Story MOJO – Day 21 in Kenya

Rooftop Direction

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Today brought three members of the Kenya Collective team to a story telling workshop. The day produced a mentoring of 77 finalists. All of us were grandly impressed with Storymoja and the brilliant opportunities they are providing these talented young people. The 77 will compete at the Hay Festival. One will be chosen to go the US of A and perform. Our Team worked with the finalists on story telling, presentation and in general how to take the work they’ve done to a new level. We learned as much as we taught.

John Hayden – Project Director

Invitation for the Nation – Day 20 in Kenya

Organisation with a view

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Today saw the beginning of rehearsal for the play. With a full script and cast list, we began blocking the play scene by scene and managed to reach the halfway point by lunchtime. It was arduous at times but we can finally see the play coming to life. In the afternoon Mudamba continued directing Living Memories, and although I was not involved I saw some really nice work that will look so much better with time and rehearsal.

The gala night is also coming together steadily, with myself and Callum addressing and ‘cover-letter’ing around 200 invitations to ambassadors, company directors and cultural organisations – we’ll just sit tight and see how many RSVPs we’ll get.

So that’s it for now, another busy week ahead – let’s go!

Paul Moss – Project Producer

Chair Duets – Day 19 in Kenya

Deciding what material to include in the Schools Show

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So we’ve been working with Kenya collective for 3 weeks now, and done some really cool stuff I think my favourite session so far was when we did physical theatre. We sat in pairs and made up short (10 move) sequences and did them loads of times so they stuck in our heads. Then we joined the 2 pairs together, and Paul and Gareth added theirs as well. After that we worked out the transitions and got quite good at doing our bits fast.

At first I found it a bit difficult but when I got into it I really enjoyed it. Out final piece was so cool, and then making up the story and seeing how it changed with the music was interesting. I think it looks really effective, and is a great way of performing drama without speaking, but still showing emotions and relationships. Definitely gonna use the technique in our devised A Level performance!

I also liked the stomp workshop we did today cos I got to make lots of noise and I think we could incorporate it into our piece as well – if we used the idea of starting off as monkeys and then building up the piece “instrument” by “instrument”, that’s a plus. I liked the idea of using our memories of Kenya as a starting point and I hope the idea of setting our scene on a car bonnet will work well! And yeah it’s just been really fun so far!

Lulu Fidelo – Student at Hillcrest Secondary School

Stomp put loud! – Day 19 in Kenya

Gareth leads a workshop at Hillcrest Secondary School

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I’ve really enjoyed doing the physical theatre, as its something new that we have never done,but we all enjoyed so much. It was so interesting how we just came up with random movements and joined them all together with everyone else to make different stories, and how it worked so well to “Bad Romance” and how we showed our emotions through our facial expressions. And I’m so excited to get some physical theatre in our devised performance we are working on! Today doing the “Stomp” workshop was really good fun and was really funny being monkeys… haha!! But it sounded really good, so that would be cool to add into our devised performance too! I’m really enjoying doing these workshops with you guys!

Leila Zanette – Student at Hillcrest Secondary School

Drama’s a S.A.F.E. bet! – Day 19 in Kenya

Laughs must come with the sun...

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There was so much to do today that the team had to split in two to cover it all. Half of us met Babu at Sarakasi and traveled first on Matatu and then by foot to Mathare slum to watch some of S.A.F.E.’s work there. We met Krysteen in Mathare who welcomed us to a showcase event they had set up as the culminating performances for a week long workshop session they had been running for various young Mathare residents.

The plays focused on the post-election violence and involved many of the perpetrators from the actual violence. It was amazing to see how much the youths had progressed in just a week, producing personal, energetic, emotionally engaging pieces in Swahili (which were translated into English for us).

We watched with Krysteen and Babu who afterwards gave constructive criticism and highlighted the importance of listening in drama. They gave all the participants certificates at the end of the session to commemorate all of their hard work.

Paul and Gareth got up at 5.30am to make their was to Hillcrest Secondary school. They were greeted by 30 kids hungry for theatre and delivered two separate ‘Stomp’ workshops. The kids were incredibly satisfied and not only invited them back next week for a few more workshops, but over the course of today we have received phone calls from a number of other schools asking for workshops after hearing from Hillcrest. On the way back Paul got pick-pocketed in a planned Matatu attack. He lost his wallet and driving license – confirming certain reputations of the capital city – Nai-Robbery.

The other members of the team spent the day at Sarakasi organizing everything for the gala night on the 29th with Ojay, their events manager. Following this we printed cover letters for the invitations, bought envelopes and got to work on making sure we’ll have an audience.

In the evening we went to Slam poetry at Daas restaurant in Westlands. This was an incredible event showcasing all the new up and coming poets of Nairobi and their original work. We were entertained with literature, drama, music and a great MC. I’m particularly interested in getting some of these fantastic people involved for the 29th. We’ll see what we can do!

Callum Cheatle – Project Manager

Scripts, Spirit and lack of sleep – Day 18 in Kenya

Gareth is funny?

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Okay, I promise to keep this short today. I’m conscious I have a tendency to stray off-topic into glib observations on Kenyan life, but I guarantee this blog will be digression-free.

Good? Good.

Actually, my desire for brevity is as much pragmatic as it is stylistic – Cassie and I were up ‘til about 2.30 this morning writing a final draft of the script, and I still had to get up at 6.00 to finish it. Thirteen hours later (I’ve probably slept fewer hours than that this entire week…) I’m back at our base in Runda and need to get this done so I can go to bed.

It was a productive day though. Very, very productive. Now possessing a workable script, we had our first read-through, cast the play off this and are in a position where we can spend next week blocking, running, tightening this thing until it’s really special. Which it certainly can be – there’s an expectative buzz in the group, a feeling that our little transnational collaboration could produce something totally unique. We made first steps toward realising this potential today when we workshopped a couple of short scenes called “Hope” and “Spirit.” They look amazing already and we’re still so far from the performance dates – I can’t wait to see where they’re taken under John’s direction. Later, Mudamba appeared and prepared some Living Memories stuff that will also play at the gala night. I’m slightly less pleased about the way this turned out as I’ve been cast in the role of The Rapey Demon, but it looks great and Mudamba seems excited about doing something new with old work. Living Memories was originally performed as a collection of rehearsed readings in the UK last year, so this is a great opportunity to become part of that cycle.

My fondest memories of theatre are all associated with joy. Laughing hysterically at A Midsummer Night’s Dream at The Globe, at Bottom’s face smeared with whipped cream, when I was about 10 (though I had no clue what was going on); that moment of realisation when I saw what Katie Mitchell was doing with all her cameras and video-screens in Attempts on Her Life. Even last month at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, experiencing the precision and style of Beautiful Burnout’s execution. It’s those moments that make me want to be involved in drama. The way things are going, I really feel we can inspire such moments through Spirit of the Nation. It could be a production characterised by joy. I hope it is.

And now I’m going to bed. Yes.

Gareth Davies – PR co-ordinator

Beginnings – Day 17 in Kenya

Joshua and Richard enjoy a soda after rehearsals in the sun

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Most people will tell you they hate beginnings. You know, that first day at school and you’re not sure if you will get to sit at the cool kids’ table at lunch hour or if you will be bullied and sidelined.  That first day at work and you’re not certain if you will be the topic of most conversations during small talk at tea break. Or that first time in the battlefield and you’re worried if it will be your last.

Unlike most experiences of beginnings full of uncertainty and anxiety, for me my beginning with the Kenya Collective project was one of anger. The previous week we were to meet on a Friday at 3pm but the meeting was cancelled last minute due to a mix-up with venues.

However, as I entered the Storymoja ground the following Monday the 6th for our first rehearsal all that anger melted away once I found the whole team working as a unit and having immense fun. I found myself drown deep into the project and fully engaged so much so that I forgot what I was so mad about. It was deeply humbling to see the creativity and the originality that everyone brought to the table and just the way we all connected as a team.

Over the course of the next few days we shifted our rehearsal venue to the Sarakasi Dome. At the Dome there was this deep realization and respect for the work of a performing artist especially so for the acrobats. When you see acrobats working it all looks so effortless and as easy as abc. Wait until you try out the simplest of acts like just skipping a rope and what was perceived as easy now seems like rocket science. In the end we all came to appreciate that whatever career path you chose or whatever work you do, it is very essential in the great circle of life.

From acrobatics we all tried our hands at writing, ‘the harvest begins’.  Words…words… words…on and on and on. The human mind is quite intricate and unique, hearing each read out his or her individual pieces made me appreciate this fact. Our ideas and thoughts shared in words that further united us as we got to know why each of us wanted to be performers and tell our stories and those of strangers to the world.

Group dynamics began to show as we continued to write and read our work, for me there was a deep understanding of who we are as individuals and what drives us to do what we do.

There is a saying, ‘the easy part is over now and so the hard part begins’ but my experience with Kenya Collective so far has been, ‘the hard part is over now and so the easy part begins.’

Joshua Ogutu – Kenyan Actor

We have a script! – Day 16 in Kenya

Cassie video blogging

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It’s been such an exhausting but exhilarating day! The room we usually work in within the Sarakasi Dome is being painted so we found ourselves rehearsing on the roof!  It was so awesome to work in the fresh air with the African sun beating down! We kick-started the day by finishing devising the poem “I am the Song” which we started our rehearsal process with last Monday. From all the individual interpretations we saw on the first day we’ve forged a kaleidoscopic mix of movement, mime, song, dance, choral speaking, puppetry and drumming. It feels like such a huge achievement to have finally finished it! We also started refining and polishing the whole piece to get it ready for performance at our gala night on 29th September. I can’t believe how quickly our time here is passing!

To end the morning we had a workshop with Mudamba Mudamba on the dramatisation of “Living Memories”. Mudamba is a renowned Kenyan director and it was great to work with him and understand his vision for the piece and how it will fit together with “The Spirit of the Nation.” After lunch we split off into teams to develop a narrative arc for our show encompassing all the key sketches that we selected yesterday. This was a tough process but all groups returned with viable options which we then discussed and voted upon before all returning home exhausted!

But our work was not over! At the house as we set about constructing the dramatic narrative for our piece based on the day’s discussions. After several hours of deliberations and revisions into the early hours of the morning we now have a fully wrought concept, a logical narrative order and a completed script for “The Spirit of the Nation.” It is all so exciting! Our piece is set within a world in which stories are forbidden and in which storytellers are forced to live on the margins and in the cracks of society, travelling to different regions and provinces to collect and bottle stories. Pursued by ‘Storycatchers,’ the storytellers meet in secret to share accounts of the many colourful people and tales they encounter to ensure that they are never forgotten. I cannot wait for the rehearsals!

I really feel like we have reached a milestone today; after only eight days of devising we have developed a supportive performance company, written a show and produced a script. Although there is still lots of work ahead of us I think today has really illuminated the truly collaborative effort and the overflowing creativity present within our international team.

Cassie Bradley – Project co-ordinator

Feeling the Spirit – Day 15 in Kenya

Mercy and Cassie rehearsing on the Sarakasi Rooftop

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This week  was all about initiation from ‘drama camp’ to a professional production. We’ve been putting everything we know into practice suing our theme, ‘The Spirit of the Nation’. This week alone we’ve come up with almost thirty different new pieces – all from the imaginations of the team. It’s an amazing process where we are not just given a script and told to learn lines but we actually put ourselves into the production.

We have just pinned these thirty down to just eleven pieces. Now we have to see how these different pieces will connect into a structured sequence for production.

We have also been working on our poem, ‘I am the song’ -  tightening the movements and the actions.

Its amazing what we have done in three days.

Mercy Wanjiru – Kenyan Actress

Off we go! – Day 14 in Kenya

John and Babu discuss the days ahead

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Today we formed our script. We began with the culmination of the stories and passages written by everyone. That then lead to the assignment of writing scripts. That produced 27 scripts. From there we all voted and decided on the top choices that represented what Kenya Collective 2010 would present. The selections were made and the new assignment of finding a show order was next up.  Thoughts are now stories, stories now a script and now the script turns to show. Off we go!

John Hayden – Project Director