After shedding tears, Rwandans deserve to smile, says Ndamage

People have different ways of relaxing, some opt to read a book, others to watch a movie, while others prefer to hang out. But now there’s a new method of relaxing and its fast becoming a sensation. Comedy nights, a brain child of Jerome Ndamage, is the latest trend in town. After starting it close to four years, Ndamage now believes the comedy industry has come of age. The New Times’ Dean Karemera spoke to him about his venture. Who is Jerome Ndamage? Jerome Ndamage is the managing director of Comedy Knights. It is the company that introduced comedy nights in Kigali. We specialise in stand-up comedy, but we also do theater acting, movie acting while building the company to even handle advertising. We started in September 2010. How did you start comedy nights and why? Our main objective was to entertain people and make them laugh. My friend Arthur Nkusi and I came up with the idea of comedy night while I was still a theater actor. I was working with his father, Kennedy Mazimpaka at the time for a theater play titled, Umuvunyi produced by Inshyo Arts Centre. He watched me from the audience and after the play he suggested that we start something funny. We shared the idea with a colleague, Michael, whom I was working with at the time and he appreciated it and comedy night was born. Tell us about your first performance It was the hardest performance. We weren’t doing comedy yet, it was more like doing sketches and we were just three people on stage. Looking at the audience from the stage, it looked as though we were “more” than the audience. I think people in attendance were slightly above 25 and they mainly consisted of friends and relatives; entrance fee was Rwf500. I’m really proud of the steps we have made considering how far we have come. Looking at the comedy industry in Rwanda, how are we faring? Comedy is developing and gaining momentum because more people are now attending our shows. It is not easy building such an industry in Rwanda because people were used to attending traditional events such as ‘Gakondo night’ and cultural shows. Our target now is to take comedy to all parts of the country. Right now, ‘comedy night’ seems to be as an event for the corporate class but we are looking at going to different parts of the country or performing on television, so we can widen our audience. We want to take the Rwandan comedy to other countries; so far we have performed four or five times in Burundi. Our next target is Uganda, Kenya and then Belgium, where we were invited to perform on June 7. But before that, we’re preparing a major performance in the country on May 31. We chose the date because we have managed to re-build our country and now we are able to laugh again after the Genocide (activities for the 20th Genocide anniversary are due next week). We want to depict that image in our performance at the end of May and it is going to be massive. Do we have enough comedy talent pool in Rwanda? My team is capable and talented. If we could make it, then there must be other people who can make it too. In the last three years we’ve managed to build a foundation for stand-up comedy in Rwanda and I believe in ten years we shall have enormous talent in the comedy industry. What was it like performing in Burundi? It was amazing. The reception was unbelievable; they seemed to have liked us more than the people back home. We managed to get a crowd of more than 1,000 people and they enjoyed it so much that we had to do a second show. We are planning to go back in July for a bigger show and maybe even go with one of the big artistes in Rwanda. What is your take on the theater and movie industry in Rwanda? Rwandan theater is working well. It has produced most of the local actors we have in Rwanda today. Most of them have attended festivals, performed with famous theater actors and are making big money. Besides, our country is blessed with some of the great talents in theater, such as Carole Karemera, Hope Azeda, and Kennedy Mazimpaka. For movies, I like what is happening but we need to have a unique aspect about our movies. Indian movies are successful because they had something unique about them. The songs, the dances, were new and unique and part of their culture. Nigerian movies also followed the Indian style by embracing their culture. We need to find something that we can build on because we can’t follow everyone. I believe that Rwanda has young talented people who are capable of coming up with great ideas. What are the challenges in the comedy industry? We lack adequate venues to host our performances. Music can be performed anywhere you just have to make people dance but comedy is different. People need to sit, listen and laugh. The biggest venue we have accommodates 500 people and it’s not a theater hall, it’s actually a wedding hall. The other problems like sponsorship can be worked on considering that there’s no way I’ll complain about inadequate sponsorship yet I can’t even attract more than 100 people. We need proper theater halls. What is your message to the youth who want to venture into this industry? They are talented young people and all they need is to believe in themselves. We should stop seeing entertainment just as a thing for talented people only but also as a good business. We need managers in Rwanda who can help artists turn their talent into careers.