Abstract
During 2004–2005, I witnessed Zimbabwean theatre groups respond to the uncertainties of daily life as the economy was plunging and the political fallout of the most recent election with creative work that poked at ZANU–PF with humour, satire and outright commentary. Theatre groups effectively manipulated language using chihwerure (literally, the whirlwind, a stylistic socially sanctioned criticism) within their performances. The theatre groups use chihwerure and nhimbe to create an aesthetic that uses both the memories of the performers and the performances’ hoped-for audiences to conceal its criticism of the state and points to the injustices of the crisis. This chapter will examine various strategies and dramaturgies that used the satirical and nimble voice of the nhimbe to create a space and memory that these groups were able to use to envision a new post-colony.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Operation Murambatsvina (Shona for ‘drive out the trash’) is an urban renewal project that was carried out by the ruling ZANU (PF) government in May 2005. It was targeted at perceived opposition party strongholds in the major urban areas of Zimbabwe where the government destroyed informal settlements and people’s home industries, leaving an estimated 700,000 citizens homeless and destitute.
- 2.
Chimurenga is the Shona word to refer to an uprising. The first chimurenga was fought against the British South African Company in 1896 through to 1897 and was led by spirit mediums for the territorial spirits of Nehanda, Kaguvi, and Mlimo. All of the mediums were eventually captured and hanged. Charwe, Nehanda’s medium refused baptism and prophesied from the gallows that a second chimurenga would drive the British out of the land. The second chimurenga was Zimbabwe’s war of independence. The third chimurenga started as a rhetorical strategy of President Mugabe as he engaged the language of the liberation struggle to delegitimise the growing opposition to his regime. For more on the history of chimurenga and Nehanda, see David Lan’s Guns and Rain (1985) and David Beach’s writings, particularly (Beach 1998).
- 3.
Zimbabwe African National Union (Patriotic Front), the country’s ruling party under the leadership of the then President Robert Mugabe who led the country from independence in 1980 up to November 2017 when he was removed in a coup d’état.
- 4.
I am simplifying a lot of what happened and do not want to minimize the complexity or the extraordinary nature of violence and outright human rights abuses that went on during this period. For more nuanced and complete accounts of what happened in the beginning of what is now called by some as the third chimurenga, I recommend Andrew Meldrum’s Where We Have Hope: A Memoir of Zimbabwe (2006), Martin Meredith’s Our Votes, Our Guns: Robert Mugabe and the Tragedy of Zimbabwe (2002), Geoff Hill’s What Happens After Mugabe? (2005). I highly recommend Terence Ranger’s 2004 article “National Historiography”.
- 5.
The destruction and devastation of neighbourhoods and forced relocation of people was being compared to the 26 December 2004 tsunami in Indonesia.
- 6.
Men also perform in nhimbe threshing songs.
- 7.
Praise Zenenga’s article on censorship has other key examples of groups that have been censored.
- 8.
One possible reason may be because of self-censorship or staging of scenes that might be considered risqué. Stage kisses are rare. In most scenes depicting sexual content or interest, the participants are typically dancing or staged far away from each other.
- 9.
HIV-awareness plays had a very formulaic structure and storyline basically positing that a man can be victimised by a loose woman, and sometimes a prostitute, but also frequently an unfaithful wife.
- 10.
Although Mukwindidza uses his memories of his grandmother’s performances and stories to create the structure of the play and his characters, James is not autobiographical.
- 11.
Ritual friend, joking friend. A sahwira will have an important role during major life milestones particularly for funerals.
- 12.
Biniwere was also the choreographer.
- 13.
At the October 2005 exchange rate, it would be just under US$1200. Z$6 million at the same exchange rate would be US$30.
- 14.
I took this last figure from a blog about currency in Zimbabwe that was posted around 25 October 2008. It does not have sources listed or an author. I find it useful because it uses concrete examples to develop an idea as to how much inflation in Zimbabwe was impacting everyday life https://humorland.wordmess.net/20081025/what-the-real-crisis-is-like/. (Originally accessed 3/1/2009) As of 26 October 2018, this page has been inaccessible, but it is also referred to by other blogs: https://obront.wordpress.com/2009/02/06/zimbabwe-funny-money/. Accessed 26/10/2018.
- 15.
This song was inspired by the Apollo 11 mission to the moon.
- 16.
A rough translation of the lyrics of this song goes: ‘She is a Rocket! Rocket! She is from the moon. There she comes. She is a Rocket, rocket, there she has finally come.’ I do not have the skill in translating to keep the sense of rhythm of the words. It is a highly metaphorical song.
- 17.
Kovo is galerella sanguinea, which is a slender mongoose. It is also known as the Black-tailed Mongoose.
- 18.
Shillah Chipamuriwo, Muzondo’s ex-wife, was a vital part of the first few years of Edzai Isu.
- 19.
My analysis of All Systems Out of Order is based on three productions of it and the script. The first performance I saw was October 2004 at Theatre in the Park. The script that Tafadzwa Muzondo (2004, 2005b, 2005c) gave me had the year 2005 printed on its cover page. I have cited each production and the script separately in the bibliography.
- 20.
The first movement in the play is divided into three scenes. These scenes can be divided into the pre-colonial, colonial, and post-independence.
- 21.
Ravengai has said that camp performances or pungwe performances frequently had whistles, barking and growling at climatic moments of performance (2016, p. 174).
- 22.
I am curious how this scene would play to audiences post-November 2017 and the coup that effectively removed Mugabe from the presidency.
- 23.
- 24.
Again, I wonder how this play would be read by audiences in the post-Mugabe era and now.
- 25.
Up to now it has seemed that the ModernMan/ToiletCleaner is haunted more by Mugabe.
References
Allen, Paul. 2006. Juice. Southern Review 42 (1): 126–143.
Beach, D. N. 1998. An innocent woman, unjustly accused? Charwe, medium of the Nehanda Mhondoro Spirit, and the 1896–97 Central Shona rising in Zimbabwe. History in Africa 25: 27–54. https://doi.org/10.2307/3172179. Accessed 9 Apr 2009.
Bessant, Leslie. 1994. Songs of Chiweshe and songs of Zimbabwe. African Affairs 93 (370): 43–73. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a098703. Accessed 7 Apr 2009.
Chigayo, Fabian. 2005. Personal interview by Joy Wrolson. Highfield, Zimbabwe, 12 October.
Hannan, M.S.J., ed. 1987. Standard Shona dictionary. Harare: College Press.
Kilalea, Sarah. 2005. HIFA: A personal account—Performing the vagina monologues. 15 May. https://www.kubatana.net/html/archive/opin/050515sk.asp?sector=WOMEN&range_start=91. Accessed 7 Apr 2009.
Klassen, Doreen. 1999. You can't have silence with your palms up: Ideophones, gesture and iconicity in Zimbabwean Shona women's ngano (storysong) performance. Unpublished Doctor of Philosophy thesis, Indiana University.
Lan, David. 1985. Guns & rain: Guerrillas & spirit mediums in Zimbabwe. London: James Currey.
Mhlanga, Cont. 2007. The play must play. Amakhosi Culture Centre and Performing Arts Academy: Theatre. https://www.amakhosi.org/id17.html. Accessed 24 Mar 2009.
Mukwindidza, Jingo James. 2005a Hypocrites (script).
Mukwindidza, Jingo James. 2005b. You have no right to remain silent (script).
Mukwindidza, Jingo James. 2005c. Interview by Joy Wrolson. 3rd interview: Storytelling and grandmother, 12 October.
Muzondo, Tafadzwa. 2004. All systems out of order. Directed by Stanley Mambo. Performed by Edzai Isu. Theatre In The Park, Harare. October 21–November 3.
Muzondo, Tafadzwa. 2005a. All systems out of order (script).
Muzondo, Tafadzwa. 2005b. All systems out of order. Performed by Edzai Isu. COSV sustained dialogue. Chishawasha Catholic Mission. June 24.
Muzondo, Tafadzwa. 2005c. All systems out of order. Directed by Tafadzwa Muzondo. Performed by Edzai Isu. Beit Hall, UZ, Harare. October 18.
Muzondo, Tafadzwa.2005d. All systems out of order: Production profile.
Muzondo, Tafadzwa, 2005e. Personal interview by Joy Wrolson. 19 October.
Ncube, Pius, Dr. Roger Bate, and Richard Tren. 2005. State in fear: Zimbabwe’s tragedy is Africa’s shame. Relief Web. https://www.reliefweb.int/library/documents/2005/afm-zwe-06jul.pdf.
Ndebele, Zenzele. 2007. Police cancel music show. 6 September. https://www.freemuse.org/sw21395.asp. Accessed 24 Oct 2008.
Ranger, Terence. 2004. Nationalist historiography, patriotic history and the history of the nation: The struggle over the past in Zimbabwe. Journal of Southern African Studies 30 (2): 215–234.
Ravengai, Samuel. 2015. Performing the subversive: Censorship and theatre making in Zimbabwe. Studies in Theatre and Performance 35 (3): 237–250.
Ravengai, Samuel. 2016. Chimurenga liberation songs and dances as sites of struggle to counter Rhodesian discourse: A postcolonial perspective. In Sounds of life: Music, Identity and Politics in Zimbabwe, ed. Fainos Mangena, Ezra Chitando, and Itai Muwati, 165–181. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Roach, Joseph. 1996. Cities of the dead: Circum-Atlantic performance. New York: Columbia University Press.
Rohmer, Martin. 2000. Form as weapon: The political function of song in urban Zimbabwean drama. New Theatre Quarterly 16 (2): 148–154.
Scott, James C. 1990. Domination and the arts of resistance: Hidden transcripts. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Seda, Owen. 2004. Transculturalism in post-independence Zimbabwean drama: Projections of Zimbabwean theatre at the onset of a new millennium. Zambezia 31: 136–147.
Seda, Owen. 2008. Border crossings—A Transatlantic project in community-based theatre: Performing the bus stop journals. Theatre Topics 18 (2): 183–190.
Tibaijuka, Anna Kajumulo. 2005. Report of the fact-finding mission to Zimbabwe to assess the scope and impact of Operation Murambatsvina. New York: United Nations.
Wrolson, Joy. 2009. Re-Inventing memory and reforming performances: A genealogy of panic theatre in Zimbabwe. PhD thesis, University of Kansas.
Zenenga, Praise. 2008. Censorship, surveillance, and protest theatre in Zimbabwe. Theatre 38 (3): 62–79.
Zenenga, Praise. 2009. Songs and contexts. Interview by Joy Wrolson. Email. 23 February.
Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum. 2005. Order out of chaos, or chaos out of order? A preliminary report on the Operation ‘Murambatsvina'. https://www.hrforumzim.com/special_hrru/order_out_of_chaos_or_chaos_out_of_order.htm. Accessed 6 Feb 2009.
Zimbabwe Parliament. 2002a. Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. Harare: Government Gazette.
Zimbabwe Parliament. 2002b. Public Order and Security Act. Harare: Government Gazette.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Wrolson, J.L. (2021). Harnessing the Whirlwind: Hybridity, Memory and Crisis in Theatre During Zimbabwe’s Operation Murambatsvina. In: Ravengai, S., Seda, O. (eds) Theatre from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe. Contemporary Performance InterActions. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74594-3_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74594-3_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-74593-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-74594-3
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)