RP-Department of Theatre Arts and Film Technology

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Browsing RP-Department of Theatre Arts and Film Technology by Author "Kebaya, Charles"

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    Community Theatre and Development Practices in the Nyanza Region of Kenya
    (2015-09) Diang'a, Rachael; Kebaya, Charles; Mwai, Wangari
    Positing Community Theatre as an agency for development and is an effective way to encourage community dialogue, this article interrogates practices and efficacies of Community Theatre in Nyanza, Kenya. While contending that it has the potential to build developmental consciousness among community members on social issues affecting them, the study argues that Community Theatre provides an interesting way to explore cultural, socio-economic and developmental realities, thereby changing the way people think, socialize and act. Based on selected Community Theatre performances in Nyanza, this article analyses the practice and efficacy of Community Theatre as a social construction that is produced, regulated and consumed within specific cultural frameworks. Anchored in qualitative research, participant observation and post-performance discussions were used in data collection. The data responses obtained were organized into thematic analysed and interpreted strands, and thus, the findings show that Community Theatre is a crucial space in communities that can increase social issue awareness, influence beliefs and attitudes, prompt action, increase utilization of and support for services, explore popular misconceptions, and strengthen community support for recommended practices. Hence, Community Theatre is a safe space where communities can explore difference, question everyday life, and say the unsayable.
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    From Firesides to the Modern Lounge: A Critical Appraisal of Film and Television Fairytales in Kenya
    (School of Visual and Performing Arts Kenyatta University, 2013) Muigai wa Gachanja; Kebaya, Charles
    Vladimir Propp, in 1928, published a groundbreaking text; Morphology of the Folktale, in which he outlined and defined the characteristics and morphology of fairytales. His work not only changed the study of folklore but also made scholars to rethink the way in which stories and storytelling affect the fabric of society and its ideals. Since 1928 to the present, there have been tremendous changes in the way in which stories are told. For instance, technology has changed the way people interact and communicate with each other. In the same vein, media and film conglomerates have taken a leading role in creating and/or reconstructing folktales for their audiences. This implies that the modern lounge has replaced traditional storytelling modes as children tune in to television for filmed stories. Thus, using critical theory and already aired Know Zone 1 folk tales, this paper examines how film and television fairytales are built and in the process establishes how traditional pedagogical values of these narratives are negotiated as the tales conform to modern technology. Further, while exploring traditional narrative types and motifs as portrayed in the selected fairytales for this study, we examine how these narrative texts reflect contemporary ethnographies of fan culture and the existence of multiple versions of seemingly fixed texts. In this endeavour, the study adopts a content-based analytic approach in presenting a detailed exegesis of the modern film and television fairytales in Kenya and uses psychodynamics of orality in appreciating these emergent forms of storytelling in the contemporary society.