The Ubumuntu Art Festival is celebrating its tenth anniversary with a powerful mix of creativity focused on themes of memory, reconciliation, and human resilience. From July 19th to July 28th, 2024, the event will be held at the Kigali Genocide Memorial, featuring diverse artistic performances from global artists. They will share their stories through emotional plays, moving dances, and heartfelt musical and spoken word pieces.
Hope Azeda started the Ubumuntu Art Festival in 2015 as an extension of Mashirika, a performing arts center she created in Uganda while living as a refugee. This year, the festival celebrates ten years of using art to make a positive impact, symbolizing hope for shared responsibility and promoting a more compassionate and understanding world under the theme “Integrity: Resilience in the Face of Adversity.”
Azeda says that the ‘10 years in 10 days’ of this annual event “embodies the Rwandan philosophy of Ubumuntu, emphasizing empathy, compassion, and solidarity. Through art, participants and audience members alike are encouraged to confront difficult truths, embrace diversity, and forge connections across cultural and historical divides.”
On the first day, the amphitheatre—a 10-row seating area with black and grey steps, an all-black cone roof, and a proscenium arch stage with a half-moon screen at the front—was full of energy as attendees enjoyed Afrobeats tunes before the night’s performances.
Among standout performances was “Generation 25” by the Mashirika Performing Arts and Media Company. Written and directed by Hope Azeda herself and Yannick Kamanzi, the play focuses on breaking the silence 30 years after the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. The cast includes, among others, Delah Dube, King Kivumbi and Peace Jolis.
The title “Generation 25” represents the new generation of youth born 25 years after the genocide who seek reconciliation, hope, and freedom despite the country’s past atrocities.
Other acts that caught my attention were “I am African” by Jazzart Dance theatre from South Africa, Virtue, Choral performance & Peace Jolis, both a collaboration of Rwanda and USA, and Counting to 10 by Rwanda, Pakistan, The United Kingdom and Uganda.
Describing it as the ‘biggest performance for social good in Africa’, Fola Folayan, the acting emcee for the night, took to the mic at 19:06 on Day 2, calling out attendees to fill up the front seats of the amphitheatre before the evening’s performances could officially kick off.
The vibrant emcee requested a full minute of silence to be observed in memory of the victims of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi who were laid to rest at the Kigali Genocide Memorial grounds, before ‘Agahozo Shalom’ treated the audience to a great performance that captured the essence of poetry, dance and music in a play titled “Harmony of Heroes.”
Performed by over 20 young boys and girls, the play starts off with a TV interview: channel of freedom, of two best friends–male and female whose childhood was filled with distress, nevertheless, they made it to stardom with the lady becoming ‘unstoppable’ and winning a Grammy Award.
The play further depicted the role of ‘Agahozo Shalom Youth Village’ in nurturing various talents of Rwandan youth through sports, music, dance and drama.
The talented youngsters crowned off their performance with the ‘Grammy winner’ singing ‘Unstoppable’, having nearly the entire audience on their feet cheering and miming along to her angelic voice.
“Scars Mending,” performed by Umunyinya from Burundi, tells the story of Mucyo, who grew up in a conflict-ridden region, took part in war crimes, and later decided to start healing. This performance deeply resonated with the audience, evoking feelings of resilience and hope before the night’s main event—”Waiting for the Train,” a play by AKT Theatre and Film House from Kosovo.
“Waiting for the Train” is about two travelers with the same goal but different personalities. They keep missing their turns to catch the train and end up stuck at the station after the authorities stop the train from operating. The audience was shocked when one traveler, in his frustration, set all his belongings, including his clothes, on fire.
Victims of femicide and women survivors raped by French soldiers during the genocide were honored through poems by Esther 2021 from France. This was followed by “Patterns of Genocide,” a performance by Sri Lankan artists urging solidarity with Palestine, and La Perla from Spain.
Day three’s performances weren’t any short of riveting. Kicking off at 19:00 with Rwanda rocks band–adorned in red and blue shirts‐-girls and boys respectively, captivated the audience with their exhilarating performance about a child who embodies the spirit of ‘ubuntu’. Entailing poems, songs and Kinyarwanda traditional dances, the brilliant kids act left the crowd yearning for more, despite knowing that the night was still young and there was a long line-up ahead.
Faded, a collaboration of almost all East African countries: DRC, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania provoked a deep reflection to the audience, particularly ladies who at one point felt a need to bleach their skins in order to ‘fit in’. Performed by four ladies clad in nude shorts and tops, and bodies plastered with ash like powder, their evocative and masterful dance moves left the audience in total awe. Not to mention their poem that entailed strong lines like; “I am who I choose to be.”
Uganda’s celebrated actor, director and veteran playwright Phillip Luswata met all expectations through his play Kawaida Nzuri which topped the audience’s list of the best acts of the night. Stressing his dissatisfaction about the audience’s perception of theatre acts, Phillip–who starred as Adrian is assured by the audience that although they at times root for ‘bubblegum’ music and performances, they also valued ‘rich’ creatives, thus encouraged him not to quit.
“We are not spectators, but we are part of the show”, they chant in one of the scenes, replying to Adrian who in a sombre tone sang “Mbakoye”–which means I’m tired of you.
Led by Matrix Bienco, their choreographer, the street dancers from DRC also made the evening colorful with their ‘teasing’ electrifying performance. Every now and then, these buffy young men could wind one episode (from the variety they had lined up to showcase for the night) as though it was the last, only to give more and more until the crowd was content.
During the event, Hope recognized some of the people who took a leap of faith in the inception of Ubumuntu, urging the attendees that the next time they want to venture into something, they shouldn’t look at their account balance, but their social network.
“They always ask me, how did you start the festival, how much money did you have? And I tell them, just a network. Our networks are equivalent to our capital, so starting the festival I tapped on my networks.”
Among these were Ruwanthie de Chickerell–artistic director Stages Theatre Group Sri Lanka, Muhalad R. from Belgium–producer Body Revolution, Daniel E–photographer and Matrix Bieco–choreographer Street dancers.
The Ubumuntu Arts Festival will run up to 28th July 2024 with workshops on mental health, technology, environment conservation, among others around Kigali, in addition to performances from 6:00p to 9:00pm at the Kigali Genocide Memorial Amphitheatre on all days.
