The Department of Fine and Performing Arts
Chancellor College
Disillusioned Inhabitants and The Ignorant Expert:
Unearthing the Neo-Colonialist in the TFD Practitioner
Theatre as Communication for Development
Chancy B. Mauluka- MA Theatre and Media in Communication for Development
2006
1.0 Introduction
The birth of Theatre for Development has been facilitated by the Africanist movement which has been against the Euro-centric validation of forms of theatre to give space and status to the African aesthetics which had been neglected for long. In the early 1980s, the Theatre for Development conference in Botswana wrestled at large to coin an understanding of Theatre for Development which has been the driving conceptual force so far. Being related to that understanding have been other definitions by different exponents. While they have minor differences in emphasis and perspective, the definitions have one thing in common: The realization that African forms of art are indispensable elements preliquisite for theatre for development.
In this paper, it is first the idea of identification that is questioned. While the Africanist has applied all conscious effort to identify and incorporate elements of indigenous theatre in Theatre for Development, it is at that where he has lost romance with the form. Just as the capitalist failed to understand African forms by virtue of looking at them with a western eye, the Africanist has done the same by looking too much at them with an eye of academy. It is for this reason that theatre for development has been the incorporation of ethnocentric forms of art into performance; a performance which when microscopically looked into, is of the same western taste which the Africanist rejects. This paper purports to discourse that theatre for development should not be the incorporation of indigenous forms of art into an Art. It should be left alone in its own purity and be left to develop in its own right and might.
In this paper I shall first tussle against some attempted definitions of Theatre for Development to excavate some of the terms which implicate an ideological encroachment in the conceptualization. Secondly, I will discuss the trends in its evolution to clearly highlight the development of the thought and fill the gap which I feel is currently required. My case studies will in the end hope to justify my claim by showing that there is a theatre for development among the grassroots which requires some candid attention. While I have argue to extreme length in some sections; a thing which draws in a Marxist face, it is clear at every conclusion that it is a hybridity of concepts I am talking about. Only that during that hybridization, care has to be honored to ensure that there is the dominance of localization.
2.0 The Definitions
Chris Kamlongera in his PHD Thesis has not described Theatre for Development. Whether he did not have to is not the question here. He began by only saying various terms are (and can be used) for Theatre for Development, for example: popular theatre, propaganda theatre, case drama, developmental theatre or sometimes political theatre. Here Chris is only making reference to the trends of theatre in Africa and, in my view, it is wrong to use those terms ( as he asserts that they ‘can be used’)in reference to Theatre for Development. It is like saying ‘man is an ape’; if the evolution theory is anything to go by. Or to make it more crude and clear, it is like saying ‘water is hydrogen’.
What breeds his hesitation of description is probably the fact that Theatre for Development is still being developed. And he mentions:
Theatre for Development is being developed as one of the ways of helping masses in Africa to come to terms with their environment and the onus of improving their lot, educationally , politically, economically and socially.[1]
I concur with the last part of this quasi-description: ‘ to come to terms with their environment and the onus of improving their lot..’ This means that Theatre for Development is there to bring about progress. This progress is in the holistic sense. He just reserved ink to mention the words ‘psychologically’ and ‘technologically’. In short, by improving their lot, it means improving their culture. And ‘culture means everything; including science.[2]
However, Chris puts me in a fix when he mentions that it is a way ‘ of helping masses’. My problem is not on the word ‘masses’ but that of ‘..of helping’. This word already reveals that this Theatre for Development is coming from the outside of the community. Chris here deserves some defense, because his narration (‘description’) is only based on what Theatre for Development is doing, not what he thinks it should be.
If you remove the term ‘of helping’ you will see that there has always been Theatre for Development in African communities, even before this African nationalist ventured to conceptualize and operationalize it. Communities, through indigenous theatre, were already coming to terms with their lot .It is in fact this operationalization that disregarded the autonomy of the indigenous Theatre for Development. And then the expert puts his dose of what I term the elitist/lampen bourgeois Theatre for Development.
In Zakes Mda’s definition of concepts, he says Theatre for Development can be theatre-for-development without being popular. He relates that Kamlongera (1989) has noted that a government-sponsored project in Malawi uses forms that are alien to the people’s own modes of artistic expression, such as puppetry. So did Laedza Botani in Botswana, and a Theatre for Development project which evolved into Marotholi Traveling Theater in Lesotho. At times, scripted plays are performed to live audience or broadcast over the radio. At others, small format videos and films are used. All these, he says, lack elements necessary to make them popular theatre, such as people’s participation in the creation and performance. They are not rooted in tradition, nor do they enrich and expand the people’s own forms of expression. However, in so far as they are modes of theatre whose objective is to disseminate development messages, or to conscientise communities about their objective social, political and economic situation, they are modes of theatre-for-development. And he concludes; so not all theatre-for-development is popular theatre though theatre for development is most effective when it is popular.[3]
Though not explicitly outlined, we catch a glimpse of definition in Mda’s analogy; and that is that Theatre for Development should be all modes of theatre whose objective is to disseminate development messages or to conscientise communities about their own objective situation.
In the first place, this definition is not prescriptive so much so that any practitioner can claim that what they are doing is Theatre for Development. When one disseminates ‘development’ messages artistically ( propaganda) it will be Theatre for Development. The concientisation approach will be a matter of choice according to this description. And by refusing to be popular the practitioner is refusing to be contextual. Therefore Heal the World by Michael Jackson, Another Day in Paradise and all adverts on condom use (which are greatly attacked by the villager) should be Theatre for Development. It will really be chaotic when the rhetorical politician, stands on the podium, tackles his subject of propagandizing and claims that he is the rightful practitioner of TFD- definitely he has his ‘developmental messages’ wrapped in his artistic expressionism: The expressionism which is alien to the society.
It is my claim therefore that removing the idea of popularism from theatre for development is refusing the acknowledgement of historical moments that have failed in its evolution (like did the use of puppetry), and therefore making Theatre for Development nonexistent. Even the process of concientisation will not work if you remove the popularism.
3.0 The Metamorphosis of Theatre for Development
3.1 The Driving Forces (of the Theatrical thinking)
David Kerr in Research in African Literatures (55/6 ) well narrates the development theories and how they have influenced theatrical thinking. Making reference to Rostow (Rostow 124-26) he says during its hay days in the early 1960s modernization theory posed inevitable stages of economic growth. The primary task of underdeveloped countries was to create, through educational expansion modeled on Northern school systems, a modernizing elite which would supposedly foster the capitalist and democratic conditions necessary to transform underdeveloped countries into modern nations (Roxborough 20-22). In the idea of culture the same has in a canvas been described as ‘Culture vs. culture’ where the western values were thought to be superior ( the ‘Culture’)and the others inferior ( the ‘culture’). 2 During this stage the dominant/capital culture would develop the smaller one through a ‘trickle down’ effect.
Kerr continues to remind that the other model of development during the 1960s was Marxist. It was historisist, although it was based on change through class conflict rather than through evolution. In practice attempts at applying Marxist transformation by African populist parties were diluted through the ‘imposition’ of “ African socialism”. Despite progressive achievements in such fields as literacy and mass communication, the relative failure of African socialism had discredited Marxist models of development in Africa by the mid-1970s. Ironically, that period also witnessed a major sense of disillusionment with the capitalist model of growth through modernization, because African states had had generally failed to achieve economic takeoff and because the little economic growth which did take place was purchased at a huge social cost. This situation created an urgent need to rethink development strategies.( Kerr,56)
Emerging in the 1970s was then the dependency theory of underdevelopment ( Frank, Walestein and Amin). New emphasis was placed on the need to de-link African economies from the northern core metropoles and to seek appropriate technologies for laying the foundation of an indigenous industry. ‘Perhaps more important for aid funding it was felt necessary to mitigate the effects of urban/rural discrepancies by channeling aid to non governmental organizations rather than to state bureaucracies. In this way development agencies could presumably deal more closely with community organizations, rather than relying on putative ‘trickle down’ effects which neither trickled down nor multiplied.
The development of Theatre for Development was an anti-colonialist struggle. It saw the African camp of the educated elite acting against the missionary poetics taught in schools and widely capturing the attention of the Africans. It is not wrong to term it Marxist because the ‘missionary’/European art was viewed as the thesis while that of the African as the antithesis. But the war was won only by the educated African elite who later took the thrones of the ‘missionaries’; thus re-creating a neocolonialist environment of learning in African circles. My description of the trends below clearly stipulate this neo-colonialist crisis.
3.2 The Theatrical Thinking
Reflecting on the development of Theatre in Africa we discover that there have been different experimentations of Theatre for Development in Africa; differing in objective and methodology. While the core has not only been taking ‘theatre to the people’ and using it to reflect and interpret the society; but at large using theater to transform society. It is this notion of transformation that has implicitly contradicted the very notion of Theater for Development in most of its forms. It’s my argument that it is during this transformation that only certain aspects have been felt by the ‘transformer’ as valuable. It has been a notion of making Africa a modern society. This developmentalist while doing his heartfelt duty has not answered the questions: How modern or Modern to whom? And in the process has only promoted western values and unconsciously advocated dependency; thus making Theater for Development a tool for underdevelopment. This ‘transformer’ has committed sins of omission both in objectives and methodology. By objectives I mean the tenets with which the expert has come, and by methodology I mean the form/approach that the TFD pieces have taken.
3.2.1 The Contradiction from ‘Objectives’
Paulo Frere’s concept of consientisation has been one of the strongest hubs of Theatre for Development ‘practitioning’. It is necessary therefore to look into the intricacies of this concept before we go further. Frere’s consientisation has three major steps which are cyclical during their implementation or experimentation on communities. These are as follows as evoked by Mda (101)[4]:
- Naming : What are the problems in our present society?
- Reflection: Why do these problems exist?
- Action praxis: How can this situation be changed?
Theatre for Development has been using this model but only to a limited extent in as much as this exercise has been triggered or supported by donor funding. The naming stage presupposes that none of the people involved; neither the ‘subjects’ nor the ‘animator’/facilitator knows what the problem is. They (the community) have to collectively name it. Discover it. But how do they name it when the TFD expert already has a motive disguised in the process of involvement? In as much as the NGOs and the TFD experts have objectives when entering a community, they should not in any case disillusion observers and analysts that they are applying the Frerean principle of consientisation. The community ‘name’ only as a matter of principle; and what follows when they ‘wrongly name’ is a thorough sensitization exercise to make sure the communities see with the eyes of the practitioner. Lest the project objectives, which are highlighted in the project concept note, are not going to be achieved.
Any participation which follows after wrong naming is a participation in propaganda.
When in May and June 1984 the Kopano ke Matla! ( ‘ unity is strength’) was taken to communities by the Marotholi Traveling Theatre of Lesotho, the objective was revamp producer co-operatives. This was the objective of the Institute of Extra mural studies ( IEMS): An expert objective of those who have the ‘superior knowledge’. However, the people had many preponderant problems e.g. the dissatisfaction with the political environment. But these were not the naming of the IEMS and its borrowed experts. It is therefore not surprising that when ever people tried to make suggestions contrary to the play’s tenets, the suggestions were ‘tactfully’ brushed off by the experts.[5] Like saying “We have already named it!” This was a civilizing ideology.
When people are not involved in the naming, each one of the following steps becomes nullified because it is a hypocritical participation the people are involved in. The solutions just as the problems have to first receive the blessing of the catalyst or the project implementer; though not explicitly cited. This can be observed intuitively in how the director of Kopano ke matla! , professor Andrew Horn, gave his reasons for avoiding any active involvement of the villagers in the theatre during the 1985 International Conference on Theatre for Development in Maseru. The dialogue took place between David Kerr, Steven Chifunyise and Andrew Horn[6]:
Kerr: You have a play with many alternative endings, and the audience debate on them and choose the best
Chifunyise: The open ended play does not offer solutions but makes the audience come up with solutions. Then the play will have an ending which has been suggested by the audience, and that becomes the ending of the play
Horn: There are tremendous political divisions in Lesotho. When you open up the play in that way, you are making up a political forum
It is easy to be attempted that Horn is refusing a political conflict here, but when you look closely into it you will see that it is ‘the other objective’ that he is rejecting. The objective of the audience/community. Because they do not have to name it.
There are many examples that could be cited to expose how the idea of ‘objectives’ has frustrated the ideals theoretically professed by Theatre for Development. The Rural Sanitation Play of the same Marotholi was sponsored by the Rural Sanitation project RSP) in 1986 where some people among the audience felt they just had to tell them what to do instead of manipulatively/’circumlocutively’ or rather hypocritically involving them. ‘Why don’t you just tell us to build toilets instead of going around in circles with plays’ and ‘ Yes they are trying to ridicule us because they are of the new government which overthrew our prime minister’ were some of the comments. If we critically look into the idea of consceintisation we will see that these people are latently feeling disillusioned by the idea of involvement. They feel bluffed by the process because they are forced to reach a praxis the name of which is alien.
In Malawi there was the SMC-EQ project implemented by CRECCOM between 1999 and 2001. The project, Social Mobilization Campaign for Educational quality, aimed at sensitizing, motivating and mobilizing communities to take up an active role in addressing their constraints to educational quality. After the participatory action research and data analysis plays were created for the community. There were several instances when some members of the community felt the problem of deteriorating educational standards were not preponderant issues. Being a period when many claimed the fall of the Malawian economy, villagers in some sites strongly felt the need for Agricultural improvements required great attention. While some were scrupulous in their relating of educational standards and agriculture others would clearly divert the issues- without caring. ‘ What we want is starter pack!’* I personally have been a victim of the donor objective. Of course there would be some way of discussing the starter pack issue; like probing them on how they could operate without using fertilizer. But there was not enough time to do that. And if that was entertained to far lengths, putting aside issues of poor infrastructure at the school, it would definitely turn out to be an agricultural project.
3.2.2 The Contradiction of Forms
Taking Theatre to the People: The first beak through that the African expert made was the institutionalization of Traveling Theatres. This was to lay an antithesis of the western approach which put theatre into the confinements of the university halls; and the idea of traveling was taken from what African practice was doing. An example of such groups of artists was the Arinjo performers of Nigeria, an indigenous traditional traveling theater that was recreational and at the same time ceremonial. Then emerged other popular troupes in West and South Africa like the Ghanaian concert party , the Nigerian opera, the South African Musical Theatre of practitioners like Gibson Kente and the Malipenga dance of Malawi.
The University Traveling Theatres ( the Ibadan/Nigeria, Makerere/Uganda, Chikwakwa/Zambia and Chancellor College/Malawi) first set out to teach the people about the phenomena of theatre as they understood it in the classroom.( Mda 8, Kamlongera..) Though the idea of traveling was post-independent, I negatively/ironically look at this as the first attempt towards the neo-colonialist intrusion on the rural masses. The expert African had only carried the face of a westerner by virtue of instilling his dramatic forms from his departed masters.
Creating Theatre for the people is not sufficient in itself. In fact it is not very different from simply touring foreign plays among the people. Whilst the plays may veer towards African experience there has to be sufficient effort to identify an appropriate way of presenting it ( Kamlongera, 1989,p.70)
The only difference later was that beyond mere translation of the alien piece, like did Yoruban Kola Ogdunmola in the adaptation of Tutuola’s The Palm-Wine Drunkard, the post-colonial practitioner started to use local language, myths, proverbs and stories as the basis of their productions. This was a move towards the creation of theatre for the people.
Creating Theatre For the People was triggered by the dissatisfaction that the above forms still had the elite elements of Drama dominating. For example the Chikwakwa theatre in Zambia consciously sought to create an aesthetic correlative of popular concerns. Kerr quotes Michael Etherton explaining;
The theatre was meant to develop a style of drama that used the dances, songs and music of the rural areas and the urban townships, the masks and the fabulous costumes, the artifacts, the fires and the lamps of traditional story telling. ( 19/20)
You can see here however that the western drama is still dominant- just incorporating the African forms into its genre. It uses them! And through that only, there is still the neocolonialist mask on the African expert.
Creating Theatre with the People consisted of a workshop ( usually of about two weeks) held in the target area. Community workers researched the developmental constraints of that area, created plays through collective improvisation which highlighted some of the issues at stake, and performed the plays for the community to stimulate discussion, leading to community action that would hopefully overcome the developmental constraints. This model of Theatre for Development was initiated by a group of educators at the university of Botswana, the Laedza Botanani, and later spread to many African countries as a result of workshops , such as the ones at Chalimbana, Zambia ( 1979); Mhlangano, Swaziland ( 1981); Mbalachanda, Malawi (1981); Benue, Nigeria (1982); Freetown, Sieraleone ( 1983); Malya, Tanzania (1983); Yaonde, Cameroune (1984), Maseru, Lesotho (1984) and Morewa, Zimbabwe (1984)-( Kerr,59)
It is this trend of Creating Theatre with the People that the present expert is currently cerebrating; at least according to what has been documented. Running away from the idea of ‘intellectual manna’ they rightly think that participatory research is a tool towards making the issues locally palatable. The plays are created out of the research findings and a rigorous data analysis. Then they incorporate the local aesthetics into their ‘improvised’ plays. Those who are very faithful to the model even involve the people of the village in songs and dances; before and within the performance.
However, my question still remains, whose ‘improvisation’ is it? Is it really organic as the expert claims? This expert has a sketch of the invisible script which drives his improvisation. Scenes are arranged, and they are these arranged scenes to which the actors respond with an ad hoc dialogue that is not scripted. Those scenes are arranged in dramatic style; taking into account theories of plot, rising conflict and even the denouement. This is art in its western sense. Whether some expert will not be very good at it as will another, the fact remains that the participatory researching is only geared at making issues imminent and that the local forms of theatre are only incorporated into the improvisation of this expert. During the performance itself a microscopic eye will not miss the fact that despite the break through of TFD in ensuring a ‘theater in the round’, when the university students do their job, it is just the western actor celebrating his harvests of formal education. They enter and exit from anywhere into the arena, they mimic the villagers, they dance their songs, but when it comes to dramatic moments you will notice theories of The Movement of Energies, Acting Towards Victory, Estrangement, the Avoidance of the OTN ( On The Nose) Responses, Variations of Heights and so on. One may think that they are innocent because they are using Drama as one tool towards Theatre for Development. But that is not why we should apologize (defend) them. If at all they should deserve an apology, it is because they, psycho-historically and intellectually, have been colonized to the very bone.
Let me make a little diversion by discussing how the western intrusion of dramatic appeal has influenced the appreciation of Film by some Malawians. During my personal communications with a number of University of Malawi students and other viewers, I have gathered that some ( if not most/of those I’ve discussed with) do resent Nigerian films. “ They are banal,” remarked one undergraduate student of performing arts; and “They do it like stage drama. Like ATEM pupils!” commented one driver from CRECCOM. This driver is a captive of the ‘west coast’; a thing I observed through his repeated emphases on the ‘Tom Cruizes’. On the other hand, it was easy for me to interpret that the university student was making her observations through the western eye; even through her use of the word banal. Definitely I was going to agree with her, if theories of Tightening the Moments were something to offer sacrifice and bow down to. In my own view Nigerian films have broken through the western conventions which only mean a lot to the African elite.
Creating Theatre from the People is what I am professing. This mean that when we say there has to be an organic development of TFD from the indigenous pieces , it should be an unselfish organic development. Something that takes the indigenous forms as superior over the experts knowledge and practices. It should be the indigenous genre incorporating the expert’s form; and not the vice-versa.
Whenever the expert encounters a community he/she should have the idea of learning from the people, and suggesting to them withinst their own right and autonomy. This means that if the communities mode of expression is in song and dance, e.g. Gule wamkulu or Vimbuza, a realy organic theatre for development piece will have the dominance of Gulewankulu or Vimbuza and just a few elements of drama if the expert wants to suggest these to them. And in his suggesting this expert should honestly be aware that they (the community) are doing it with him: Not that he is doing it with them. Two Chichewa words would explain that philosophical approach well enough. Ndikupanganawo and Akupanganane. In ndikupanganawo (literally meaning ‘ I am doing it with them’ ) they are the ones doing it and you are just participating, while in akupanganane (Literally meaning ‘they are doing it with me’) you are the one doing it and they are merely participating. But the expert will definitely be scarred when it comes to sacred cults and the ndipangenawo (‘May I do it with you) principle. Objects move towards areas of smallest resistance; and the expert has done so- consciously or unconsciously. In his quest for the easier way out, he has resorted to western dominance. Here these cultural forms come into his performance as mere shadows of the real; hoping that the people will mirror themselves through the performance.
However while being scared thus, the expert should know that there are other forms which are not as sensitive. But he should not abuse them ( by incorporating them) by the mere fact of their deemed/imagined insensitivity. He should pay them the same homage as he/she would with the sacred art. It is that homage which will make him a novice to them. A real expert should bear in mind that he gets re-educated every moment he encounters a community and their genre. It doesn’t matter whether they have some relations with what he has already encountered. This is because culture is complicated in its form of having sub-cultures which even in themselves are dynamic while having hidden elements. To get into grasp with these hidden cores of culture one requires an empathetic imagination to travel in ‘another’s’ culture.[7] Whether the ‘insensitive’ cultures have suffered syncretism at some point, it does not give professional/intellectual liberty for ‘abuse’.
To over-view on some of these ‘non-sacred’ forms and how the expert would get involved in them I will give some cases that I personally have encountered during my expert experience in the MESA ( Malawi Education Support Activity) project at CRECCOM.
4.0 Case Studies
4.1. Case Study 1: Kaphaizi orphan Care-form in Form
Kaphaizi village is located in TA Chulu, of Sub-TA Kaphaizi in Kasungu district. In the village is a group of women that performs songs and dances to convey different developmental messages ranging from environment to health. These songs are usually coined up to suit different developmental messages according to the donor that finds them. When the TFD troupe from CRECCOM visited Santhe in September 2003 the group were asked to perform different songs. They were asked to priorities those songs that had not been tampered with by project messages in order for the CRECCOM troupe to get the real grasp of cultural aesthetics. One song was performed entitle Sanje iluyaka Moto ( almost meaning ‘ Envy is ablaze/flaming wide’)
The performance:
The women make a circle in the middle of the round ( the arena).
Two Leading Women: Sanje, iluyaka moto. Sanje iluyaka moto. Alemberena malire iluyaka moto. Alemberana malire iluyaka moto; sanje!
The Other Women: Sing the same words as did the leaders. After several repetitions of prominence /leading and response the two leading women get into the center of the inner circle and do something of the following dialogue:
Woman 1: eeh , inu ndakupezani! ( Ya, I’ve found you!)
Woman 2: Ine! (Yes, Here I am)
Woman: Iwe zoona ungamanyengane ndi amuna anga ( How could you be going out with my man?)
Woman: Eee! Bwanji? ( That’s what am doing, so what?)
Woman 1: Uleke zimenzo. Amuna anga ndimavutikanawo kulima. Akagulitsa fodya ukudya chuma ndiwe. (Quit it! I cudgel about with him in the field; and when he sells the tobacco, its you who are eating up the money)
Woman 2 : Shauli yako ase. Ngati siumam’chengeta umati adzitani. Ndikudyera!
………………e.tc ( That’s your problem. What do you expect of him if you don’t ‘nurture’ him well. Definitely I’ll ‘eat your food’).
The two women ‘exited’ into the other group and another couple did their part just as the previous two. Through their dialogue ( not physical characterization) you could read that one had taken the role of a man.
Woman 3:Asisi, tabwerani ( Hello, ‘sister’, may you come around?)
Woman 4: ine? ( Me?)
Woman 3: Eeeh . Ndilinazotu. Za okoshoni…….( I have it ( meaning money) Straight from the auction…)
The dialogue goes on with the two women making relations to life in the village amidst ululations and comments from women in the audience. Men also did their commenting: Mostly adding on to what was left by the two actors e.g. one man mentioned “ Ku Hot sport Kumeneko!” / “ That’s at ‘Hot sport.’” Hot Sport was/is a drinking place at Kasungu township
The perfomance goes on. What personally attracted me in this performance was the idea of authenticity. The first part of the dialogue seems to be original because it was once performed by other women at Chipoza in TA Santhe of the same district. Taking it on the argument of ‘objectives’ above, one will see that it is the practice of husband sharing that prompted the naming in this song. And this is a question of development if holistically taken.
Whether the existence of dialogue within song and dance is indigenous or syncretic will not be questioned, but the matter at hand is that this performance is one genre an expert can learn and develop from. Definitely if he has to honor the ndipangenawo principle, he has a fertile ground to start from. His tactics of audience involvement would grow within the dialogue that these women are making; instead of creating a play which incorporates that performance.
4.2: Case Study 2: Tigwirizane Orphan Care Drama Group--Rejection of Space/The Omni-Present and Omniscient Actor
Before I start on this case let me mention that cultures have their own way of adopting any new forms of expression (‘new cultures’) that ‘migrate’ into its autonomy. The visited culture has the strength of disenfranchising the visiting one in the process of contextualisation or syncronisation. Therefore, in other circumstances, despite some notable traits of the deemed ‘dominance’ of a new culture there are some core traits that are never touched in the new culture. And so the visiting culture is not dominant, though it may so seem on the facial/superficial level. One clear fact is that after the respiratory ‘christenisation’ of Africa by the early missionary, the African Christian still had his belief in the ancestors. Still practicing his rites within a Christian context.( AIM, 61-264). One example of disenfranchisement happened in India:
When the western missionary landed in India, he introduced Cricket as a means of inculturaring the natives. But the natives ‘inculturated’ the game. They latently broke all the rules in the process. The ball had to be thrown into the farthest part of the forest where the ‘opponents’ had to fetch it. And there was no blueprint rule for marking the end of the game. The ultimate goal was ‘never to win’; but to enhance social living. It became a game of tribal bonding where winning did not matter, because the hosting tribe always won the game: something of a planned homage.[8]
This example highlights the idea of rejection and disenfranchisement of the alien forms that entrench withnst their midst. Whether this is a conscious or unconscious effort will not be my concern; but I feel obliged to mention that cases of rejection and disenfranchisement were evident even in Malawi through the Gulewankulu ironic creation of Christian masks like Malia (Mary/definitely mother of Christ)( Kamlongera) and , as I strongly allude, the naming of some people and places e.g. Kuntumbo kwa Yesaya ( literary meaning The Asshole of Isaiah), a village in TA Makwangwala of Ntcheu district.
When the expert fails to discern this rejection, he will definitely interpret some of the genres found in the communities as a failure to mimic his and his master’s rigorous methods.
Tigwirizane Orpah Care was by August 2004 a group of sixty-five women and one man who was the chairman. The Care is in Group Village Headman Mliwo of TA Sitola in Machinga district. Among its objectives was the advocacy against the proliferation of HIV and AIDS and the call for and practice of mitigation strategies against the impact of the disease on the infected and the affected. The group therefore had home based outreach activities in which they offered assistance to the sick and orphans in form of material and moral support. The old of the villages around were also reached as most of them were found to be nurturing orphans. The group was and is self sponsored through member contributions and income generating activities like the opening of communal gardens. In advocating for its goals Tigwirizane had used Drama and Song and Dance. During the TFD activity conducted by CRECCOM in August of the same year Tigwrizane performed one piece. Because the play was aimed at decreasing promiscuity and sexual abuse of children I will call it the Behavioral Change Play/BC play
The play like many of villagers, opened with a song and the women coming in procession to the arena. The one man was in front; definitely asserting his status. It was Theatre in the round as organized by CRECCOM performers. When they reached the central space only a handful of women and the man remained while the others exited. They sat down in a micro-round: A round within that of the audience. Facing each other while seated, the play began. Every actor was there. No movement:
Woman 1: Mele. Mele. ..Mele ( aside) kodi Mwana ameneyu alikuti? ( Mary!n (aside) Where must this child be)
Mele: I think my mum is calling me. She wants to send me on an errand. I wont go.
Woman: mele! You what are you doing there?
Mele: I’m sleeping……….
In other episodes there are two scenarios on the arena e.g. a Head Teacher’s office and a house in the village. In reality these scenarios are kilometers apart. But at times you discover that actors in one scenario are able to hear what is taking place in the other; and can comment ‘irresponsibly’. They can even confront the person in that other scenario by moving into that space and express their point e.g. “ So you are saying am a bad parent!’; and no trouble is taken to explain how the confronting person knew or has known that he/she was talked about. Actors know everything at their will- an artistic freedom of knowledge.
It is easy to deduce that this is an impact of radio on stage. But then there is no scientific evidence for that ( because it might also be legacy of folklore). What I am claiming in the case is that the expert really needs to be very smart before he descends onto the genre because there are some golden buttons/elements on it. The idea of not seeing an actor you are next to, and the capacity of knowing what people were doing in secret should not be viewed as mere failures of art; but as intricate aesthetics that drive the practice. They were exactly these that attracted the audience; possibly because they were contrasting it with other forms.
5.0 Conclusion
Taking it from the historicity of TFD practice and the claim that I have put across in this paper; that the Theatre should be created from the people, the definition of Theatre for Development should thus be that it is the practice of theatre elements by a people and sometimes with an organic facilitator; the motive of which is to consolidate or progress communal practice with an underlining theme of development in the normative sense.
The word by a people means that there can be Theatre for Development without the facilitator coming from outside the community either with a theme or style of performance. Normative Sense will mean that development will be conceptualized by the people themselves. The two terms validate all the indigenous rites of passage , e.g. Gulewankulu, Litiwo, Lupanda, Vimbuza and so on, as forms of Theatre for Development. Not just elements of it. The word normative also questions the idea of globalization. Normative progress means that communities will develop in their own right. The developing communities should never be a shadow of the ‘developed metropoles’.
The ideals of TFD are to some extent similar to those of decentralization.
Decentralization is the process of devolving power from high/central authority to the low/local authorities. Devolution, which is the highest stage of decentralization, envisions the relinquishing of economic and political/administrative power to the local communities[9]. Decentralization if closely analyzed is either assuming the presence of an informed society ( to make decisions) or if not is rejecting globalization of ideas. By assuming the Needs Based Approach, decentralization is making a strong claim that the communities should name the problem. A Health Surveillance Assistant will be hit at heart to see his community not naming the lack of toilets while choosing to have sponsored razor blades or improved paraphernalia for initiation. So if global issues are to be achieved either in full or in part, a little bit of propaganda (euphemistically called ‘sensitization’/’enlightenment) is required. But propaganda is not a recommended element if the ideals of decentralization ,or TFD as I claim, are anything to go by . Therefore, Theatre for Development and Decentralization are, as the status quo stands, misplaced. They assume an enlightened/informed society that will not fall victim to any act of ‘propagandising’ in the process of naming and ‘resolutioning’: Because, it is only by removing propaganda that societies will really develop in their own right. When the external facilitator brings his global themes, it is an informed society that will be able to synthesize those ideologies, challenge the inorganic-facilitator, disfranchise those ideologies and make a way forward; a way unique to themselves.
Theatre for Development, therefore, only exists right in the village. What comes with the funded joker is mere Propaganda, masqueraded as Theatre for Development. A propaganda Theatre with some painted/ bluffed traits of participation where disillusioned inhabitants only participate in their none-participation.
Bibliography
Decentralization Policy, MOLG, 2001
Eagleton, T. The Idea of Culture,Blacwell Publishers, 2000
Hatten R, Knapp D & Salonga R, Action Research: Comparison with Concepts of ‘Reflective Practitioner’ and ‘Quality Assurance’, E:E-Journal, 1997.
Hiebert P. G, Anthropological Insights of Missionaries, Baker Books, 1985
Kamlongera, C. Problems of the Growth of Drama in Society: Case Studies of Malawi and Zambia, PHD Thesis, Leads University, 1984a.
Kerr D, Participatory Popular Theate:Tthe Highest Stage of Cultural Underdevelopment, Research in African Literatures, 1991
Mda Z, When People Play People, Witwatersrand University Press, Johannesburg, ZED Books, London & New Jersey, 1993,.p.48
7
In the Kamala
village of the Phalombe district lives Emily Yona with her husband Mr. Yona.
While Mr. Yona is a traveller who cuts woods for construction companies, Emily
stays at home with their kids and buys tomatoes in town to sell in her village.
