This news story comes from Zimbabwe’s capital Harare, where a play titled “Song Unburied” will show at Theatre in the Park for a short run from 2 to 9 August 2024, Zimbuzz reports.
“Song Unburied” was written by prolific novelist and journalist Panashe Chigumadzi who grew up in South Africa.
The play was produced and directed by Daves Guzha of Rooftop Promotions featuring a stellar cast of award-winning actresses the likes of Charmaine Munjeri and Dalma Chiwereva ably supported by Tinevimbo Chimbetete with sensational bone scintillating music by Abel Mafuleni.
“Song Unburied” is an intergenerational story of re-memory, re-membering and reparation following the troubled spirit of the British Museum’s newly appointed First Black Curator, Rambisayi Mangosho, as she discovers the bones of anti-colonial heroine Mbuya Nehanda in its basement.
Just before Rambi begins her new appointment at the Museum, her grandmother — the only one who knew what to do with her troubling dreams — passes.
Unable to return to Zimbabwe to bury her grandmother, Rambi buries herself in the “diversity and inclusion” work of the Museum which has cynically hired her in the wake of historic protest and contestation.
As she begins work on the Great African Civilizations exhibition, she finds solace and guidance in the company of Tsitsi, a war veteran who has been the Museum’s caretaker since gaining asylum in the UK.
They discover they share the totem — they are both vaChihera. Upon discovering the bones of Mbuya Nehanda and other leaders of Zimbabwe’s anti-colonial wars in the museum’s basement, both Rambi and Tsitsi recognize the voices from the troubling dreams.
Tsitsi warns Rambi that the bones cannot simply be removed or returned — there must be a ritual.
This and other twists will surely keep theatre audiences captivated as the cast delivers on stage.
Perhaps for those not in the know, Chigumadzi is a Zimbabwean born in 1991 but grew up in South Africa.
She has published her writing in a variety of media. She has been a columnist for The Guardian, Die Zeit, The New York Times, The Washington Post, New York Review of Vooks and Chimurenga.
She was a founder of VANGUARD, a magazine designed to give space to young, black South African women interested in how queer identities, pan-Africanism and Black Consciousness intersect.
At the start of her career, Chigumadzi worked as a reporter for CNBC Africa.
Chigumadzi draws on the history of Zimbabwe in her work, by exploring national and personal histories and identities.
Her first novel, Sweet Medicine, was published in 2015, winning the K Sello Duiker Memorial Literary Award.
Her 2017 narrative essay These Bones Will Rise Again drew on Shona perspectives to explore the concept of the “Mothers of the Nation” and interrogate perceptions of Nehanda Charwe Nyakasikana in Zimbabwe.
While studying and writing on the legacies of Zimbabwe’s struggle for independence, Chigumadzi also writes about modern identities for southern Africans.
Source: ZIMBUZZ
