Dancers from Europe and East Africa perform Mitumba in Dar es Salaam. Photo/Caroline Uliwa
What you need to know:
East African and European dancers ‘auction’ second-hand clothes to create awareness of life on both continents.
Second-hand clothes, known as mitumba in East Africa, are very popular with both the rich and poor, residents and visitors alike. There have been debates on the merits and demerits of the mitumba trade and its impact on the region’s textile industry; mitumba is big business the world over.
Last Friday, Mouvoir, a German-based art troupe gave the used clothing conversation an artistic twist by presenting a contemporary dance/theatre piece titled Mitumba at the Goethe Institut, Dar es Salaam. The cast consisted of dancers from East Africa and Europe.
The stage was a makeshift typical flea market with tables of clothes, and costume rails with clothes on hangers inside a tent that served as both the stage and audience seating area.
The cast weren’t dancing or even moving; rather they were calling out to the audience to buy the clothes. Some of them were quite convincing: “Come buy, come buy, only Tsh3,000, Shakira wore this…”
Europe-based dancer Kingsley Odiaka said, “All the clothes being used here are mitumba, some were bought here in Dar es Salaam at the Karume market, then we took them to Europe when we performed there. While in Europe we also got more clothes from several friends and friends of friends, and we brought them back here for this performance.”
After about half an hour of rigorous “selling” of mitumba, the action changed when the stiff “lifeless” body of a female dancer was carried around the stage. This is dancer Mu-Yi Kuo of Taiwanese descent.
The dancers then move all over the tent and start an “argument” about Western versus African dance. Kenyan and Tanzanian dancers Kefa and Isaac Abeneko then break into a “boot dance,” only they’re not wearing boots. They then do imitations of a dance done by little girls commonly known in Tanzania as makida makida.
Mu-Yi Kuo and Michele Meloni from Italy start a Western dance. Kingsley Odiaka from Nigeria and Judith follow suit, doing a piece like Isaac and Kefa, though Kingsley gives it a taste of African traditional dance. Viviana from Germany is also dancing, and at times she takes on Michele as her partner. There’s teasing between these paired teams and competition to outperform each other.
The band of musicians is sitting to one side. They include percussionist Holger Mertin Freiraum from Germany, nyatiti player Juliette Omolo from Kenya, guitarist Josef Suchy from Germany and Eric Hussein on the zeze with Samuel Mandoo on the mbira (both from Tanzania).
Kefa and Stephanie Thiersch, the director of Mouvoir, then started a discussion on mitumba. Stephanie, upon Kefa’s questioning, said that in Europe, citizens donate clothes to NGOs on the assumption that they will be given for free to poor nations.
The clothes, she learned through the making of this art performance, are later sorted out with the best ones going to the Middle East and Eastern Europe, and the rest being shipped to East Africa; where they are sold, albeit at a low price.
The performance then moves on to a mini-fashion show on a makeshift red carpet. The dancers wear some of the mitumba in ridiculous fashion, like underwear on top of trousers.
At the end of the fashion show, there is an auction and MCs Abeneko and Meroni are given a hard time by some of the dancers (Kefa, Isaack and Kingsley) who start auctioning pieces of clothing claiming that some of them have magic.
“If you buy this and you’re a guy who’s single, you will find a beautiful wife in your sitting room right now. If you’re a single lady who wants a husband and children, these clothes will give it to you, give me a price,” Abeneko shouts.
The auction also included sale of the dancers, as Mu-Yi said in Kiswahili that she was not for sale. “I have soft skin, I can cook and clean, and I am totally for free,” she said.
Abeneko said: “Though this piece was light we spoke of serious issues, like racial bias and how living in the West is perceived by Africans. This is why you saw some animosity between the dancers. When we were living together for three months in Germany working on this piece, we got to learn and research some cultural biases.
“And here we learned how Africans like Kingsley, who are residents in Europe, are seen as macho men by European women. I also shared how going to Europe is seen as the ultimate life by Africans, but I know home is best. We wanted to capture all these contrasts in the piece,” he said.
