The ongoing KINA Festival kicked off on April 29, with a set of various artistic performances that shed light on culture, growth, entertainment and inclusion of children. “If you want a nation to grow, you need to plant the right and good seeds. We wanted to engage the young audience, not telling them the ancient tales, but instead by creating new tales in different contexts for them to relate. We collaborated with people from various places and came up with many performances for children from six months to 18 years old,” Carole Umulinga Karemera, co-founder of Ishyo Arts Centre, told The New Times. In its sixth edition, the festival is ongoing till May 6 at the Kigali Conference and Exhibition Village. The first performance was a play dubbed “Les Enfants d’Amazi/Abana b’Amazi” which features players from the Great Lakes Region; Rwanda, Kenya, Burundi and Congo who came together to tell a story about water as one of the common natural resources that unite them. They portrayed what the colonizers have been doing to take away the natural richness of the region and how hard the citizens fought a lot to get their rights. Andersome Uwineza, one of the players of ‘Abana b’Amazi’ which was performed on the first and second day of the festival said that water is the kind of natural resource that no one should be asked to pay for, and that was part of the story they wanted to portray in a way that children can easily understand. Aboud Mujyambere told this publication that, “Arts is the vital tool to connect people and the way this play is made everyone, young and adult can easily get the story regardless of the language used. We took three consecutive years to come together and prepare ‘Abana b’Amazi’ and we have been showcasing it all over the world since 2018 and managed to win some awards like the Best Audience Award from Zürcher Theater Spektakel, a Switzerland Festival.” Another performance for the first and second day was ‘CIRCLES’, a show directed and showcased by Michael Lurse from Germany. Speaking to The New Times, Michael expressed how the show was amazing even though it was his first time showcasing his play in Rwanda. “This show is for 2 year old children and so. It was a way to engage them in how the planet operates with more of the universe. Not only was the entertainment, but I wanted to spark their interest and they could place some scripture in the circle to make it live,” he said. ‘CIRCUS’, another performance, is an acrobatic and combination of circus and acrobatics performance by Rwandan Acrobats of Young Circus Performers. Jonathan Irakiza one of the founders of this group revealed that the acrobatic show they performed consists of a life changing experience for some of the performers, but also for the children, they were showing how they can live their dreams using arts and circus. “We’ve been doing this for the past 17 years. Seeing children as our audience was way better since they can easily join and perform with us. A very mind opening step for them and the reception was excellent during and even after the performance,” Irakiza said. Karemera further shared that Ishyo Arts Centre is looking forward to introducing this kind of event in schools. “We want to be able to present our performances in schools as well and create a link between arts in the schools, for both students and teachers. We want this to fit in the education system of Rwanda since we don’t have the proper theater and from there we will be nurturing a new generation of artists in Africa.”
