Da Factory Club
Welcome to another Friday’s cocktail of raw talent exhibition of art pieces and cultural works both in progress and as showceses. As usual your number one end of the week art galore lived up to its unique billing as one stop open podium to ALL forms of art as well as expression and exploration of different issues. Karibuni!!!

The 8th February – This special edition of Da Factory Club organized by Kenya Performing Arts Group got underway on the quite appropriate theme of ‘moving on’ because of the current state of matters as well as the presence of guest artists sponsored by K-PAG who had a special message to share with fellow artists. True to its principled mantra of being an open podium were artists express themselves Da Factory Club lived up to this billing despite welcome challenges.

The second Da Factory Club 2008 featured artists of the Hot Sun Foundation from Kibera who entralled the audience with their different art works based on their first hand experiences of the post-election violence. Based on different empathically fueled themes of homelessness, loss of loved ones, effects of violence, reprisal of their human and democratic rights, and senseless plunder; they were able to move the audience with their story. It is for the awesome fact that while murder and plunder went on around them and yet they still got motivation to MOVE ON and create pieces of art that K-PAG decided to sponsor them with workshops plus an open podium in Da Factory Club to showcase their work and perform alongside them. The Hot Sun Foundation Artists showed the whole world their determination, resilience and discipline that art should be approached with. As usual other artists also managed to prove their mettle where they were joined by those that offered critics and comment on the different showcasses.

It is 15th February 2008 and the third edition of Da Factory Club is held at the Kenya Cultural Centre, Kenya National Theatre in Nairobi. Almost all categories of art were explored albeit a heavy preference to music followed by dance, poetry, theatre and visual arts. Among the participants were Radi Culture Group, Pro’ of Jicho Four, Roy Ogolla, Simple Nelly, G.gspice, Riverside acrobats, Olith Ratego, Kenya Performing Arts Group and various artists from Fanaka arts, Jicho Four and Culture Spill.

22nd February 2008 – Da Factory Club was graced by the Grapevine crew from the Kenya Broadcasting Cooperation who made a coverage of 45 minutes long which was also compounded by massive attendance of over 100 people. Visitors (15 students and 2 teachers) from International School of Tanzania witnessed and enjoyed the showcasses. Among the participants were: Odongi Ohangla (music, percussion), Riverside acrobats, Mochez (dance), Pitchu (poem), Abel (poem), Macha (rap), Dr. Optii (rap), Cliff (rap & poem), Wambogo (poem), Black Diamond dancers, K.A.D.E. (dance), Grace (dance) and Kenya Performing Arts Group with several artistic creation of dance and theatre. The M.C. was Roy Ogolla, number one fan of Da Factory Club. This was encouraging as more resident artists are slowly starting to appreciate Da Factory Club as their thing and therefore investing their creativity, time and energy in it.

In view of the milestone set in this edition it would temporarily suffice to say that much has been achieved within the short-term scope aspired.

Da Factory Club – Every Friday at the Kenya Cultural Centre in Nairobi from 2 p.m. ALL WELCOME!!!

In today’s Newspaper The Standard 18-4-08

Racism’s resonance evident in attacks on Obama

Whether by calculation or unhappy coincidence, Hillary Clinton and Republicans who have attacked Barack Obama for elitism have struck a chord in a long-standing symphony of racial codes.

It is a rebuke that gets magnified by historic beliefs about what blacks are and what they have no right to be.

Clinton is no racist, and Obama has made some real missteps, including his recent remark that “bitter” smalltown Americans facing economic hardship and government indifference “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them”.

Perhaps he was being more sociological than political, and more sympathetic than condescending. But when his opponents branded him an elitist and an outsider, his race made it easier to drive a wedge between him and the white, rural voters he has courted with success. As a black man, he was supposedly looking down from a place he didn’t belong and looking in from a distance he could not cross.

This could not happen as dramatically were it not for embedded racial attitudes. ‘Elitist’ is another word for ‘arrogant’, which is another word for ‘uppity’, that old calumny applied to blacks who stood up for themselves.

At the bottom of the American psyche, race is still about power, and blacks who move up risk triggering discomfort among some whites. I’ve met black men who, when stopped by white police officers at night, think the best protection is to act dumb and deferential.

Furthermore, casting Obama as “out of touch” plays harmoniously with the traditional notion of blacks as “others” at the edge of the mainstream, separate from the whole.

Despite his ability to articulate the frustration and yearning of broad segments of Americans, his “otherness” has been hightlighted effectively by right-wingers who harp on his Kenyan father and spread false rumours that he’s a clandestine Muslim.

In a country so changed that a bi-racial man who is considered black has a shot at the presidency, the subterranean biases are much less discernible now than when Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. They are subtle, unacknowledged and unacceptable in polite company. But they lurk below, lending resonance to the criticisms of Obama.

Black professionals know the double standard. They are often labelled negatively for traits deemed positive in whites: A white is assertive, a black is aggressive; a white is resolute, a black is pushy, a white is candid, a black is abrasive; a white is independent, a black is not a team player. Prejudice is a shape shifter, adapting to acceptable forms.

So although Obama’s brilliance defies the stubborn stereotype of blacks as unintelligent, there is a companion to that image - doubts about blacks’ true capabilities - that may heighten concerns about his inexperience. Through the racial lens, a defect can be enlarged into a disability. He is “not ready”, a phrase employed often when blacks are up for promotion.

When Clinton mocked Obama for the supposed emptiness of his eloquence, the chiding had a faint historical echo from Thomas Jefferson’s musings in Notes on the State of Virginia that “in music they are more generally gifted than the whites with accurate ears for tune and time,” but “one could scarecely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of (the Greek poet) Euclid.”

This slander that blacks had more show than substance was handed down through later generations as a body-mind dichotomy, with physical and mental prowess as opposites. Overt ‘compliments’ - they’ve got rhythm, they can dance, they can jump - were paired with the silent assumption of inferior intellect.

Clinton surely had no racial intent, but none is needed for a racial effect. In a society long steeped in stereotypes, such comments reverberate. The incessant loop of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright Jr. Obama’s pastor of many years, cursing America and repeating old consiracy theories has revived fears of black anger among whites whose threshold of tolerance for such rage has always been low.

No matter that Obama seems anything but angry. A few sentences from his pastor are enough to incite such anxieties.

The nation is testing how its racial attitudes have evolved. As the campaign continues, Americans are likely to be pleased and dissappointed with themselves.

K-PAG Mix is a training programme by K-PAG specially designed for people with disabilities of different forms. The training entails theatre and dance as an aspect of the performing arts in which the performers are professionally and competently trained to use these forms of art in expression day to day life, social advocacy and civil education. They have chosen not to be victims of circumstances for their own good and the good of others around them. With the support of esteemed sponsors, it has been possible to undergo one year of training thus they have staged one raw performance after two months of training ‘unfinished statement’ and now in their own story have come up with a production entitled: deep dim

DEEP DIM

This is a performance that reflects the issues of day to day living that affect the society and are given undue oversight

Controversy, fear, pity, laughter, tears, is just everyday phenomena….. But what are they? Or then again what are they about?

The cast contains of people with and without disabilities who have worked together in the making of this piece. It is always astonishing to note that some of them cannot hear the music or respond to impulses in their state of disabilities and thus create a new language of art

K-PAG Mix has the pleasure to invite you to this out of this world performance.

Date: 26th April 2008

Charges: 200/=

The tickets are available in K-PAG offices check http://www.brain-fusion.info/kpag/contact.

It is the with great concern that Kenya has found herself in such a breath taking scenario, this was totally un expected and got nearly everyone by surprise, but what surprise? Kenya is one of the most un equal society when it comes to wealth distribution, and like the rest of Africa, Kenya young and energetic population is always left behind if not suppressed. This people who are people at there prime are completely un utilised and in the end so many dreams and aspiration are deferred to mere fighting for daily survival. This is hard reality that in deed the so called and fair election in Kenya has exposed.

The main challenge is how to even start addressing this? The naked truth is out there, mistrust is also hanging, the Kenyan institutions in ability are also puking and really stinks, the shame is too broad to un bare, the level of poverty is there on your face that makes it looks like a fiction! People turn on each other as if it was just another bad dream. We the young generation we are beginning to asks ourselves what went wrong? And how long has it been going on ? and why did we not see it coming?

Once I thought my country was very religious, now I knock my head and say haaa! It was religious how could I be so stupid? Knock knock! Anyway all is not lost, we have to keep how hopes a live and hope against hope there is some decent young , old , men and women out there who will bring sanity to our once beautiful country on earth and this Kenyans are you and me and definitely all of us. We have a mission and a vision that we don’t need to write but bring it close to our hearts and make it personal. KPAG we are a group of young Kenyans from all over Kenya encompassing nearly all tribes brought together with a collective aspiration of wanting to do something with our lives using arts and culture.

At time when our unity is been tested, it is even more urgent that we put our heads together as young Kenyans and show the world .. What?…. above all prove to the world our strength and our capacity to restrain from this vicious violence that has left a lot of many Kenyans worst than when they went for voting hoping that something could happen in the effect. We are not doing as if we don’t know what is happening, yes we are aware of what happen and we denounce it in the strongest terms possible! But the ball is in court and we have two choices shrew it or make the best out of it.

To understand the present government and Opposition or to put it in another form to understand the present opposition which is the government and the circles continues is something worth bringing to the theatre space which will still look absurd but is a good starting point of improvisation. So I urge all members of KPAG and ex-Members to be more sober towards this situation and above all preach peace and encourage dialogue using the tool we know best SHH!! ‘friends, Romans and fellow country men this is not a time to…we don’t want to miss this when we meet again and resume our normal classes. Hope to see you as soon as possible and keep the fire burning inside!

Daily Nation – Friday, September 1 – 2006
Interview: Elly Wamari (ewamari@nation.co.ke)

MY TAKE Odak Onyango
Founder of Kenya Performing Arts Group, which leaves the country at the end of September for a two month tour of the Netherlands.
An Actor and dancer, Odak also recently founded the Nairobi International Festival of the Arts (NIFTA), which is a five-day carnival of performances by local and foreign performing arts groups in selected parts of Nairobi. The inaugural NIFTA ended on August 26.
Odak is also a founder of the Factory Club where individuals and groups to present their acts to an audience every Friday at the Kenya Cultural Centre to gauge responses.
Would you panic if your pants dropped on stage?
Well, I would improvise something quickly and make it part of the act. It’s often advisable to be prepared for such odds. The “what if?” question is very important. Odd happenings do occur on stage sometimes. Even big actors drop in unexpected lines by mistake. The bottom-line is to make it appear very normal if that happens on stage.
What one thing would you change in the performing arts scene?
The high financial expectations that people often have. When I took the NIFTA idea around, I noted that people, though receptive of the concept, expected a lot of money in return. I understand that there is need to put bread on the table, but I also wish that in this field, people focus first on the long-term impact of their productions rather than what will be given to them.
How would you depict the present parliament in an act?
As a king in a big castle, who needs to come out to the masses in December and give out Christmas gifts. I have come to realise after NIFTA 2006, that to represent the majority is not the easiest thing, especially where there is a lot of expectations. But that does not mean that our parliaments should barricade themselves and then dish out little amounts of cash to their constituencies instead of coming up with long-term policies to address their problems.
Would you recommend dance as therapy to the heartbroken?
Yes. Go out and just dance. Even you, when you feel tired, just try dancing for a little while and you will realise how fresh you feel. By the way, dance is a universal communication media with which you can reach anybody. I think that within dance, there is so much dialogue.
The most outrageous role you’ve ever played is…
That of a henchman who would agree with whatever the boss said, and even add salt to statements made by the boss. People booed me for that. I look back and say I will never play such a role. I mean, I will never be a henchman in real life.
Your free time is taken up by…
My baby. I am a father of a little girl. She is four months now. She takes all my free time, and I love it!
What is least known about you?
Most of my peers don’t know my background. They don’t know that I was born in Mathare. Many people don’t know too, that I often expect to fail rather than succeed.
What urban dream will NIFTA achieve?
NIFTA’s theme (“Bridging the urban dream”) is actually about the millennium development goals. Placing the festival in slum areas and involving people there has the effect of drawing international attention to what goes on in those areas. After three NIFTA’s, I see a situation in which big talent from these poverty-stricken areas will eventually find beneficial international exposure as issues afflicting them get highlighted and possibly addressed. Don’t you think that, in itself, will bridge something?