Karibuni Wanachi: Theatre for Development in Tanzania, and: Theatre for Development in Kenya: In Search of an Effective Procedure and Methodology (review)

These two books from Eckhard Breitinger's ever prolific Bayreuth press deal with theater for development (TfD) in neighboring East African nations, Tanzania and Kenya, but the differences in approach, interest, and analysis are so great that while I found Julie Koch's work both fascinating and provocative, Christopher Odhiambo's text is often little more than a listing exercise conducted within a minimal and narrow analytic framework.

Koch's work is based on field research carried out in 2002 in Tanzania. She begins with discussions of both TfD as a form and of Tanzania's political and theatrical history. This is well-ploughed territory by writers such as Penina Malama (2001) and me (1996) but clearly handled. The real interest begins in chapter three where Koch examines in some depth three case studies of projects she was able to visit, in each case looking at the issues of project organization, process, and product and at the event of performance. The fact that Koch's fieldwork only allowed her to visit three projects-all of them short-term-is potentially problematic in a country rich in performance initiatives, but already Koch is able to point out significant differences in the practice she observed. In particular, she contrasts a well-conceived, inclusive community project looking at HIV/AIDS (3.1 Matimbwa village) funded by ActionAid nad delivered by staff from the renowned Bagamoyo College of Arts, with a UNICEF project on the same subject (3.3 Msangi village), where she critiques a formulaic, rushed, and rather top-down process aimed at training-over one week-a group of young people to be arts activists.

Chapter four, "Different Manifestations of TfD in Tanzania," is where the real meat of this book is contained. Koch managed to interview an impressive range of key TfD practitioners in Tanzania and uses both the interviews and her field observations to ask pertinent questions about ideology, methodology, delivery, and aesthetics. Since Tanzania has a relatively long and rich history of TfD practice and training, it is an excellent choice of location in which to base her discussions. I was especially interested in the issue of ideology. Here Koch is able to trace a trajectory from work in the 1980s that was informed by a desire to assist community transformation and empowerment, including taking on political authority, to the present day where academics and practitioners such as Frowin Nyoni are arguing that TfD should limit itself to local and domestic issues (124) and where Augustin Hatar says that "the Popular Theatre process seems to have come to a standstill" (123), with practitioners seeming to have run out of new ideas and community leaders resistant to attempts at grassroots empowerment. Usually the finger of blame for the domestication of TfD processes is pointed at commissioning funding bodies, so it is really useful, if somewhat depressing, to have this discussion broadening the debate about what Tanzanians see as the role and potential of arts in development in the twenty-first century.

In her conclusion, Koch celebrates the health, professionalism, and contribution of TfD to development processes in Tanzania, but points up the gulf between empowerment rhetoric and the reality of often rather controlling project processes. She also raises the ever-problematic issue of whether grassroots communities can really be empowered when processes are controlled by international NGO finance, and asks questions about the role money plays in motivating TfD professionals to take on projects even when they are far from ideally conceived.

Odhiambo's Theatre for Development in Kenya is, in its scope, far more extensive than Karibuni Wananchi. Rather than three projects, Odhiambo examines over twenty TfD-related initiatives in Kenya, in a number of which he was personally involved. He also puts his analysis in an introductory context of looking not just at the background...