is in the group’s performances at the New Sesia Club, Wagon Hotel, Eldoret, where the group is – and has been for some time now...

11. Mungiki: The Fourth Estate and Kenya’sPublic Enemy No. 1

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pp. 175-191

These sombre and poignant words were first spoken to historian Maina wa Kinyatti by a peasant woman and Mau Mau veteran on July 07, 1978. It is just as well that we preface this review with that solemn reflection of the fate that befell the veterans and supporters...

About the Contributors

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pp. 192-

Back Cover

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