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A
new dream for New Horizon
CHIPAWO
December 06, 2010
The New Horizon
Theatre Company has had a busy year as it continues its efforts
to bring the work of the world's great writers to Zimbabwe, starting
with Rabindranath Tagore earlier in the year and then going on to
Henrik Ibsen in between various music, dance and corporate theatre
performances.
But their current
venture has an atmosphere all of its own. First of all, the cast
is much much larger than those for Tagore's "The Post Office"
and "The Most Wonderful
Thing of All". Secondly, this time the play is in Shona
and there is lots of music - Catholic church music! New Horizon,
with a vast cast, is doing the Spanish writer, Calderon's "Life
is a Dream" in a Shona translation, entitled "Mutambo
Wapanyika".
Pedro
Calderon de la Barca, commonly known as Calderon, lived from 1600
to 1681. He wrote a number of melodramas but his one, more serious,
more philosophical play, was "La vida es sueno" (Life
is a Dream), based on a story from the East.
The Spanish
Embassy in Harare, which, along with a number of other Spanish organisations,
is pursuing an energetic programme of support for the arts, published
the script of a previous performance by staff and pupils at Gokomere
Schhol near Masvingo and now they have commissioned New Horizon
to perform it.
The play is
being directed by Stephen Chifunyise, Chipo Basopo (manager of CHIPAWO)
and a CHIPAWO graduate, Simba Joseph. Given the play's special characteristics,
a number of resource persons have been invited in to help with various
aspects, notably the well-known television writer, Aaron Chirundiramoyo,
to assist with the language, and Rumbidzai Chipendo of the Zimbabwe
Association of Music Educators (ZAME) to assist with the singing
- not hitherto a strong point in CHIPAWO productions. So far she
seems to have worked wonders.
The play opens
on 17th December.
Visit the CHIPAWO
fact
sheet
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