July is promising to be a busy month for local actor, dancer and dance instructor Eliane Umuhire. As a member of the Mashirika Performing Arts and Media Company, she will be part of the cast of ‘Imbabazi’, the musical based on the feature film, "Imbabazi (The Pardon), by Rwandan director Joel Karekezi. 

The musical will be directed by an American couple, Jerry and Laura King, who are already in the country for preparations.

July will also see the shooting of ‘Birds are Singing in Kigali’, a polish production in which Umuhire will be starring with Polish actress Jowita Budnik. It is directed by Joanna Kos-Krauze.

The same month of July will also host the first edition of the Ubumuntu Arts Festival, an initiative of Hope Azeda, the founder of Mahirika. For 2 days, from 11 to12 July, says Umuhire, "we will re-question our humanity in the actual world.”

Umuhire speaks highly of Hope Azeda, one of the two Rwandan ladies that deeply inspired her into the Arts industry. The other is Carole Karemera, founder of the Ishyo Arts Center.

She met the two, who she describes as "wonderful artists and mentors” after university (National University of Rwanda, in Butare, where she had studied Accounting. While there, she was soon drawn to the university’s Center for Arts and Drama, "which provided me and my fellow artists like Liza Kamikazi with the primary techniques,” she further explains. "We were then part of ‘les stars du theatre’, the university theater troop.”

She credits the center for introducing her to the world of contemporary theater and dance. She has never looked back ever since.

She eventually joined Mashirika in 2009, after graduation from university.

Today, Umuhire holds the enviable title of lead actress, dancer, and theater instructor in Mashirika.

She describes her experience at Mashirika so far as "an amazing journey of learning, creating and performing.”

"Hope Azeda (the director), is the kind of inspiring and empowering person who gives you space to explore and grow in the process. One of the examples is how she bought this idea we had with Arthur Nkusi and Simon Rwema who are both performers in Mashirika, of starting acting and dancing classes. It was a way of giving back from the little we have learnt so far.

She bought the idea, and since then, Saturdays and Sundays at Mashirika became vibrant, with acting and dancing lessons that we provide to young boys and girls who joined us in March.”

She explains that starting the acting and dancing classes has been a challenging task, but also a learning opportunity:

"We found ourselves having to prepare lessons (a first for me), but again, it triggered the creativity we didn’t know we had! It is also through Mashirika that I was cast for the leading role in ‘Birds are singing in Kigali’, a polish production for which we finished shooting the first part in Poland and are shooting the Rwandan scenes in coming months.”

As a part of Mashirika, she has performed in various plays which include among others: ‘Echoes of Peace’ (for the 17th commemoration of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi), ‘Africa’s Hope’ (which toured in 2012 in the US), ‘Bridge of Roses’ (based on a true story, and that was recently staged at the Kampala International Dance Week Festival).

Hails from artistic background

Umuhire’s foray into the world of theater and dance did not start at Mashirika though. Rather, the foundations are rooted much deeper, in a long-running family tradition: 

Having been born into a family of artists, she was exposed to the ropes involuntarily, at a tender age.

Her paternal grandfather was a poet, while her uncles were painters and sculptors. For their part, her parents used to compose and recite poems on special family and social occasions, while their family reunions always ended in dance.

"I found myself particularly loving the French lessons at school because that is when we had a chance of memorizing texts and we were tasked to come and perform in front of the class. I used to memorize all the characters and beg my colleagues to give me the hardest and longest part. I also recall that buzz feeling I had when rehearsing at home with my mum, switching from one character to another, and the eagerness when we were about to go in front of the class.”

One day, the little girl asked her mum "if she thinks I can act, and she told me: Eliane, you can do whatever you want to do, as long as you want it. From then on I was set! I was 11 years old, and I promised myself to step on a stage!”

Even at that tender age though, she knew her limitations: "I needed skills and a stage to step on!”

It was not until she had enrolled at University of Rwanda, in Huye and joined the university’s Center for Arts and Drama, that the dream finally took off.

Umuhire, the actor

As an actor, Umuhire views herself as a storyteller temporarily extinguishing people’s worries as she plays out alternate realities on stage or on screen. 

"Sometimes an actor holds up a mirror, shining light on hidden societal issues, but again he/she often helps the audience escape, reminding them of happier times or our greater human potential.” 

"With an actor carrying our frustrations, fears, desires and hopes, we can let go of the fight- at least for a little while. The role of an actor in society should not be underestimated,” she concludes. 

"Although it’s easy to get caught up in celebrity and fame, the timeless function of the actor is to take on communal pain and provide emotional and spiritual purification for every person in the audience. I truly believe that an actor is essential to the psychic health of our world.”

I ask her what kind of satisfaction she derives from acting and she retorts: 

"I love this question! The thing is, I will only live one life, and during that life I will be the Eliane who was born in this place and did this and that. When I am on stage or in front of a camera, I get a chance to step in another life, another character and for the time of a performance I will kind of cheat on life and live someone else’s life.”

The other satisfaction she gets comes from "the relationships you build with the audience, the trust you build in them to let you take them on a journey of escaping for a short while the worries of the day, a journey which sometimes gives birth to a healing.This is when you will get someone coming to greet you at the end of the performance, thanking you for walking in his/her shoes.”

But just how does it feel being a lady in such a little understood and male-dominated field as theater? 

Umuhire seems quite comfortable in her artistic skin, and for more reasons than one: 

She is pleasantly surprised herself about having ‘never encountered any issue related to the fact that I am a female actress.’

"Of course, there are some stereotypes such as ‘a female artist is an easy girl’, but this happens in any discipline, not only theater. I didn’t spend much time on this, trying to prove any one wrong. As long as you stick to what you truly feel and believe you want and do it right, you will later drag the attention to the end result and people will no longer see the female artist but only the artist.”

She also takes immense pride in the fact that two out of three of her mentors are female, "and these are ladies who are highly acclaimed in the country. This must have been one of the reasons why I didn’t worry about what society will think of a girl performing in theater”. 

On a less cheerful note, she laments the relatively low public enthusiasm for theater as compared to more popular disciplines like music.

"We still have a journey to make, to make a Rwandan feel that he can leave his home and pay for a theater play in the same way he goes to Jay Polly’s concert. At least, I do hope this will change with the new generation.

Together with other artists, we started an organisation "Kaami arts” through which we intend to prepare tomorrow’s audience and tomorrow’s performers by bringing arts to children.” 

She believes that actors have got the same opportunities to trot the globe like their musical counterparts, as long as they put their heart to it.

For her part, she has been to Tunisia, Uganda, the DRC, Sweden, Germany, U.S.A, Italy, Poland, Austria, Belgium, and The Netherlands, among others, all courtesy of her acting skills. 

The most memorable country she has visited was Poland.

"I was alone in a country that the media had depicted in another image to me, and what I discovered was amazing! (From the people that I encountered or worked with, to the country, the food, the history, the nature …). I spent four wonderful months there, but despite that I didn’t speak the national language (Polish). 

Maybe it’s the country’s history and zeal of re-building that is in the population which kind of reminded me of my own country and made me feel welcomed. I can’t tell. The other memorable country was Tunisia, for its rich culture.”