Theatre without borders

CHARLES KWIZERA discovers a new type of entertainment. For those of you, who are used to the radio and television soap operas, wait a minute. Never Again Rwanda, an organisation that works with youth to promote peace, last Tuesday launched their new play, ‘Love Without Borders’. The play, according to the programme coordinator and director, Nandita Dinesh, is going to be a series of short plays that will be featured twice a month at Torero Café in Kigali. “Our main objective is to show that however much people could be different, if they had love for each other, nothing could come between them,” explains Dinesh. In the seven-minute first episode, characters urged people to love one another because the world is one family. The play is performed simultaneously in Kinyarwnda, English and French. We learned during the play that love emanates from all angles. There is love between the rich man and the poor man. Love between a genocide survivor and a person who committed genocide. Love between a white person and a black person, between an HIV positive person and an HIV negative person. “In this play, we see that real love is not all about who is who but real love is where one loves the other unconditionally no matter the differences that could be between each one of them,” says Olivier Shyaka, one of the actors. “We want as many people as possible to come and watch these series because there is a lot to learn in terms of unity and reconciliation and our hope is that this play will have an outstanding impact on the people,” explains Dinesh. When asked where the idea came from, she tells me that she was inspired by the impact soaps like Urunana had on people. Dinesh believes that if they introduced such educative series on stage, it would attract people and gain momentum. “I think this play is good because it is educative and it’s being featured live on stage. It might make it so inspiring to the audience, thus bringing a direct impact on people,” concludes Shyaka. Episode 2 of ‘Love Without Borders’ will be performed on Tuesday 21, October. Torero Café is situated on Rue de Chez Venant inside the Audiotex building. Ends