Oscar win for ‘Music by Prudence’

I was so excited to hear the amazing news of the success of a documentary about the band "Liyana" and Prudence Mabhena. I've borrowed the text below from The Bulawayo Morning Mirror.  I've seen "Liyana" perform and saw Prudence when she came to see Zambezi Express at The Bulawayo Theatre last week!

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“Music by Prudence,” a film by Roger Ross Williams, has won an Academy Award in the category of Short Documentary.  The 33-minute documentary stars Prudence Mabhena, a talented young woman from Zimbabwe suffering from arthrogryphosis, a rare disorder that severely deforms the joints of the body. Despite overwhelming odds, Prudence, who sings in five languages, is sharing her astounding talent with the world.

Prudence and some fellow students and musicians are members of an Afro-fusion band called Liyana (“it’s raining” in Ndebele). All eight of its members are disabled. Marvelous Mbulo has muscular dystrophy. Farai Mabhande shares Prudence’s disorder and plays the keyboard with twisted fingers. Prudence, the band’s only woman, cannot hold a microphone, so it’s mounted to a metal stand that reaches under her chin. With just a head, torso, and tiny arms, Prudence weighs no more than 50 lbs. But the sound that pours out of her is rich enough to fill a stadium, and it is haunting.

Meet Prudence Mabhena, 21, the hero of our tale.

Prudence lives in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, and for a long time almost no one knew about that hauntingly beautiful voice. No one knew the strong, resilient woman who owned it. They were unable to overlook her body: crippled and deformed with a debilitating condition called arthrogryphosis.

When Prudence was born, her paternal grandmother wanted her dead. In Zimbabwe, disabled children are believed to be the result of witchcraft. In extreme cases, families kill them – to remove the “curse” from their family. Prudence’s mother kept her and fed her. Cast out of her husband’s (Prudence’s father’s) home, she brought the baby to her own mother’s rural home. Four years later, she left.

All eight members of Prudence’s band Liyana are disabled. – Photo: Errol Webber

“Music by Prudence” traces the path of this little girl, and her remarkable transcendence from a world of hatred and superstition into one of music, love and possibility.

The child was raised by Rachel Ncube, her maternal grandmother. Grandmother Ncube taught her to sing. A working farmer, she would strap the little girl to her back as she worked the fields. But when Prudence turned 7, she knew she couldn’t school her. So she sent her to live with her father and his new family.

There, Prudence fell prey to neglect and isolation. Her stepmother refused to touch her and called her a worthless, helpless “ant.” She was despondent enough to attempt suicide – twice.

There is a haven away from this pain: King George VI School and Centre for Children with Physical Disabilities (KG6). Privately funded, KG6 struggles on the brink of destitution. Yet every year, hundreds of disabled children blossom and thrive.  Prudence gets a scholarship to KG6, and her new life begins.

Bulawayo provides the film’s colorful backdrop. Like the rest of the country, Zimbabwe’s second largest city is largely dysfunctional. Water stoppages and electrical blackouts are daily events.

Roger Ross Williams and Elinor Burkett collecting the award!

Allen Sibanda Artwork

"Crossing the Line" ($30)

"On the Move" ($30)

"Manifestation" ($20)

Three mixed-media pieces by my friend Allen Sibanda that I absolutely love.  Am slightly sorry that these particular ones I have to deliver to another friend of mine, as I'd quite happily keep them myself!  I love the way Allen uses collage techniques and creates such beautiful forms and figures.  And all of his artwork seems to tells some individual and intriguing story.  I had the fun of spending a few days in his studio last year, setting up my easel and rediscover the fun of painting for myself.

Prices are in USD. If you are interested in this kind of work I may be able to help with transportation and processing payments.  Contact me, or Allen directly, on Sibandaallen@hotmail.com for further info.

Green Room - first 2 months

Apologies for the time lapse with news about the Green Room, it's off to a very good start.  Here are some pictures to fill in the story over the last 2 months.  The week of the Green Room launch we spent a bit of time at the theatre getting the workshop space ready.  Already the guys at the theatre had painted us a big black circle on the floor to be our stage space and two  artists from the national gallery had helped me to create a large folding screen as a flexible 

piece of scenery.

 

With a bunch of friends volunteering to help, we then painted 3 walls at the theatre that needed a re-vamp.  Two in the bar area and one large wall in the workshop that we had decided would be perfect for projecting films & images onto.  Despite the heat of the sun on the roof we did a good job, had fun and I think impressed the theatre staff with our dedication!

Setting up on the launch day was fairly straightforward.  Similar to the Lounge it involves collecting and setting up PA equipment, lights, tables & chairs, a projector and signs directing people to the venue.  The space look great, decked out with all the fairly lights and candles and then with images projected on the wall.  The bar area also looked cool.  As we've known all along, it is a very funky space! 

These are a few snaps from the launch night, showing some of the performances.  We aim to have a programme of 3 live theatre pieces and also a film item. Ideally we want to represent theatrical diversity and to introduce new styles and forms of theatre.  We also believe in the need for a varied programme to be entertaining escapism, and at times a reflective and provocative look at current affairs and issues. On launch-night we had a gripping one woman piece about unwanted preganancy, a thought-provoking monologue from the perspective of an angry grave-digger in modern day Zimbabwe and lastly an ensemble piece weaving historical and modern affairs together. 

More images from the December Green Room will follow...

The Green Room

One week to go!

It's all coming together - been pretty busy lately with organising and publicising the launch of The Green Room but things seem to be coming together.  There's a fair amount to think about - venue details, publicity, acts, refreshments, design etc! But the general vibe surrounding it is good - people are positive and excited!

Trumpet

Today, excitingly, I was joined in Zimbabwe by my trumpet, which thanks to a friend, has also now made the +/- 9,000 km journey south! Having played the trumpet throughout school and to a lesser extent at uni, it's quite bizarre to pick it up again a few years, (and a different continent) on. But I'm excited about it being part of my adventure in the arts scene in Zim and feel it may actually prove pretty significant. And, if slightly late in the game, I'm realising that I may have a musical bone in my body after all!

Poetic Brush

As part of the Intwasa festival, Tswa and some others organised a really interesting collaborative event called Poetic Brush, held at the Bulawayo Theatre. It was a creative combination of fine art and music/poetry which saw a selection of artists from the National Gallery of Zimbabwe (Bulawayo) collaborating with musicicans/poets in front of a live audience. Each pairing of a fine artist with either a soloist or group took place and lasted for the duration of a song, during which the artist would create a work in their chosen discipline.

The blend of music and image was exciting, as was the process of watching a piece of art emerging live in front of you. Each artist's style was distinct and it was particularly interesting to see this playing out. From the techniques used to apply paint, to the influence of the music on the pieces. The most exciting moments were when there were alignments and parallels between the two, and the collaboration expressed something of the influence each had on the other. Also contributing to the excitement was the time-pressure each duo was under given the relatively short period of time for creating a piece of artwork. At times is became a battle against time to complete the piece and there were several humorous moments such as Soul Familiar's improvised ending to his song to encourage the artist to wrap up painting!

Weekend Extravaganza

Last weekend was a full on creative extravaganza. Bulawayo put together and hosted an Art & Craft show, complete with exhibition stands of fine art pieces and lots of stalls selling handiwork, jewellery and all kinds of beautiful items. The diversity and quality was great. The event took place at the national gallery from Friday afternoon through to Saturday afternoon. Exhibitors and interested parties came from Harare and South Africa to see the showcase of talent and artistic creativity and take part. Weeks back The Lounge was approached to put together and run the entertainment for the whole event. Coincidentally last Friday was the second Friday of the month (the usual date for The Lounge) so we combined the two events. For us it marked something of a step up as we, as organisers, had to provide around 15hrs of entertainment in total (where a usual Lounge event lasts 3hrs) but we were confident of being up to the challenge, not least because of all the musical talent we know resides in Greater Bulawayo... To be fair, with Oria and I both away for the 5 weeks beforehand, most of the organising was done by Tswa in collaboration with the event organisers and the Alliance Francaise who were sponsors. All in all the weekend was brilliant, as was the entertainment element. I had to hit the ground running with only one full day between arriving back in Zimbabwe and the opening. I did that slightly more literally than I intended, namely by fainting for the first time ever in my life (a result of heat, running round not eating/drinking enough and getting a fairly graphic version of someone's amputation story all in one go!) Despite being exhausting - we finished at the gallery at midnight on the Friday and had to be back soon after 7am on Saturday - the whole weekend was great and gave The Lounge a whole new (and larger) audience. I liked the variety of people who came through and were obviously impressed by the quality of talent. I was responsible for liaising with our artists before and after they performed. An amusing moment came once the event was well underway and on their arrival I met a dance group due to perform. After showing them to the changing room I asked if there was anything they needed and they said 'a fire please, for our drums'. Apparently in order to produce the best quality sound, certain types of drums need heating up, normally either by being left in the sun for a few hours or in front of a fire. It wasn't a request I was expecting, but soon we had made a plan using some cardboard and a space out the back of the gallery, and the drums were heated to the required amount! It made for some cool pictures