Film Biz Africa: Tell us about Steppes in Sync, what inspired you to start this initiative and how has the response been so far?
Andy Kozlov:The idea of Steppes in Sync came to me at the end of 2010 during the preparations for my second trip to Zimbabwe. Initially, Steppes in Sync was a personal blog where I would publish original or reposted material about topics like South-South cooperation, development communication, and African film and literature.
As for the people’s response to the Steppes in Sync initiative so far, we are still at the research phase but, as of recently, we nurtured promising collaborations with creative minds from countries like Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa, apart from our countries of focus – Ukraine and Zimbabwe. I have become an official representative of an African film distribution company, Afriwood, in the Russian-speaking markets. (See Afriwood to participate in 2012 Ukrainian Content Market)
The front page of the Bulawayo-based arts festival, Intwasa, web site
Steppes in Sync and a group of friends in the creative sector of Zimbabwe are currently working on establishing the Zimbabwe Creative Content Agency, the goal of which is to promote Zimbabwean talent abroad and strengthen information flow within the creative community there. We have discovered that despite the availability of various funding and publicity opportunities, Zimbabwean talent remains in the shadow, partly because there is fierce (and often blind) competition within the community. For example we are now in talks with the Bulawayo-based arts festival Intwasain southern part of Zimbabwe to manage their public image and attract more visitors from outside Zimbabwe. (See Navigating African cities through our own unique and diverse mental maps)
Film Biz Africa:Who does Steppes in Sync target in particular? Knowing that online media in Africa, particularly in the rural areas, are still in the bud, how do you intend to reach out to the creative talent on the continent?
Andy Kozlov: The question of internet penetration in Africa is a good one that no-one really has an answer to. Kenya, for example set the pace of mobile banking for the whole continent. In the creative field, the South African pay TV Channel M-Net recently launched the African Film Library availing to the public their 100-plus online library of films downloadable for a fee. They plan to expand it to 700 titles in the near future.
Film Biz Africa:Judging by the fact that Steppes in Sync connects international business and development experts to creative talent across the globe, which creative industry would you say has the greatest potential and why?
One thing is for sure, in the world that is undergoing a huge technological transformation, an average video like Kony 2012 can go viral in an instant and an expensive theater production somewhere in South Africa can go flop taking downhill all the aspirations and promising careers of the actors and producers. No doubt for example, IT and web-supported cultural industries is the happening place for Africa. Look at Samsung. This Korean company is implementing a program in a host of countries in Western Africa as well as in Kenya to introduce to the market TVs with an in-built satellite receiver. Something like this never took place anywhere else in the world. Christoph Limmer, senior director of marketing development and marketing, Africa, at SES (telecommunications company that helps broadcasters deliver almost 6,000 TV channels to over 245 million homes worldwide) put it this way commenting on the partnership with Samsung:
Film Biz Africa: What are your visions for Steppes in Sync?
Andy Kozlov: Steppes in Sync is first of all a platform for collaboration, and dissemination of creative-arts related information. There is a high demand for this in Africa and former Soviet nations. So, I can see us growing in the near future. African cultural market is by and large untapped. Africans are willing to learn. And it is important to collaborate with them, to teach them how to share ideas in a way that will contribute to their personal development and the development of their communities. We are certainly learning from Africa, too. So there is a lot of work to be done.
I must confess I do not know much about theatre in Zimbabwe. In fact I don’t know much about it in general. And my only visit to a theatre performance in Harare was to Reps half a year ago. It was then and there that fists flew when the Big House met the Small House in a play called “Married versus Single.” Just couldn’t resist the title. And true: it WAS fun. With HIFA rocking Harare this month, I realized I should learn more about theatre. (See HIFA’s 2011 engagements with Zimbabwean community)
“Married versus Single” (image courtesy of Zimbojam)
Searching the net about Zimbabwe doesn’t give you much compared to theatre scenes in other English-speaking countries. Yet at the end of last year, Stephen Chifunyise, Zimbabwe’s well-known playwright and culture analyst, published a comprehensive survey in The Herald. Reflecting on the achievements in 2011 he wrote:
The first major success highlight of the 2011 theatre season which demonstrated the potential for a vibrant and viable theatre industry in Zimbabwe were the more than 25 new plays which were world premiered during the year. Those plays that have been included in this impressive list of new plays are those whose productions were reported in the media. Therefore, if one includes those new plays presented by community theatre groups, colleges and schools but were not reported by the media, our 2011 theatre production may even reach a 40 plays mark.
Siyaya arts group from Makokoba township in Bulawayo was featured in-style in the first issue of the Inspiration Avenue magazine, a Zimbabwean lifestyle publication
In his article in The Herald, Chifunyise listed a number of successful premiers. Among those, he mentioned his own “365”and Blessing Hungwe‘s “Burn Mukwerekwere Burn.”
At this stage, I wanted to find out a bit more of the behind-the-scenes story of theatre production in Zimbabwe’s capital. I spoke to Blessing Hungwe, one of the protagonists of Harare theatre. I first met him at a regular meeting of the re-vitalized Zimbabwe Writer’s Association back in March. A week later, we were sitting on a stone bench in the Harare Gardens chatting about Blessing’s work. (See Every nation needs an international festival II: Harare vs Cape Town? and Zimbabwean hospitality)
AK: When did you first discover your passion for theatre?
BH: As early as high school when I was studying in Gweru. Then I moved to Harare where I met Stanley Mambo who was a big theatre practitioner back then before he moved to Malawi. He was into physical theatre. In 2007, I started my own small independent production company.
Reps Theatre in Harare (image courtesy of twinarts.co.zw)
AK: How would you describe the theatre scene in Harare?
BH: Harare is sort of split into two theatre movements: there’s the Reps crew, which is mostly into repertory production. They just re-do old-school productions and reinvent them for the Harare scene. They keep theatre alive throughout the whole year. Then we have Theatre in the Park, which is another venue just by the Harare Gardens. They stage contemporary Zimbabwean works. That’s where we mostly stage our plays.
AK: And what are your works about?
BH: I mostly deal with socio-economic issues in my plays. My last major play “Burn Mukwerekwere Burn” is about xenophobia.
AK: What are you working on now?
BH: In the play that I am preparing for HIFA [the interview took place in March 2012], I deal with the girl-child trafficking in Zimbabwe. It’s very rife these days. Girls are being trafficked from the rural areas to Harare. They are being trafficked from Harare to South Africa and all over Southern Africa. Zimbabwe has become a kind of hub for the trafficking.
AK: What creative techniques do you use when you work on a play?
BH: When I write, I usually try to run away from facts. What often happens in Zimbabwean productions is our plays become highly rhetorical. We sort of blurt out the facts from the stage. We should try to make it subtle to let our viewers enjoy unravelling the play.
AK: What do you expect from HIFA this year?
BH: For me, HIFA is the major platform to premier my work. Most of my works are artistic. So they need an artistic audience to appreciate them. I prefer premiering my work at HIFA, seeking a discerning audience against whom I can then measure myself. And, from the experience, the plays that are shown at HIFA are bound to travel outside Zimbabwe. By doing this, Zimbabwean productions can benefit from and contribute to the development of other countries’ creative industries.
AK: What are some of the challenges facing Zimbabwean theatre internationally?
BH: Actually, when we were working on a TV series, I was in the midst of writing “Burn Mukwerekwere Burn”. You write at night, while shooting the drama during the day. You get stuck sometimes when you are writing. I got stuck on a piece – didn’t know what to do with a certain character. And it was during the shoot one of those days that I realized how to introduce a character in my play that I had long struggled to. That’s how I broke into that character. (See Afriwood to participate in 2012 Ukrainian Content Market)
Our conversation ends and in parting Blessing tells me that his company received an award from National Arts Merit Awards this year. He also shares his plans to train young residents of Chitungwiza to help them become professionals both in theatre and television.
Who knows, maybe in 20 years some other dummy will be unravelling the behind-the scenes stories helped by Blessing’s students in the run up to HIFA. Sitting on the same stone bench in the autumnal Harare Gardens.
You can write to Andy Kozlov on a.kozlov@steppesinsync.com
When I stopped by Rotary centre in central Harare (between the US and Russian Embassies) last March to have lunch at the school of hospitality that operates from there – Meikles-like meals for less money – I was
Meikles Hotel in Harare is one Zimbabwe’s premium lodgings
Zimbabwean school pupils and their parents, current students, and graduates of Russian universities visited the presentations at Rotary. The visitors considering Russia as a place of study were provided with necessary information about education in more than 15 Russian state universities. These offer more than 300 medical, technical, engineering, economical specialties and the humanities.
Last year I trained a group of young Zimbabwean marketers about place/nation branding techniques. (See Destination marketing: lessons for Zimbabwe) In a flash exercise, I asked them to write down five words that come into their mind when they think of Russia. Needless to say, most of my students thought of something either ‘soul-warming’ like vodka or ‘blood-freezing’ (AK rifles) – all the way down to sub-zero cold (vast land under the blanket of snow). (See Nenets of the North)
Despite such popular perceptions, Russia, the largest country in the world by territory, has lots of assets that Zimbabwean youth can benefit from. Plus, the Russian government is ready to pay for such opportunities.
Russia boasts a great number of Nobel Prize winners, world-wide known names in culture and sport as well as rich natural resources. Today dozens of students from all parts of the world come to Russia to get education for reasonable prices. There are more than 165,000 foreign students from 200 countries who study in Russia.
The education for foreign students at Russian state universities is partially subsidized by the Russian government (up to 80%). The average cost of tuition and accommodation in university hostels depends on the specialization, university, city and the language of education (USD 2,500 – 4,500 per one academic year). Food expenses per one month are about USD 250-300.
RACUS, a group of more than 15 prestigious Russian universities, has been helping foreign students and their parents to make the right choice of an university for more than 20 years.
Upon completion of any Russian state university, the graduate receives a higher education degree of Russian national standard and also an additional document upon request – “European Appendix” to the degree. This allows its holder to get equivalence to educational documents either in Russia or in any other Western country.
The name RACUS is an abbreviation of its first four departments:
DEPARTMENT №1
Russian-Arabic Centre for
University Service
DEPARTMENT №2
Russian-Asian Centre for
University Service
DEPARTMENT №3
Russian-African Centre for
University Service
DEPARTMENT №4
Russian-American Centre for
University Service
DEPARTMENT №5
Department of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)
and Europe
Did you know? Facts about the Russian Federation
Russia is the biggest country in the world by territory, and home to 160 different ethnic groups.
Circa 80% of professors at Russian universities hold at least one PhD degree.
International students entering a Russian state university through RACUS get all necessary professional support and guidance throughout the whole period of study (up to 7 years).
The Russian language is one of the key languages of international communication. It is one of the United Nations official languages. Russian is the most geographically widespread language in Eurasia. More than 350 million people speak at least a bit of Russian. Russian is the official language of space. All astronauts learn Russian.
Russian tourists travel to all corners of the planet. Knowledge of Russian often helps those in the hospitality business to move up the career ladder. (See Global Tourism Prospects and Trends)
Alexander Pushkin’s great-grandfather was a native Ethiopian who assisted the Russian Emperor, Peter the Great, to modernize Russia several centuries back. (See Multikulti Ukraine)
You can write to Andy Kozlov on a.kozlov@steppesinsync.com
Zaha Hadid, Iraqi-British winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize (image courtesy of hughpearman.com)
You can work in a McDonald’s and survive. But who are we? What is our heritage? S a d a M i r e
They are both women leaders born to the predominately Muslim nations. Forced to leave for the Western world, where they received education, Dr Sada Mire of Somaliland and Zaha Hadid of Iraq traveled back to their home countries to do creative projects and uplift the lives of the local communities by re-branding their motherlands.
Dr Sada Mire posing for the “Discover Magazine” (photo by Graham Trott, Grooming: Claire Hanson)
The world’s only active Somali archaeologist, Sada lived the first fifteen years of her life in Mogadishu, until 1991, when she settled in Sweden, as a result of the conflict in the Horn of Africa. She studied at the School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London, for her B.A., and then at University College London for her M.A. and Ph.D., conducting field research in Somaliland.
Sada is currently advisor to and former Director of the Republic of Somaliland’s Department of Tourism & Archaeology, which she founded in 2007. Mohamed Abdi Ali, who works for the department, estimated that since, for example, the Lass Geel site was opened in 2002, between 50 and 60 tourists come to the area each month.
Dr Sada Mire is founder and executive director of the Horn Heritage Organization that assists the mapping of all monuments and sites of Somaliland and the creation of Somaliland National Heritage Law. In pursuit to preserve the Somali heritage, HHO plans to build a centre in Hargeysa for scientific research facility, storage and education. At the moment, the Somaliland government and delegates from the Paul-Valéry Universityin France are collaborating on a project to develop archaeological sites in Somaliland. (See How culture contributes to development: an UNESCO indicator suite)
Sada has worked as a technical assistant for the UNDP in Somalilandon cultural resource management and capacity building. Sada has conducted fieldwork in several European and African countries – from the UK and Denmark to Kenya and Egypt. She is a TED-Speaker. (See The Creator Of TED reinvents conferencing again) Sada believes that cultural heritage is a basic human need.
When she first came back to Somalia as a PhD student, Sada discovered that no one was funding culture in Somaliland, not even the government. “So after four years of giving talks and screaming and running all over the world and telling everyone what is happening, the UN decided to fund my position with the government.”
In Somaliland, there is poverty after the war. This is a country that has been totally destroyed. In Somalia, we still have a war. (See The worst music with the best intentions? Insights on a Zimbabwean fundraising tune for Somalia) I went to Somaliland because that is the only place where I can actually do my work. There is peace there. Since it’s not a recognised country, it does not have support and humanitarian assistance that a country, which is part of the UN would have. [Somalia, the recognized state never ratified the World Heritage Convention, by the way] (See Whose premise: UNESCO-Harare or UNESCO-Paris?)
I’m trying to get people to realise the importance of heritage and guide them in that context. I go to the rural areas where the sites are based. When they see my work, they realise the discovered sites are important and could become potential world heritage sites that can help them to develop economically, educationally and help them in their identity building.
The explanation on Somaliheritage.org sheds more light on the paralysis caused by the absence of international mechanisms within the UN system to protect the heritage of non-member states:
The UN member nation-state of Somalia consists today of a war-torn society made of three new regions, these are Somaliland, Puntland and south-central Somalia. Somaliland is a break-away state with its own government which seeks an international recognition as an independent nation-state. Puntland is a semiautonomous region. Puntland and south-central Somalia are still facing instabilities due to ongoing war and piracy.
Furthermore, severe poverty and prolonged droughts threaten all Somali regions. The archaeology of Somalia, Puntland and Somaliland is disappearing systematically. Some people are destroying the archaeological heritage by looting and clandestine excavations. Archaeology has become a source to feed upon. Since severe poverty mostly triggers the destruction the solution to the problem needs to be multiple. The potentials of cultural heritage resources must be highlighted to the current looters and it must be made explicit how future possibilities for education, job opportunities and tourism can benefit them in the long term.
Most of the archaeological sites suffer also the environmental changes; parts of the country have undergone desertification, particularly in north-eastern part of the country.
Talking to the Discover Magazine, Sada explained her interest in archeology as career:
The world’s only active Somali archaeologist, Sada Mire (photo courtesy of BBC)
When I was a refugee, I studied Scandinavian archaeology because I wanted to understand my new surroundings. After learning about European culture, I became interested in my own past.
When she came across a book by Basil Davidson, Africa: The Story of A Continentand saw the images of Ashanti people holding and wearing gold, the sculptures of Ife, Nok and Ethiopia, she soon realised there wasn’t much study about African archaeology or history. “Its like there were all these previous civilisations, which colonialism has taken away from us and one of the passages I read was that in order to understand African history, there needs to be archaeologists who excavate the history of Africa. There is what the English wrote, what the Arabs wrote but where is what the Africans wrote? And that made me want to study it.”
Even though, her work has been limited to Somaliland which, unlike the rest of Somalia, remains relatively peaceful, travelling between towns Sada employs guards armed with AK-47s. The roads themselves are treacherous, and landmines and deadly snakes litter the countryside where many of the archaeological sites are found. Some sites are also now secured by armed guards, to prevent looters. The country as yet has no museums. (See Steppes In Figures #4: Southern Africa trivia from last year)
One of the problems Sada has had to deal with is how to define mobile, nomadic heritage. In Somalia they carry cultural heritage in their heads. It’s not something you can point to and say, ‘Isn’t this a fantastic building?’ Their cultural heritage is much more difficult to define.
Intangible Cultural Heritage means the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills – as well as the instruments, objects, artifacts and cultural spaces associated therewith – that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage. This intangible cultural heritage, transmitted from generation to generation, is constantly recreated by communities and groups in response to their environment, their interaction with nature and their history, and provides them with a sense of identity and continuity, thus promoting respect for cultural diversity and human creativity.
For Somalia, ICH includes knowledge of the (nomadic) landscape, oral culture, portable houses, city life, survival during the civil war–what Sada calls a knowledge-centered approach.
Sada regards national heritage as a human right, crucial to a nation’s sense of itself even during a time of conflict and famine. Speaking to Outlook from the BBC World Service, she further explains the effect of her attempts at re-branding Somalia on her people’s lives, “When we find sites and I am able to tell local people about the importance of the site and the potential that can come from it – its significance for world heritage – it gives them dignity and pride. Our culture is very oral, so people need to hear from somebody and they repeat it. People immediately feel that they have something, a resource. They can say, ‘We may not have a lot but if we can take care of this site, we have something.’”
Inside of a “tower house” in Old Sana’a (image courtesy of the Saudi Aramco World)
Dr Sada Mire is not the first promoter of heritage preservation in an Islamic nation that used the media to draw attention of the international community and change UN policies. One doesn’t need to swim far in search for examples. Just across the Gulf of Aden. As was reminded to us by Eric Hansen, the author of Motoring with Mohammed – Journeys to Yemen and the Red Sea and a frequent contributor to Saudi Aramco World, in 1970, the Italian film director Pier Paolo Pasolini produced a 15-minute documentary, The Walls of Sana‘a, which he sent to the UNESCO as an appeal for international help to save the old city of the Yemeni capital. Back then, Pasolini visited Sana‘a for a few days to film his famous The Decameron and was struck by Sana’a and shocked at the prospect of ‘modernization,’ a ‘development’ wave that two decades later swept through Beijing and characterized Pasolisini’s native Italy after the Second World War. Now the Old City of Sana’a is an UNESCO World Heritage Site.
When Zaha Hadid (who was born on the opposite side of the Arabian desert twenty years before Pasolini set his camera on the Yemeni soil to film The Walls of Sana‘a) won the $100,000 Pritzker Prize in 2004 – the first female ever to win America’s most prestigious architecture award – the judges said she would have been famous if she’d never built a thing. (In 2010, she was awarded the Royal Institute of British Architects Stirling Prize for MAXXI – National Museum of the 21st Century Arts in Rome. Hadid got this prize again last year).
You can go almost anywhere — Azerbaijan (where Heydar Aliyev Cultural Center officially opened on 10 May 2012. Located close to the city center, the site plays a pivotal role in the redevelopment of Baku.), Singapore, Abu Dhabi, South Korea, Italy, China, Libya or Turkey — and expect to find a building designed by Hadid, a project for one under way, or a master plan in progress. Last year in Libya, Hadid’s new conference center outside of Tripoli was “put on hold.” As a result of the unforseen Arab Spring events in North Africa, Zaha Hadid Architects made a quarter of its staff redundant, laying off more than 90 employees.
MAXXI – National Museum of the 21st Century Arts in Rome by Zaha Hadid
One of the Pritzker judges, the veteran American architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable, said that Hadid “has changed the way we see and experience space.” Hadid takes space in her hands and kneads it like dough, or slices it up like freshly prepared vegetables. Floors swoop, walls lean, ceilings fly away, outside and inside get all mixed up. Your expectations are confounded.
Hallway of Guangzhou Opera House in China by Zaha hadid (image courtesy of Roy Zhuang)
Hadid’s father Mohammed, a leading businessman and social democrat, was involved in industrialising Iraq during the period when oil revenues were pouring into the country’s coffers. After the rise of Saddam Hussein and the Iran-Iraq war, most of the professional classes, including her family, quit the country.
Hadid has lived in London since 1972, when she arrived from her native Baghdad, by way of a mathematics degree at the American University in Beirut. “I always loved London. My father went to school in England in the 1930s. I went to an English boarding school for a while. My brothers were at school in England, so I spent my summers in London while I was growing up,” explained Hadid in an interview for the British Airways High Life in-flight magazine.
Reflecting on her teachers, she said, “You had to be smart enough to chase them, and make them teach you. You had to learn what you wanted to learn.” Her mentor at the architectural association was the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, who is now also a global superstar. (“Rem can sleep on planes,” says Zaha enviously. He likes flying. I don’t.”) (See Why I am excited about flying through Dubai or Why I am excited not to fly through OR Tambo in Jozi)
Baghdad, the second largest city in Western Asia (after Tehran) first introduced Zaha Hadid to the idea of architecture
Notwithstanding its notoriety, Lagos continues to have enormous appeal for vast numbers of people. Every hour, 21 new inhabitants set out to start a life in the city, a life that is highly unpredictable and requires risk-taking, networking and improvisation as essential strategies for survival.
A documentary Lagos/Koolhaas follows Rem Koolhaas during his research in Lagos over a period of two years. Using small digital cameras, film-makers documented Koolhaas documenting Lagos. They tried to grasp and convey a sense of the new urban life that is being invented in this Nigerian megapolis.
Koolhaas’ father was a novelist, critic, and screenwriter. Two documentary films by Bert Haanstra for which his father wrote the scenarios were nominated for an Academy Award for Documentary Feature, one won a Golden Bear for Short Film.
His father strongly supported the Indonesian cause for autonomy from the colonial Dutch in his writing. When the war of independence was won, he was invited over to run a cultural programme for three years and the family moved to Jakarta in 1952. “It was a very important age for me,” Koolhaas recalls, “and I really lived as an Asian.”
CCTV Headquarters by Rem Koolhaas in Beijing
It was Zaha Hadid’s native Baghdad (the second largest city in Western Asia, after Tehran) that first introduced Koolhaas’ trainee to the idea of architecture. “I had thought about being an architect ever since I was 11,” she says. “There was a period in Iraq in the 1960s, when identity and architecture were connected. There was a new philosophy in the country, and new buildings expressed it. I can remember going to an exhibition about Frank Lloyd Wright’s work in Baghdad. He was designing an opera house and I was intrigued.”
Due to the 1958 collapse of the Hashemite monarchy, development of the project stopped, and it was never built. (What would the late Frank Lloyd Wright say of today’s Baghdad, after sanctions, and after war? To learn)
Baghdad Tower and communication center in downtown Baghdad
Iraq’s central bank was targeted by car bombers three years ago, and Hadid was commissioned to design a replacement.
Hadid lives in Clerkenwell (in the London Borough of Islington), but spends her summers in Istanbul, a city which she loves. (See Biosphere Connections by Star Alliance+UNESCO+National Geographic) Her work shows the same passionate intensity at every scale. Her ideas for the waterfront in Istanbul and Singapore will reshape entire cities, but she is also ready to design pavilions for Dior, shoes, cutlery, bags and door handles. It is possible, in short, to live entirely in a world designed by Zaha.
Women do not get to build skyscrapers and opera houses by being shy and retiring. Don’t call her a diva: “Nobody calls Norman Foster or Frank Gehry a diva.”
