We've just been updating our website to include the Tanzanian side of things.
The Tanzanian troupe are currently in week seventeen of a twenty week tour of the country! Two troupes of six actors each performing twice a day five days a week. They all camp in the same place, go out and perform and come back in the evenings. On Saturday they drive to the next location, where they'll camp for a week, on Sunday they rest and Monday start again! Its really hard work and I'm amazed that they are still going strong and the performances are still top quality. They had a three week break after the first ten weeks and they couldn't wait to get back on the road again. What a team! They are performing a play for the 50% Campaign, on the very crucial topic of children's rights. I have written a little about it here before. On average they are reaching 10,800 people a week and so far have conducted 302 performances and reached approximately 162,780 people. Not bad, huh?
And very exciting news is that it looks like we'll be continuing for the next 2 years. Creating new plays to tour as well as invisible theatre on busses throughout the country. More on that soon.
The Zambian troupe has just come back from performing in Copenhagen at the ASSITEJ Performing Arts Festival. They had a great time and made lots of new contacts. I have yet to get all the stories from them as they've launched headlong into a new project but I'll hear all about it soon enough, I'm sure. All of the actors that make up the Zambian troupe are from the remote villages surrounding the South Luangwa National Park. The first time they travelled out of Zambia (and for many of them it was their first time out of their village) was to South Africa for the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002. They've since been to South Africa a few times, to perform at various environmental conferences and festivals and once to watch the Lion King. But this is the first time they have travelled to Europe. I would have loved to have been with them, or just to have been a fly on the wall to see how they got on. So congrats to them and lets hope there'll be more opportunities like this for both teams, as well as a chance, somewhere down the line for the Tanzanians and the Zambians to meet up...
