HOPE AZEDA

INTERVIEW WITH HOPE AZEDA

Speaking with Hope Azeda is a significantly uplifting and restorative experience. She combines sharp intellect, a compassionate world-view and a firm belief in the power for art to inspire and change. These are not abstract ideas for Hope; through her work with her company Mashirika Performing Arts and her curatorship of the Ubumuntu Arts Festival, she has been the artistic force behind a huge range of productions with social justice at their core in her home country of Rwanda, and on the international stage. A recent winner of the 2018 McNulty Laureate Prize, Hope’s passionate and dynamic efforts to generate intercultural and intergenerational conversation are gaining global recognition.

We shared a lot of laughter this interview, though we spoke about immensely difficult subjects such as Hope’s journey from a refugee in Uganda and returning to Rwanda after the genocide, and where she thought the artistic community had an important voice in helping others to understand trauma and move towards reconciliation. Her drive shines brightly in this conversation; we see her belief and commitment to the next generation of Rwandan artists, and her will to make spaces for them to prosper.

Prof. Ananda Breed, University of Lincoln.png — **Professor Ananda Breed, University of Lincoln in conversation with Frederique Lecomte & Hope Azeda**

Dr. Katharine Low, RCSSD.png — **Dr Katharine Low, RCSSD, in conversation with Hope Azeda**

RWANDA PERFORMANCE

A high energy and impassioned performance, this piece saw actors Megan Sharman, Ilaria Smiderle and Grace Durbin work all of the stage space, before cutting it across repeatedly with red ropes and punctuating it with paper flags of words culled from the sparse performance text. Set simultaneously everywhere and nowhere, the transversal location of this play by Hope Azeda of Mashirika Performing Arts brought together multiple stories and global perspectives of child abuse, and the long tendrils of trauma.

Impressionistic and visceral, this piece combined video narratives with recorded and live music, spoken word and contemporary dance to replicate a sense of fear, pursuit and lack of resolution for the victims. There was no attempt to disguise or blend the moves between sequences, rather the theatrical processes were highlighted in this piece, the performers never becoming characters, but rather, self-consciously using their voices and bodies to amplify the narratives of others.