Ngwatilo Mawiyoo
(Kenya, 1983) as a child took singing and acting lessons. Now she combines poetry, music and the theatre. In 2011 she recorded the album Introducing Ngwatilo. In Kenya she is called the high priestess of the poetry performance because of her appearance, her performance and the themes she brings up. She performed at various festivals in Africa and Europe. In her Puesic Project she mixes music with poetry, dance and film. Her first collection of poetry Blue Mothertongue (2010) deals with the life in her native city of Nairobi and the African diaspora. For her latest project she wants to turn the stories of twenty rural families into poetry. The result will find its audience through radio, the international media and the digital highway.
Past events
Ngwatilo Mawiyoo: The text of my life
The Kenian poet and singer Ngwatilo Miwiyoo chose for the novel 'No longer at ease' by Chinua Achebe. She will read and explain why. In English.
VPRO De Avonden Live: Ngwatilo Mawiyoo and Ahmad Tohari
Interviews with these writers from Kenya and Indonesia at the festival, live radio. In English.
The Medium and the Message
The social and political influence of the new media is praised extensively as well as severely criticised. David Van Reybrouck hosts a discussion with Sami Ben Gharbia (Tunesia), Ngwatilo Mawiyoo (Kenya) and Ece Temelkuran (Turkey) about the hopes and dreams of changing the world and the possibilities impossiblilities that the Internet provides in achieving this goal. Including a performance of composer, performer and poet Jaap Blonk. In English.
Forget it!
Writers commenting on the black pages in their country’s history. Hanaan as-Sjaykh wrote about the civil war in Lebanon, Alberto Manguel did the same about the dirty war in Argentina while Hans Goedkoop shed a new light on the Dutch East Indies of the police actions in the late 1940s. David Van Reybrouck talks to them. Musical intermezzo: Ngwatilo Mawiyoo accompanied by Serigne Gueye and Mark Tuinstra. In English
