MULTIPLICITY OF CHILDREN THEATRE

Performing arts may range from vocal and instrumental music, dance, and theatre to pantomime, sung verse, and beyond. They include numerous cultural expressions that reflect human creativity and that are also found to some extent in many other intangible cultural heritage domains. In performing arts we find a lot of movement as young actors or players go about presenting their performances. In these movements, we find creativity that is aesthetically rich thus, performing arts and aesthetic mobility are greatly related. The paper examines indigenous and contemporary forms of theatre, storytelling, and imaginative story play with children and young people in Malawian schools and rural areas by teaching from both intellectual and normal amateur theatre practitioners. We are all keenly fascinated by international and across cultural explorations and effort explicitly to work with people outside our cultural milieu to bring this perspective to our work. 

In the Malawian context, the introduction of mobile theatre mentorship by the youth for children in schools under YDC Theatre and the Theatre class at Solomonic Peacocks Theatre has seen the growth and production of young vibrant theatre practitioners that have been baked from different projects under this program. The mobile theatre mentorship imaged after seeing a boundary between skilled (Intellectuals) and talented Artists (With Indigenous skills). The program delivers a lot of projects teamed by the youngster themselves. Conceal of this expansion rose because of intercultural exchange programs in which these youth were involved for the past five years. The parallel highlight how “the more things change, the more they stay the same” but to engage the youth, the twenty-first-century theatre practitioners with classical training background needs to hold firm principles and loosely on methodology. Here we look at how some of the indigenous romanticize the spiritual to self-development and how the millennial romanticize influence; which may refer to celebrity culture and/or trending. The medium may be different but both indigenous and contemporary forms of theatre are equally about influence for social change. 

Malawi has been transformed in the past with the concept of super-diversity society with a variety of cultures, identities, faiths, languages, and immigration status. Mobility theatre mentorship also explores how theatre for and with youth and children at Zaleka refugees’ camp reflects in a complex of reality and diversity. The workshops review the powerful elements children play in revealing the identities from the individual as well as of communities as constructions. The mobility theatre mentorship at the camp was fun and exciting to the young mentors of YDC, more specifically the exchange of cultural artistic skills though the language was a barrier because the camp has more than 10 language speaking groups from DRC, Rwanda, Burundi, Somalia and Tanzania though Kiswahili dominate it was very hard to communicate that’s where the powerful element of theatre appears when communication was done through theatrical presentations.

How can performances confirm or critically question common images of young refugees (Geesche Wartemann)? During the 2018 Tumaini Festival at Zaleka Refugee Camp in Dowa, the central part of Malawi, YDC theatre’s participation with workshop and performance shows how theatre and other applied arts respond to intercultural, social, and even artistic challenges. Young practitioners from YDC address social issues and stimulate personal transformation and diversity.  The program favors both the holistic approach where aesthetic and social issues go hand in hand through the process they create with children as a social family. The communication through theatre was a driving force for children individual social learning while aesthetic language proves to be the most powerful tool in facilitating social, cultural, and diversity in a foreign environment. With the outline of workshops and performance it helps to discuss the impact of theatre for cultural exchange as well as social and personal development and change.

Theatre diversity went within its reality; Mobility theatre mentorship vs Theatre for Education project, both projects had common bonds and the background where YDC’s Mobility theatre mentorship by youth for children was just diverted from the theatre for an education project by Solomonic Peacocks Theatre implemented by youth under its theatre class which later on the majority becomes the members and founders of YDC Theatre organization which has grown to be a prominent theatre in Malawi since its establishment in late 2017.

Theatre for education project went on diverting literature O-level books into theatre pieces for better understanding of students in secondary schools of which the process of intercultural exchange is being created through aesthetic sphere beyond “reality” In a performance of classic plays a student or youth plays someone else and argues with a different opinion from another perspective of reality. There is an aesthetic space of “freedom” for cultural discussion within the process. In other Mobility Theatre mentorship responded in another angle of lack of theatre education in Malawi more especially in secondary schools in comparing to South Africa and Germany schools works on theatre in education that deal with the question of diversity, the different ways and traditions of the theatre will be presented and analyzed.

Malawi as a multicultural society, theatre for children plays a vital role in harnessing cultural diversity within a national context where we see mobility theatre mentorship in school produced brilliant productions that appreciate the aesthetic of cultural diversity. Several schools benefited from Mobility Theatre mentorship where about five high schools namely; HHI Mission Secondary, Stella Maris, Joyce Banda Foundation, Marymount Sec School, and Ndirande Hill Secondary School staged theatre performance cross Malawi in different major festivals and won accolade awards.

In the other hand, the Theatre Class at Solomonic Theatre steps ahead with the Aware and Fair project with children from Jacaranda Foundation, Stella Maris Secondary, Mjamba Secondary, and Chichiri Secondary school. They set up for an intercultural exchange program in Hannover, Germany called Fair Culture Festival where four countries participated. The program has so far lead a great community of theatre for children in the Malawian context through the cultural exchange in which the children were exposed out to the country.

Theatre for young people has so far drawn up a large audience comparing to mature theatre, school drama festivals are the most attended festivals from Nation School Youth Arts Festival, French Theatre Festival to ATEM Drama Festivals. The diversity of theatre has a great advantage because it cooperates with many genres of arts and reflects the beauty of cultural diversity across.