HeLa at HIFA

Hela got on the road again, this time produced by me at one of the best festivals of music and theatre in Africa – The Harare International Festival of the Arts (HIFA).

It had been a short but tough journey getting the show there. Its start was a little too good to be true. I had been in Harare for the birth of a friend's child in January 2015. Before little Mumu came, my friend, Tawa, said she would love to see the show and why don't I consider bringing it to HIFA. Then, literally two days after this, I'm sitting in a bar, randomly and completely separately I am introduced to the programmes officer of the British council here in Zimbabwe, and he says just that afternoon he had been enquiring about getting Hela to HIFA! Extra Blessing Kuchera is an amazing character whose enthusiasm from that first moment to the HIFA week of running  workshops, press interviews to promote the show and finally the performences is what saw me through many doubts in getting the show here over the past few months.

It hasn't always been easy: tight budgets, communication across endless email trails and the odd Skype conversation, factoring in a heavily technical show in a tight festival turn around – all these have have meant a sleepless night or two since that fateful night at The Book cafe in January. And then, five days in and our first show down, whilst I knew Jason (the tech manager) and I have achieved a small victory, I found myself wondering at the path to get to HIFA.

I had heard so much about HIFA from my Zim friends and truly there is nothing like it. I have fallen in love with this country over the previous trips here, and it doesn't surprise me that its most famous cultural intervention is as joyous, humble, refreshing and beaurocratic as the country itself. I was also concerned about how the piece would be received: its lecture format, its heavy science quota and the fact I hadn't done it for over four months. I had one or two people walk out, a baby in the audience with a loud whimper, the audience all the way through seemed distant to me, and, finally, being much more emotional through the piece seemed a recipe for the show not going so well. But to my surprise, there was an audible "wow" at the end and some standing during the applause! 

I am proud that HeLa had a successful run here, with the remaining two shows selling out, and audiences warm and receptive in their appreciation. All the hard work paid off.

I stayed another three days after the end of the festival. The festival site adjacent to the Crowne Plaza Hotel, where all the artists stayed, has been packed down, the artists have gone, the bass that accompanied me to sleep for the past seven nights had been replaced with an eerie silence. 

I’d like to imagine that the distant whirr of air con units across the hundreds of rooms in this hotel are actual whisperings reminding Harare, reminding Zimbabwe, that once again HIFA happened. The footfall of thousands of people turned into a roll call of the families, dreamers, activists, participants putting their names to the potential that HIFA seems to offer Zimbabwe every year.

I took a long walk from Crowne Plaza to Cork road. Down the tree-lined avenues of Milton Street and East Road, I was once again reminded how beautiful and relaxed Harare is compared to other African cities. I wondered at all the kids back at school, the hawkers back to meagre business,  the artists busily trying to make concrete fleeting networking connections, and there was definitely a sense that HIFA has abandoned Harare once again – it happens every year apparently. For seven days there is a potential, a dream – maybe it's an illusion, but it suggests something better. I can't claim to know Zimbabwe very well, this is only my third time here and my second in a working capacity. It's easily my favourite African country, and what HIFA seems to offer is an ideal made concrete: the past put to rest, equality along class and racial lines, activism in an African context completely devoid of aid or comparisons to any western ideal.

I'd like to imagine that each passing HIFA disturbs the status quo just a little bit more, shakes the dust up a bit, catching people unawares, to look further than what we can see in front of us, the daily struggles and grind, towards another vision. If HIFA, year in and year out, can produce an international festival in the context of a disillusioned government, economic hardship, 90 per cent unemployment and artistic censorship, then we in the UK can engender change by taking our work and our thoughts into the strongholds of conservatism. We need to make and show work, and write about it in those places and engage in discussion with the people who don't agree with us.

Adura Onashile took her show, HeLa, to the Harare International Festival of the Arts in Zimbabwe.