Nairobi Walking

"In Nairobi, the showcase of globalised Kenya and its full capitalistic growth, the figure of the walker symbolises migrations at different scales. In life trajectories, the city appears like a temporary place for social promotion and enrichment, and therefore a stopover point for a growing number of Kenyans. In daily migrations, the CBD acts like powerful lungs, breathing in costumed businessmen and breathing them out in an asphyxiating cloud of matatus and 4x4s. In this staturated flux of contrasted destinies, the figure of the walker is also the one of a society that marches at different speeds; that builds and fragments itself like a house of cards."

A photo essay by Olivier Marcel, 2009.

Evans Ng'ang'a on University Way

Building a road on the rumble of a freshly built and destroyed police building, a Chinese company demonstrates both the power of its entrepreneurship and the utter planlessness of Nairobi. Just like the city that hosts his art, Evans’ career as a contemporary dancer is mostly unplanned. For over five years, he has been “working everywhere, for no one and for everyone”, on most of the scenes in town (Sarakasi, GoDown, KNT, Goethe or Alliance), and with many different dancers and choreographers, both Kenyan and foreign (Kebaya Moturi, Neema Bagamuhunda, Miriam Rother, Stephanie Thiersch, etc.). Nairobi offers so many of these opportunities that Evans doesn't feel the need to struggle for those international platforms that most Kenyan artists dream about.

“You don’t sell dances on DVD, they have to be performed on a stage. Even though Kenyans are very poor at appreciating art, Nairobi has enough market.”

Despite this genuine confidence in the development of the culture sector, the state of the art in Kenya is still one of a chrysalis. The path to recognition was first drawn by pioneers like Opiyo Okatch in the 1990’s. But, still today, very few people are willing to understand the body language and vocabulary of contemporary dance. According to Evans, serious dancers and choreographers in Kenya are a mere 30 individuals. It is a common stereotype for the African continent that music and dance have since the dawn of time been associated with every event in society. The dance produced by this young and urban generation has little if any tradition to stick to and is becoming more and more independent project wise. Follow artists like Evans to see where that road leads to.

Bonus picture: Evans rests after teaching yoga at the Sarakasi Dome for the African Yoga Project.

Jacob Oketch in Wasanii

“Nairobi is a land of opportunities. But Kenyan society doesn’t believe in art and artists are used to shying away. They should sensitize themselves to the fact that they are key decision makers.” Jacob Oketch

It is a common discourse amongst wananchi that culture in Kenya is still a rural asset and that the city is only a den of vice. However, in recent years, Nairobi has seen art spaces expand and a whole host of cultural agents invest in them, making Nairobi a cultural metropolis in its own right. But to who is this flourishing activity addressed? Indeed, one could argue that cultural production in the city has had a strong tendency to cater for the expatriate market, providing only exportable art such as paintings, sculptures or attire that represent a limited idea of Africa.

Storytelling is one of those arts that is difficult to export. As Jacob Oketch will say, eye contact with the public is essential. While using Dholuo, he is famous for exuberant, overflowing and very communicative performances. According to him, storytelling is also an art that has an important history in African societies and one that should be better valued. Some institutions are pushing to make these art forms more visible on the kenyan art scene. Storytelling can now be found in different places in town, at poetry and open mic events organised by Kwani? or PEN, or in festivals that occur from time to time (Sigana, Jukwaani, WaPi, etc.).

Jacob participates in some of those events, but his main base - like a large part of the art community - is Wasanii, the bar above National Theatre in the Kenya Cultural Centre. Despite the sarcasm triggered by the 'National' nature of the centre, the KCC has grown into a thriving hub for artists who meet there on a daily basis to exchange ideas and projects. Polopiatch!!

Grand Masese on Tom Mboya Street

Before we perceive its actual centrality in the practice of the city for most nairobians, Tom Mboya Street often appears like a frontier that divides the town in two culturally distinct landscapes. It marks the end of the corporate business district and the beginning of the lower commercial part of town. It's the line beyond which one ceases to see CCTVs, businessmen using two cellphones and enters the frantic Nairobi whereby hooting matatus, shouting hawkers, witchdoctors and varieties of sheng are heard. The divide has produced negative myths that encompass social groups, cultural practices and entire chunks of urban space.

Crossing Tom Mboya is a true straddler. Masese indeed speaks the language of both sides with fluent authority and his life, music and poetry synthesises those conflicting identities. On his shoulder lies one of his sweet babies, an obokano that resonates from the iron sheets of the slums to the leafy Nairobi. The city he depicts sometimes on the most prestigious scenes in town is a land where hardship, violence and injustice is daily bread. From his rural childhood he has kept popular folk references which he utilises to inform, narrate and soothe urban life.

"Monday morning I went to town,
I went to town to search for a job,
I met the police. Bakamboria gijana gijana,
Wewe nani, jina lago nani, unatoga wapi, unaenda wapi, can you produce your ID, toa tribers licence na logboog yago ya gutembea usigu. Ati you're innocent? Innocent kitu gani ? [...] Can you buy your freedom ?"

GrandMasese - Monday Morning

Watch Masese on CultureTV or go to his upcoming events, here and there.