Hopkins Center for the Arts

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Eti! East Africa Speaks!

Warner Bentley Theater • Free
Free tickets available at the door 1 hour before showtime.

Eleven East African theater artists, representing Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and Rwanda, are at Dartmouth for a two-week residency, followed by a week and a half in New York City. Part of Dartmouth's 2008 Summer Arts Festival AFRICAS, this series of readings, plays and performance pieces features some of East Africa's most prominent playwrights, actors, directors and dancers.

Sunday, July 6
5 PM: Reading of Cooking Oil—a new play by Ugandan playwright/performer Deborah Asiimwe.

8 PM: Reading of Remember Lumumba—a new play by Ugandan playwright and Brown University Ph.D. candidate Charles Mulekwa.

Saturday, July 12
5 PM: Forged in Fire—A collaborative performance piece by Ugandan playwright/performer Okello Kelo Sam, Tanzanian musican/dancer Robert Ajwang' and Dartmouth Theater professor Laura Edmondson, integrating dance, music and testimony to explore Okello's wrenching experiences during the civil war in northern Uganda.

8 PM: Come Good Rain—A solo autobiographical play written and performed by Ugandan playwright/actor George Seremba, incorporating song, folklore and live percussion to take us on his journey from bare survival and terrifying experiences to triumph over the oppressive political regimes of Milton Obote and Idi Amin in 1970s Uganda.

Sunday, July 13
5 PM: Mtumishi wa Umma/Public Servant—Featuring Tanzanian poet/performer Mrisho Mpoto, this piece exploring corruption in contemporary medical practice draws upon Parapanda Theatre Lab's unique style of Swahili-language ensemble theater that fuses improvisation, dance, music and drama.

8 PM: They Call Me Wanjiku—A solo piece by Kenyan writer/actor/producer Mumbi Kaigwa with music by Andrea Kalima of Tanzania, exploring the complexities of womanhood and the struggle to reclaim and re-articulate female identity in Kenya today.

Eti! East Africa Speaks! has been organized by Laura Edmondson, Dartmouth Theater Department, in collaboration with Ugandan playwright Charles Mulekwa and co-founder of Theatre Without Borders, Roberta Levitow.

Sponsored by the Leslie Center for the Humanities, as part of the 2008 Summer Arts Festival AFRICAS. Cosponsors include the Dickey Center for International Understanding and the Dartmouth Theater Department, with generous support from the Ford Foundation.