Arterial Network in Swaziland – Interview with Sivumelwano Nyembe: Chairperson of Arterial Network Swaziland

http://www.arterialnetwork.org/about/vision

WHAT IS ARTERIAL NETWORK?

10694249 10154756431745555 7261026434654382275 oArterial Network is a dynamic Pan-African, civil-society network of artists, cultural activists, entrepreneurs, enterprises, NGOs, institutions, and donors active in Africa’s creative and cultural sectors. Established as a member-based, non-profit organisation, Arterial Network operates all across the continent in both English and French, and is led by an elected Steering Committee which represents the five regions of the continent. Arterial Network’s five core focus areas to support the arts are advocacy (through the Artwatch Africa project), capacity building, market access, knowledge management and information dissemination. Its Continental Secretariat is now based in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, as of the 1st of February 2017. Arterial Network celebrated its 10th anniversary in March 2017 in Abidjan.

VISION

The vision of Arterial Network is of a vibrant, dynamic and sustainable African creative civil society sector engaged in qualitative practice in the arts in their own right, as well as in a manner that contributes to development, human rights and democracy and to the eradication of poverty on the African continent.

MISSION

Arterial Network’s main objective is to facilitate partnerships within civil society, beyond national borders and between African and international partners to develop a sustainable creative sector. The input of Arterial Network is often sought after by major international platforms on topics related to arts, culture and development. The network plays a key role in propelling the African creative agenda on the world stage.

Arterial Network was born from strong convictions, expressed by several cultural actors and African civil society, that putting culture at the heart of public policies is the sine qua non condition for a fair and perennial development of the African continent.

AIMS

1. to build effective, sustainable in-country, regional and continental networks within and across arts disciplines to play advocacy and lobbying roles within countries, regions, on the continent and internationally as appropriate.

2. to collect and distribute relevant information, data and documents to empower civil society arts and culture organisations in African countries and regions to plan and take informed action in their interests.

3. to provoke debate, discussions and theorising around arts, culture, creative industries and contemporary arts and culture discourses and to develop African positions and leadership on such issues.

4. to help to build national, regional, continental and international circuits (festivals, outlets, etc.) to distribute African cultural goods and services and enable African artists to tour their works and to generate income through their creative output.

5. to facilitate the training and development of human resources required to practice, distribute and market the arts and creative goods and services of the African continent.

6. to mobilise local, regional, continental and international resources in support of the development, promotion and distribution of African creative goods and services

7. to improve the working and living conditions, and to defend the rights of artists and creative practitioners on the African continent.

MEMBERSHIP

Full membership is open to any African artist or cultural NGO or enterprise based in Africa that subscribes to Arterial Network’s aims and agrees to abide by its principles. Membership applications may be completed here. There is no membership fee. Associate membership is available to partners and to Africans living abroad.

Arterial Network members can be found across the continent working across all arts disciplines and fields.

Meet some of them here!

Join the network!​

ADVANCING AFRICA’S CREATIVE SECTOR

Since its establishment in March 2007, Arterial Network has grown to become one of the largest intercultural networks on the continent. Arterial Network is represented across the continent through national chapters, local partner organisations and members, making it a leading African driven, cultural organisation.

Arterial Network’s membership structure and mass base enables its members to engage with all aspects of the creative sector across disciplines, borders and regions to build more connectivity across the continent, catalyse collaborative opportunities and address key challenges at continental levels with a long-term commitment to sustained change.

http://www.arterialnetwork.org/article/interview_sivumelwano_nyembe_september_2017?page=5
SEPTEMBER 25 2017

INTERVIEW SEPTEMBER 2017 | SIVUMELWANO NYEMBE (ARTERIAL NETWORK SWAZILAND)

PREVIOUS ARTICLE

Although internationally recognised for the annual MTN Bushfire festival, Swaziland’s national arts and cultural sector remains largely underdeveloped, and under attack by the local government. Despite various efforts to reinforce the sector, Swaziland does not have a legal, regulatory cultural policy framework to support the development of the arts, or support artists rights. In 2016, the national police were deployed to stop an Arterial Network Swaziland arts advocacy workshop held in Mbabane. In spite of these setbacks, Arterial Network Swaziland’s membership has continued to grow and its leadership has remained steadfast on their mission to address the multifaceted challenges in Swaziland for a conducive environment for the arts to thrive. This month, we spoke to Sivumelwano Nyembe (Chairperson of Arterial Network Swaziland) for an update on Arterial Network Swaziland’s latest projects.

Please tell us a bit more about yourself. How did you come to work in the arts and cultural sector? 

I started acting in school and took this interest all the way to college level where I produced three plays. I even played at the national theatre. I founded and ran the Poetry and Drama Society at college, and was one of the founders of the Siphila Nje Drama Society, which is the oldest drama group in Swaziland. I continue to work in the arts sector as an author and actor.

As the Chairperson of Arterial Network Swaziland, what would you like to achieve during your mandate?

I would love to have drama introduced nationally at high school level. I believe that to build a theatre visiting public, we must start by conditioning the youth to visit the theatre. For that reason, I have started a project to get young people to develop a school drama production that will be shown at the Swaziland Theatre Club in Mbabane. The project entails training the students as actors and training the teachers in theatre craft.

In the past, advocacy workshops in Swaziland have been interrupted by the authorities. How would you describe the present attitude of Swaziland’s authorities towards artists rights and freedom of creative expression? Has there been any improvement?

The situation has not changed, but we have been able to continue advocating for more tolerance. One positive development that I can touch on is the legislative and policy changes within the broadcasting sector. We expect to receive authorisation to start community radio programmes. These programmes would increase access to art and cultural products, broadcast straight to people’s homes or workplaces. Currently there are only two radio stations in Swaziland: a government station and a Christian one. The government station is commonly known to limit diversity of radio content.

Over the course of 2016, Arterial Network Swaziland hosted various training workshops relating to arts advocacy, cultural management and organisational health (SHIRIKA). What common weaknesses were identified and how do you think that the training helped participants? Are there plans for future iterations?

Training is essential in any industry. In Swaziland, it is critical since those in the arts and cultural sector lack certain basic skills because art is not part of the school curriculum and there are limited post-high school arts and culture training facilities. One of the training programmes that members took part in last year helped to inform participants about arts advocacy. In Swaziland, the state has a different view regarding arts and culture, so there is a need for greater inclusion and diversity across the broad definition of arts and culture. Due to the training, a conversation on the definition of arts and culture has commenced. What I mean to say is that, currently the state views arts and culture as only relating to national traditional ceremonies, extending only to traditional songs and dance.

The cultural management training workshop gave members the capacity to manage their group projects, and the organisational health training workshop (SHIRIKA) showed them how to make the necessary adjustments within an organisational structure to improve their health and sustainability. Although we anticipated this, the training workshops confirmed that most cultural organisations are poorly managed and have various organisational health issues.

As a trainer, where should Arterial Network be investing in skills development in the cultural and creative industries sectors?

In my opinion, Swaziland lacks the craft of art and culture to be able to come out with quality products so my priority is to increase capacity and access to knowledge. We definitely need to continue with the various Arterial Network training workshops as we were not able to include all of our members in the first round.

Theatre for Public Health in Swaziland: Arts Against Abuse

In commemoration of 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence, Members of the public got a chance to see The-Four-Musk-Art-eers in action at the Theatre Club on December 9, where they joined the U.S. Embassy and Kwaka Indvodza, the male mentoring project, in a commemoration of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence. The four artists – Sandziso ‘Sands’ Matsebula (singer), Honest Mhlanga (fine arts), Fundzisile Dlamini Zubani fashion designer, and Phila Dlamini (public speaker) and Nontobeko Dlamini ‘Beko the story teller’  all showed their solidarity in the fight against gender violence by collaborating in using various artistic media to raise awareness and generate a dialogue about gender-based violence with unforgettable performances.

Theatre for Public Health in Swaziland: Educational Plays Bring In Audiences

James Hall

MBABANE, Aug 20 2002 (IPS) – Like many actors in impoverished countries in Southern Africa, where few people are able to buy theatre tickets to support the performing arts, jobs and theatrical experience are coming from commissions from Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and government ministries for plays with educational and social messages.

We are supported by plays with educational themes, but just as importantly this is a way to bring theatre to rural communities who have never seen a production, says Simneke Magagula, director of a Swaziland theatrical troupe Sibahle Nje.

Loosely translated as ‘We are truly beautiful,’ Sibahle Nje is a small troupe of five actors and five actresses who compensate with high energy and extraordinary mimicking abilities for a lack of sets and props, and often a lack of a stage.

Another Swazi troupe of aspiring and accomplished thespians is the People ‘s Education Theatre (PET), whose director, Andreas Mavuso, keeps his group performing through commissions from health and social welfare organisations.

A typical play by Sibahle Nje is held under the trees in open air, with the only incidents that could postpone a performance being rain or hailstorms. ‘We have performed under all sorts of conditions, even at night with a campfire for our stage lighting,’ says Cynthia Dube, an actress in her twenties who specialised in stooped and aged granny characters four decades older than her.

Currently, the group is performing at various venues around the country two productions, a story about HIV transmission and one about child abuse. Both themes are serious, and they pick up where traditional educational booklets and lectures have largely failed among audiences by providing information that will be remembered and hopefully used.

The HIV play is a rollicking comedy about an unfaithful husband and his inebriated friend, both whom are put in their place by strong-willed women. Even grade school children respond to the antics, and come away with an understanding about how a sexually transmitted disease is passed on when adults are irresponsible.

‘Mr. Snake’, a new play that debuted at the weekend before an audience of social welfare workers, was commissioned by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF). The script is based on a story by UNICEF s representative in Swaziland, Alan Brody.

Evolving from discussions with church groups and child welfare workers, the story was first published in booklet form to instruct children about child abuse. But a theatrical version was sought to bring the message to more people, many of whom are illiterate adults or children who because of poverty are erratic school goers and are not proficient readers. But the children are potential victims of child abuse, a problem that is growing in the country.

The Swaziland Action Group Against Abuse (SWAGAA) reports that cases of child abuse and incest its counsellors have handled this year have increased by 50 percent from a year ago.

‘Child abuse is such a sensitive subject, that we sought to use animals to tell the tale, and we found this makes a controversial subject like sex acceptable to conservative adults as well,’ says Brody.

Actor Skumbusa Matsebula, who plays the lead role of a snake that seduces the nubile daughter of the Rock Rabbit family, says, ‘The allegorical approach also allows us actors to create broad comic roles. This is fun for us, and the audiences respond well, especially the children, who are the primary audience for the message.’

Smooth talking Mr. Snake, who slithers in from the city, gets Mr. Rock Rabbit drunk, and convinces the daughter to go away with him. He is thwarted when the girl shows common sense, and resists his advances at the play’s climax.

The group’s AIDS message play is performed for such health-oriented NGOs as the Alliance of Mayors’ Initiative for Community Action Against AIDS on the Local Level (AMICAALL), which has brought the actors to audiences in all of Swaziland’s large and mid-size towns. A new government organisation, the National Emergency Response Committee on HIV and AIDS (NERCA) is another of the group’s patrons. So are the health and social welfare ministry and the ministry of education, which calls upon Sibahle Nje to inform while entertaining audiences of schoolchildren who have never seen professional actors.

The People’s Educational Theatre is employed by ‘Women in Law for Southern Africa’s Swaziland branch to perform a topical comedy on the subject of women’s rights.

‘The subject of gender rights is controversial in a traditional paternalistic society,’ says PET’s artistic director Mavusa. ‘People respond well to the comedy, and this makes the message more palatable. The audience members see themselves in the characters on stage.’

Often, there is no stage, and only on the rarest of occasions are performers given microphones to pick up their voices. The actors have a challenge to be heard when performing in wind-swept open areas. They manage through the old-fashioned method: by projecting their voices.

‘It is like we’re actors at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre 500 years ago, but instead of shouting over the drunken groundlings in the cheap seats we have to compete with the chattering school kids,’ says Sibahle Nje actor Skumbusa Matsebula.

Vusi Gamedze, who plays wily Mr. Goat in the child abuse play, is a natural actor whose background is typical of the thespians in the country. ‘I’ve only been acting with the group for a year. I was making refrigerators at a factory for five years until it closed down. I tried out at an audition, and it came easily to me.’

Alie Yende, who at 22 is Sibahle Nje’s youngest actor, says, ‘There is no theatre in Swaziland because people are too poor buy enough tickets to keep a production company going on a regular basis. But plays are good ways to communicate messages to people. That is why we use ourselves to educate the people.’

All plays from Aristophanes onward are educational in what they say about human nature. But African NGOs are using plays to emphasise specific messages, and in so doing are exposing thousands of people to live theatre and giving talented actors a way to practice their craft.

Source:

  • http://www.ipsnews.net/2002/08/theatre-swaziland-educational-plays-bring-in-audiences/

Theatre for Public Health in Swaziland: A Rural Drama Club Tackles the Tough Issues

UNICEF Swaziland/2007/Skorochod
© UNICEF Swaziland/2007/Skorochod
Bongiwe, pictured left and two peers in the theatre club, hold their trophy for second position in a recent regional drama competition

Langeni, December 2007 — Well spoken with a broad smile, Bongiwe is a natural actress. Even when her stage is a big dusty field at the side of the road, she shines. Her gestures are big and bold, and the 20 or so community grandparents nestled under the trees follow her every move.

At 17, Bongiwe is the second oldest member of the eLangeni Youth Drama Group. The other 15 members range in age from seven to 18 years. The day’s performance was one of their best, portraying how physical abuse of children impacts families and communities.

“I feel fortunate to be in the club,” says Bongiwe. “School is almost finished and there isn’t much hope for a job here. But I could be doing nothing. Instead I’m having fun and helping my community.”

An expert at creating other worlds for her audiences, Bongiwe has no illusions for herself about finding work. She knows that her chances of gaining employment, even with a high school diploma, are slim. Nearly 40% unemployment and 69% of the population living below the poverty line makes young people like Bongiwe vulnerable – to HIV infection, unwanted pregnancy, and a host of other ills that plague the rural poor, especially women, in Swaziland.

But drama clubs like those in eLangeni keep youth busy, out of trouble, and help teach them something along the way.

Recognizing the potential of drama, UNICEF teamed up with Swaziland Theatre for Children and Young People (SWATCYP) in 2006 to promote theatre as a tool to educate and entertain children and youth. A nationwide drama festival followed and clubs such as the one in eLangeni were formed across Swaziland. A similar programme was held in 2007 to reach out to even more children.

The drama clubs don’t shy away from the tough issues. ELangeni Drama Club performances address child abuse, HIV, drug addiction and child trafficking – issues that Swazi children face each day.

“More than 12,000 children have been reached through theatre programmes,” says SWATCYP Secretary General Maswati Dludlu. “These children teach one another and teach the communities at the same time. The children bring their own ideas and experiences to the performance so it makes the messages they send more meaningful.”

eLangeni Drama Club performs within its own community and, when the club can raise the funds for bus fare, also performs in other parts of the country. Despite being together for only one year, the Club has proved itself, earning second position in a regional drama competition in mid 2007.

“I know we’re making a difference in our community,” says Bongiwe. “We bring up issues that many people just don’t want to talk about. The club is so good for our people, and so good for me. I hope it continues.”

Source:

  • https://www.unicef.org/swaziland/media_9269.html

History of “theatre” in Swaziland


Theatre has been in Swaziland for a long time. It started out historically as cultural forms of storytelling through theatrical dance, including Sibhaca, Ummiso, Lutsango and others.

Sibhaca dancing is very vigorous and is performed by teams of men throughout Swaziland. It involves the stomping of feet in unison to rhythmic chants and traditional music while the men wear colorful quilts and decorate their legs with mohair implements.

Ummiso is a Swazi traditional dance performed by young unmarried girls. It is a form of play, celebration of beauty, revelling in youth and sisterhood, and a playful teasing of and competition with the men. It is also in celebration of the King and of the abundance of the fruits of the land. This tradition is rooted in the grand Swazi tradition of Umhlanga (the reed dance).

Lutsango is a dance performed by older and married Swazi women, more demure but more elegant.

Then,during colonial times, theatre in Swaziland was driven by a strong need for entertainment as well as a strong literary tradition. Colonial theatre was normally performed by expats who needed a pastime or had a sense of homesickness during their temporary stay in the country. Theatre then developed into a more modern format, but very little of it is known outside of Swaziland since the plays are published in siSwati, the country’s official language.

***

MANIFESTATION OF DRAMA AND THEATRE IN SWAZILANDHISTORICAL INSIGHT INTO DRAMA IN SWAZILAND
Dieter Aab
Director, Swaziland Theatre Technical Services
1. HISTORICAL SCOPE
Performing Arts in Swaziland is clearly divided into 2 streams:
SWAZI CULTURAL FORMS
a) These include Sibhaca, Ummiso, etc. Being cultural, this form fulfilled more than just entertainment need but a ritual one too. This form is marked by a very strong element of audience participation. This includes ululating, clapping, singing, dancing (call and response*)
b) Traditional Music as entertainment
c) Diviners/Tangoma: These would use dramatic effect to enhance diagnosis of patients.
2. COLONIAL THEATRE
 
i) It was driven by a strong need for entertainment
ii) It depended on a strong literary tradition
performed by the expatriates who were in Swaziland on a temporary basis and found themselves in need of a pastime or as a means of coping with homesickness.
  • The performances were not fully integrated into the Swazi environment because they were depicting the European way of life. It was totally divorced from its environment.
  • Regular performances of school textbooks being of great educational benefit.
  • Performances had to be paid for
  • Restricted mostly to the expatriate population
  • Swazis were not encouraged to attend performances nor did they see the need to spend money on “mhlungu’s” (white man’s) entertainment
  • Led to the formation of Swaziland Theatre Club, which was devoted to the performing arts and owns the only dedicated performing arts venue in Swaziland
  • This theatre, seating about 175 people was designed in the early 1960s by an architect, Mr. Francis Green, and built by club members from simple materials such as gumploes and asbestos sheeting
  • e.g., minstrels on Makhoyane

Sources:

  • https://whatiskirbydoing.com/2017/06/19/monday-in-a-picture-ummiso-and-sabaca-nsfw/
  • https://prezi.com/umcwumvtwcwk/theatre-of-swaziland-and-south-africa/
  • Ogunleye, Foluke (ed.) (2005) Theatre in Swaziland: The Past, the Present and the Future. Kwaluseni, Swaziland: Department of African Languages and Literature, University of Swaziland.

* – added by me