Welcome to George - just in time for Afrovibes!

Artistic Director Kate Stafford writes:

Bilimankhwe is expanding, and finally, after a long time looking, we have found the perfect Creative Producer. Georgina (George) Bednar is currently working for the Barbican; however, due to her freelance producing career taking off, she is now available to help us at Bilimankhwe to fulfil our potential as leading practitioners in African theatre. Hurrah!!

George is the retiring Artistic Director of Muju, a Muslim and Jewish theatre organisation based at the Tricycle. Which is a lovely bit of serendipity, as our autumn project, a tour of playreadings by Mike Van Graan, includes Brothers in Blood, a play about Muslim/Jewish/Christian relations in Capetown, South Africa.

So the Arts Council grant has come in, and we are almost cast for the play readings which are being produced at Afrovibes2014. We're going to be reading the two plays in London, Birmingham, Nottingham, Manchester and Newcastle so there's a lot to organise. More info is on our website here: http://www.bilimankhwe-arts.org/#!afrovibes-2014/c1rsg

There's a lot more in the pipeline ... so expect rather more regular blog updates. I'm hoping that both George and Amy (Associate Artistic Director) will be contributing interesting, entertaining pieces for your delectation. So watch this space, and follow us on twitter @bilimankhwearts

In Battalions Festival

Amy Bonsall, Bilimankhwe’s Associate Artistic Director, attended the In Battalions one-day festival on the 4th July, which was held as part of a three-day new writing festival at Drama Centre London. The idea behind the festival, the brainchild of playwright Fin Kennedy, was to bring together culture professionals (theatre-makers, journalists, politicians and academics) ‘to share innovative ideas and practical ideas for maintaining a vital theatre ecology in the UK’.

A tall order, given the current climate of austerity and cuts in investment in the Arts, I would have thought.

Anyway. Here are Amy’s thoughts:

What an important day it was: emotional, sometimes vicious, informed and enlightening. Firstly a huge thank you to Fin Kennedy, co-Artistic Director of Tamasha and the creator of the In Battalions movement, for his incredible work. What became clear as the day went on was that cuts were deep and cuts were hurting. The state of new writing seems perilous; without the nurture and experience of companies to encourage, develop and produce new work we are risking losing a generation of plays.

The day began with the usual rather awkward but rewarding ‘intro chats’ with new faces, those who seem familiar and those better known. Indeed the event was very well attended and I was pleased to see some Bilimankhwe friends there, including Rebecca Gould from the Soho Theatre and later Stella Duffy. It was heartening to see theatres such as The Gate, Slung Low, Eclipse Theatre, Theatre Centre, Northumberland Theatre Company, Yellow Earth, Theatre 503, London Bubble, Theatre Absolute, Coney, Park Theatre, Finbrough Theatre and Neil Darlison (ACE Director of Theatre) all taking part in panel discussions.

What was a total disgrace however (especially when you consider that In Battalions was born as a result of a discussion about new writing with Ed Vaisey MP) was the significant lack of a single solitary representative from ANY political party. Not one, not even UKIP. (Cancelled the day before apparently). Now that speaks volumes as to where the Arts are located on the Political Agendas.

The excellent Keynote speech by Taryn Storey, The Arts Council and The Politics of Risk: Funding for New Writing in a Neo-Liberal Age, was chilling. The changes in the function and the purpose of the Arts Council and its politicisation paved the way for the current funding crisis; and as I heard time and time again, for many it is a crisis.  This set the tone for the rest of the day. The format was 3 rooms with 3 different panels in each one; attendees were able to switch between any of them at any time.

Throughout the course of the day I attended two sessions, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.

The morning session, National Portfolio Organisation Analysis was a fascinating discussion with companies who were new recipients of NPO funding and companies who had been NPO funded but lost it.

During the morning I found myself pondering various issues. Specifically: why is there no facility for Whistle Blowing at the Arts Council, for people involved with projects/companies in receipt of funding who are concerned at misuse of funds? Surely we must do all we can to protect the small amount of public money we do have!

Even more importantly, I feel that there is an argument that there is a creeping censorship by lack of funding to particular groups. Not all artists from all communities are in a position to ‘make the work anyway’ and so those voices are essentially silenced.

There was still a sense from those in the audience that the National Portfolio is still a closed ‘Club’ and that there is a significant issue around Arts Council officers not being able to see artistic work.

During this session there was a comment that minority issues being discussed did not include ‘women’. I feel it is essential to include this in any discussion about contemporary Theatre and it was sadly missed from the otherwise essential and engaging debates. I trust that this will be rectified at the (fingers crossed) next In Battalions Festival.

Building the Battalion was a more fragmented, but no less interesting afternoon. We heard from Maddy Costa and Jake Orr, founders of Dialogue Theatre Club and the unstoppable Stella Duffy, founder of FunPalaces (which will light up the Theatre landscape of Britain in October 2014). There was much inspiration to be found; the message was to be brave and to make work without funding and without mainstream approval. I don’t disagree with this, but there has to be a balance in state subsidised artistic risk-taking to promote a healthy and vibrant theatre and new playwriting landscape. If artists cannot afford to live, then only those with ‘means’ or those who are willing/able to subsist and make art will be the ones whose voices have a chance of being heard and that neglects swathes of the general population.

The day provided a unique opportunity for individual professionals and companies to come together and discuss common goals and issues as a collective. This is something rare in what is an extremely competitive industry. There is a huge pool of business, funding and management expertise within the industry and it was wonderful to see links being made for the overall good of the profession.

I sincerely hope that this will become a regular event, and that in future we will have the policy makers there as well as the theatre makers. It is quite clear that we are not ‘all in it together’, but we can all come together to find creative, innovative ways of carrying on our work in this state-imposed ‘Age of Austerity’.

Notes:

The In Battalions report, published by playwright Fin Kennedy and researcher Helen Campbell Pickford in 2013, received widespread coverage and formed a significant part of the recent debate about arts funding cuts, in particular around theatres' capacity to take risks on developing new plays and playwrights in an age of austerity.

The 2014 follow-up, the In Battalions Delphi study, brought together 36 innovative solutions to this problem, sourced from and voted on by theatre professionals. These proposals suggest new ways for theatres and theatre-makers to work with the Arts Council to protect creative risk-taking on new work.

Read Fin Kennedy’s blog here: http://finkennedy.blogspot.co.uk/

More information on the In Battalions Delphi Study: http://www.writersguild.org.uk/news-a-features/theatre/492-in-battalions-delphi-study

More Shakespeare musings

This month has been an exciting and interesting time with several new initiatives and ideas progressing to the next stage. Most notably, I had a fab meeting with artist Hazel Albarn. I met Hazel through her daughter Jessica (whose solo exhibition 'Resurrection' opens at the Lawrence Alkin Gallery in London this week http://www.lawrencealkingallery.com/events/resurrection). Hazel works with organic materials to create beautiful, earthy sculptural pieces; her work in paper was of particular interest, given the theme of magic and books in The Tempest, which is likely to be the next major Bilimankhwe project. I am so incredibly excited to announce that she has agreed to join the creative team for The Tempest to create a set design which can be adapted for use both in Malawi and the UK. Her experience of working outside the UK, most notably in Africa (although she also did some very interesting work around books and paper-making in Japan) will be invaluable. She is however mostly known for her theatre design work with Joan Littlewood at Stratford East in the early 1960s and her famous artist/musician son Damon, for whom she recently made a moko jumbie puppet. She is currently fascinated with puppets and masks which I hope will also form part of the design for The Tempest.

So the game is most definitely afoot! I have just come back from a very interesting and energising lunch with Dr Sonia Massai of King's College London, in which we talked about various Shakespearean productions we had seen. A lovely wide-ranging chat which always gets my creative juices going! Of course the conversation inevitably turned to The Tempest, and the various merits of colour-blind, and in a term coined by Jude Kelly, 'photo-negative' casting.

When I first started thinking about The Tempest, I had a conversation with Muthi Nhlema in Malawi (he was my assistant director on 'An African Dream' back in 2005, and now a writer whose opinion I very much respect). We were talking about the colonial themes, and how we could make that clear in the casting: my idea was to have Caliban and Ariel played by black Malawians as the original inhabitants of the Island, and the Colonisers (Prospero and Miranda) as white. He was keen to switch these, to challenge the stereotypes and make people think about how humanity organises itself into the oppressors and the oppressed.

Sonia reminded me of the American production of Othello, directed by Jude Kelly, which did exactly that: Patrick Stewart's Othello was the only white cast member, the rest being played by African-Americans. While this was largely a successful production, Sonia thought that casting a play so simplistically, reversing 'white' and 'black' roles might be seen as a gimmick, a tokenistic approach to a serious topic. In her words, there may well be a collective shrug, a 'so what?' in response.

This is very interesting. Casting a play about colonial oppressors with the white people as the subjugated indiginous people would be a hugely political statement in Malawi. But here in the UK it might be seen as simplistic, tokenistic. Is this a reason not to do it? I think not. the plan is to start this production in Malawi, to rehearse and open the show there in 2015. Then in 2016 to bring it to the UK as part of the commemorations of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death. Perhaps we should first gauge the reactions of the Malawian public and then take a risk with UK theatre-goers.

We are just at the start of this journey, and already the conversations we are having are incredibly rich. Exciting times ahead.

Malawian Politics

Interesting times in Malawi. An election was held. Declared invalid by the incumbent President to an outcry from the opposition, who could smell power. The courts got involved ... a re-count was ordered but there wasn't enough time so everyone shrugged their collective shoulders and let the original count stand. So welcome Prof. Arthur Peter Mutharika, and commiserations to the losing candidates, Rev. Chakwera (the closest challenger), Joyce Banda and the Young Pretender Atupele Muluzi.

This election has got me thinking though. What is it about political dynasties that everyone likes so much? Are we really hard-wired to have a monarchy so that we revert to it as a default position? However able the new president proves to be, I can't help thinking that he got in on a 'better the devil you know' ticket. Even though his brother Bingu led the country into the worst economic, political and diplomatic crisis in decades and was deeply unpopular, somehow the collective memory has been wiped, and the majority of voters want to see the DPP return.

Unless of course Joyce Banda was right, and the DPP were guilty of electoral fraud.

I suppose we'll never know, now.

My friend Seodi White, an intelligent and highly educated lawyer who lives in Malawi, is a supporter of Mutharika and was an outspoken critic - famously so - of Joyce Banda, the outgoing president. I respect her opinion, and am really hoping she's right this time. But I am watchful and wary of this new-but-old administration.

Fingers crossed.

Fun Palaces

So I'm off today to the Theatre Royal Stratford East to discuss Fun Palaces. But what is a Fun Palace, I hear you ask. Well ... here is what the organisers say:

What is a Fun Palace?  Based on Joan Littlewood and Cedric Price’s 1961 idea, it is a welcoming, inclusive space sharing arts, sciences and learning. It’s fun. It might have music, theatre, lectures, dance, tutorials, playing, sitting down, lying back – whatever you want. It is created with and for local people, for all ages. It is free, with public engagement at its heart. It can happen in a village square, a theatre foyer, a museum corridor, a school canteen, it might take over an entire venue or a street, it might be a small tent in a field. Every Fun Palace will be as unique as the people making it and its locale. More about Fun Palaces : www.fun-palaces.com

Sounds interesting, doesn't it?

The Epic Adventure of Nhamo the Manyika Warrior and his Sexy Wife Chipo

Off to the theatre last night - the press night of a new play by Denton Chikura at the Tricycle Theatre. I was really looking forward to it, as I have loved Denton's work as an actor and theatre maker (most notably in Two Gentlemen of Verona which played last year at The Globe) and worked with him during the research and development of Jack Mapanje's new play. Also this was to be the directing debut of Lucian Msamati, Artistic Director of Tiata Fahodzi and one of my favourite actors.

So it was with some trepidation that I approached the theatre ... I so wanted it to be good, as I would see both Denton and Lucian there and I am a bad liar!

Luckily, this was a fabulous evening. I haven't laughed so much in ages, and in spite of being seated right at the top looking down at the stage, I had a really brilliant time. While the ensemble of four actors worked beautifully and they were all splendid, Nyasha Hatendi as Commander Specimen still managed to steal the show with a perfectly timed comic performance which was truly masterful. The rest of the ensemble, Don Gillet, Ery Nzaramba and Tanya Fear also had their moments of brilliance and the lovely simple set by Ben Stones was beautifully lit by Paul Keogan.

This was a really successful intercultural show - with a cast drawn from Africa (Rwanda and Zimbabwe) and Britain, a Zimbabwean/British writer, a Zambian/British director and an Irish Designer, it was truly global and made full use of the opportunity to draw from differing cultures. Western cultural references jostled with Zimbabwean goatherd jokes, and on the press night the diverse audience at the Tricycle joined in enthusiastically when given the opportunity to 'ooh' and 'ahh' at the outrageous performances.  This was an upfront, over-the-top celebration of humanity: I laughed my socks off. Don't whatever you do miss it!

Working with Complicite

Here at Bilimankhwe we're buzzing with our newest project - we are collaborating with Complicite, one of the UK's most respected theatre companies, on a project in Malawi.

It's all come about after we were approached by Jamie Hampton of the Chauncy Maples Trust. The Chauncy Maples is an old ship which is currently in dry dock in Malawi being converted into a floating clinic. The Chauncy Maples Trust has raised a staggering amount of money to convert it, and it will soon be travelling to otherwise inaccessible communities on the northern shores of Lake Malawi, bringing much needed healthcare.

The idea is that a travelling company of actors will travel on the ship, performing wherever it docks. The shows will be in local languages (chichewa, yao and tumbuka), have health themes and will help to publicise the clinic. 

To kick the project off, we are sending two teachers from Complicite to Nanzikambe's Mwezi Wawala Festival at the end of August to run a 3 day theatre-making workshop for Malawian artists. 

One of us will also be there to co-ordinate and participate in the workshop. 

This is a fantastic example of how theatre can really make a difference in the world, and we are proud to have been part of it.