Danai Gurira to give theatre presentation

September 12, 2008 by Pamberi Trust ·
Filed under: Art life, Entertainment, Arts & Culture, Events, Zimbos who rock

Danai Gurira pictured at the premier of "The Visitor". Photo: WireImage

Danai Gurira pictured at the US premier of "The Visitor". Photo: Wire Image.

Creating and Performing Contemporary African Theatre & Film
A presentation by Danai Gurira based on the play “In the Continuum”

The Mannenberg Jazz Club
Fife Ave Mall
Wednesday 17 September 2008
5.30 for 6pm

Zimbabwean actress and playwright Danai Gurira, currently based in New York, visited home for ZIFF 2008. She joined their opening celebrations with the film ‘The Visitor’, in which she stars, and which won five film awards including the Best Supporting Actress Award for Gurira’s role at the 2008 edition of the Method Fest Independent Film Festival in California.

Courtesy of the US Embassy Public Affairs Section, Danai Gurira will make a presentation ‘Creating and Performing Contemporary African Theatre & Film’ at The Mannenberg Jazz Club on Wednesday 17 September, 5.30pm. It will be based on her own award-winning play ‘In the Continuum’, with excerpts from the play read by Danai and discussion to follow. The 5.30pm presentation at the Fife Avenue venue will focus on getting the HIV/Aids message across through theatre and other forms of the arts. Entrance is free and artists, groups, organisations and all people are welcome.

Danai Gurira and Nikkole Salter, who met at New York University, co wrote the play and made up its entire cast. Both play black women with HIV, as well as other characters. Salter is Nia, a teenage African-American girl. Gurira is Abigail Murambe, a Zimbabwean newsreader back home in Zimbabwe. When they find themselves HIV positive, each goes on a personal journey, encountering various characters and cultural bias, as they try to come to grips with their diagnosis and sense of isolation.

The two-woman show In the Continuum began as a graduate school acting project, and by February 2006 had been named “one of the ten best plays of the year by The New York Times.” (Weekend Edition Sunday, Feb 12 2006). After Salter and Gurira graduated from NYU, they presented In the Continuum in large and small venues, from the United Nations - where they won a Global Tolerance Award - to a small theatre in the South Bronx where good reviews led the production to successful shows in Greenwich Village in 2006. In the same year it appeared on the HIFA stage, where it was well received in Harare and moved on to a US tour with stops scheduled for Washington, DC, Cincinnati and Los Angeles.
(www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5202209)

Project officer Penny Yon said: “Pamberi Trust welcomes every opportunity to facilitate development and progress in the fight against HIV/Aids in Zimbabwe, particularly within and from the arts sector. We extend a warm welcome to Danai Gurira, and thank her for her part in the ongoing campaign.”

The U.S. Embassy Public Affairs section is committed to supporting artists in Zimbabwe and has partnered with Pamberi Trust many times on a variety of successful projects.

In August the US Embassy’s Public Affairs Section also gave support to US jazz artist Max Wild’s Jazz Workshop which included a session and frank discussions on the jazz artist and HIV/Aids.

In May 2008, the US Embassy brought the Ryan Cohan Quartet to The Mannenberg, for a workshop and outstanding jazz performance.

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