ZAMBIA LETTERS, 8

Mask 2 by Irpa Uhlbors, inspired by Zambian masks

Benne Banda is an established and internationally renown theatre- and film director. He meets us at Millas Café, at East Mall, and explains to us that in Lusaka, it has become increasingly common to have meetings and really all sorts of activities at shopping malls. There are play areas for children there, and even theatre rooms for rent. He works at the university where he teaches Theatre for development, which is a method and an expression rooted in the theatre forms developed by Agosto Boal, Living theatre and Bertold Brecht.

We ask him about Zambian Masks, because it can be interesting to get that perspective from a theatre person. He tells us a few things that we haven't heard from others. For example, that guest performances from Italy, showing Commedia del´Arte, are quite common in Lusaka. This puts him in a good position to make certain comparisons, which is interesting to me.

He explains that there is also a specific gallery of characters in the Makishi tradition, just like in Commedia, but within Makishi there are 18 characters. He also says that within the traditions of the Chewa people, different masks have different functions. Some are for funerals and others are for entertainment. But overall, he says, body painting and make-up is more common in Zambian theatre than the use of masks. This has to do with the fact that masks are so strongly linked to religious ceremonies that any use of it within performing arts will be actively opposed by the chieftains and traditionalists.

For example, an advertiser recently made a commercial for soap, using a representation of a Nyau dancer. Traditionally, it is performed within the Gulewamkulu dance. At the end of the commercial, the actor took off his mask; which in all mask contexts is considered a private act, and the whole commercial triggered strong protests, leading to the advertisement being stopped.

So theatre directors stay away from masks.

The Vimbuza dance works a little differently. It is often integrated into scenes where someone is to be healed or cured, since it is a medical dance, and it already has flexible expression. It has a long tradition of being presented as pure entertainment, alongside its traditional role. It’s choreography can easily be developed in relation to a narrative, and fits well into theater contexts.

In summary, the use of theater masks is very limited in Zambian theater, largely due to the fact that the space available, within which masks can be used, is so severely limited. People react.

In the traditional settings, new masks are constantly developing. They are not static, and new masks will replace old masks. The older, feathered, Nyau dancer mask is one such example, It has begun to be replaced by a new version, without feathers.

He gives us a few examples from perfomances where he himself has touched upon the use of traditional masks. For example, he did a performance which told the story of how Christianity arrived in Zambia. In it, there was a Portuguese character; a white man, who was portrayed with a mask. There were complaints from the audience about the mask so nowadays, he prefers to use make-up.

We discuss this phenomenon, which is so well known to those of us who work with theatre, that many things are accepted outside of theatre but not in a theatre performance. For example, it is perfectly okay to make copies of masks and to sell them in a market square, so that people can take them home and do whatever they want with them. But it is not ok to use them even in a respectful way, in the framework of a theatre performance. Those who sell masks may tell you that a particular mask comes from Congo, so as not to offend other Zambians, or they may claim that a copy of a mask is an original mask, to increase the value of it for a tourist. All of this is widely accepted within the culture.

I ask him to explain more about TFD, Theatre for Development, and how he uses it in his practice. He starts with the difficulties he encounters in his teaching. His students usually live in other parts of the country and come to see him for a three-week residency. During that time, they have other courses and meetings they need to attend to as well. He attempts to give them a foundation in the method, so that they can take it with them back to their own hometowns, and initiate projects. But there is very little he can hope to achieve during these circumstances, he often only has three hours with his students during a whole day.

His own working method often involves visiting a context and mapping it in relationship to issues, together with an artistic team or an ensemble. After that, they return to his venue and makes decisions about the format. Should they work with this material using forum theater or simultaneous theater? Should they work interactively or not? This type of theater often aims to raise the level of consciousness within a context, regarding a certain topic.

It may happen that the audience interrupts an actor and takes over the performance, in order to show how a situation would happen in real life. They may then give examples from their own experiences. Such performances work well in relation to health issues or voting rights.

He has also carried out a couple of invisible performances. These may involve scenes in public environments where a man and a woman are having an argument. If the woman hits and scolds the man, all the passers-by will cheer her on, even when the man asks for help from the others. They usually shout at the woman, telling her to drag the man home and make him suffer. When a man assaults a woman, it can get quite serious and he often needs to have security guards on site in order to protect the male actor. After such scenes, actors will infiltrate the audience that has gathered and ask them about what happened. Then they often get very different versions of the events and such experiences can form a basis for a dramatization. They allow you to refer to what people really are thinking and doing, if it is necessary for the work at hand. 

In connection with his guest performances in other countries, Mr Banda has often worked with this sort of form in relation to racism. For example, he performed in Tampere, where a refugee camp was being established during an ongoing scandal. A famous disc jockey of African origin had, unknowingly to him, spread HIV to Finnish women. Suspicions towards people with black skin was running high in Finnish society at that time, and his performance aimed to discuss the gaze on skin color with the audience in Finland. 

He feels that TFD is a good aesthetic to work in if you want to mobilize people. You can follow up such work with a collaboration with researchers. The advantage of this approach is that it is easier to get fundings. TFD is a form of theater that works well in the contemporary economic situation as it is easy to receive financial support. More traditional theater is struggling to motivate itself in the wake of Covid. It's not just because theatre lost its audience, but also because it has seen social media, film and TV taking over it’s role. That, in turn, has created a situation where established and skilled actors are busy with their film and TV careers. They simply don't have time to take a contract at a theatre. Thus, the quality, and also the status, of traditional theatre has declined.