Lwak Girls and Kakamega High excel at Drama fete

Meryt Achieng (left) and Joyce Safari of St. Mary Lwak Girls High School perform Saxo-Vio-Guitar. (Photo: Denish Ochieng/Standard)

Lwak Girls High school performed a scintillating cultural dance Sax-Vio-Guitar to emerge top at the music festival.

Produced by Sr Anastasia Amollo and choreographed by Francis Mwangi, it was a perfect way to close the 57th edition of the Kenya Schools, Colleges and Universities Drama Festival.

The dance is woven around the story of twin sisters Akinyi (Joyce Safari) and Aoko (Meryt Achieng) whose dreams to become artistes are almost thwarted by their parents’ fixation with science disciplines.

The beauty of the dance was the infusion of Western and traditional Luo music instruments something that Lwak did seamlessly. And for the school the victory could not have come at a better time.

“Lwak Girls is about to celebrate its 50th year in a few months, we can only thank God for his generosity,” said Sr Anastasia who is the principal of this school.

The two main actors in the performance won in the best soloists category, going home with cash goodies donated by the Director of Digital and Diaspora in the State House, Dennis Itumbi.

The dance was the toast of the festival after edging out defending national champions Dogoretti High School with their dance Nangila, a Bukusu cultural creative dance.

Matuga Girls from Kwale County got a deserved position three with their dance, Janet.

In the plays, Kakamega High School successfully defended their turf, this time even more decisively. Their play, The Cross, by veteran Oliver Minishi was a simple well-written script that was easy to understand.

It depicted a society rotten in its values, one that “the people are so corrupt that it is hard to earn a living righteously”.

Set in a school, the protagonist is a head teacher trying his level best to teach the curriculum within the time stipulated. He is full of hope that the students will work hard to pass the national examinations. But he is faced with a parent hell-bent on seeing his below-average daughter pass the exams with flying colours and become a lawyer like himself.

Face the music

He, therefore, intimidates a teacher to buy into his unscrupulous scheme of stealing exams for the daughter as the times nears.

“You shall never tell anyone about this. If you do, you face the music,” he warns the terrified teacher.

The performance was captivating with the actors doing their part.

In a surprise turn of events Kaaga Girls High got the runner-up position with their play the Last Hostage that shows the struggles of parenthood. It’s about a teenage girl whose Chief Inspector father is too preoccupied with state duties and forgets his parenting responsibilities.

Nakuru Lions Primary won for the tenth time in a row with their play Beauty and the Beads with St Johns’ Mahiakhalo Primary from Kakamega coming second and Victory Junior from Mombasa coming third.

It was noted that not many public primary schools made it this far at the drama festival and the big question is whether the money.

being given through the Free Primary Education (FPE) programme is sufficient to support such extra-curricular activities.

Nairobi Pentecostal Church Primary School entertained won the dance category with their Aunty Aunty as St Francis Nambale and Namakhele Primary School got position two and three respectively.

The University of Nairobi won the best film on road safety as well as best film on drug abuse with Escape from Reality, directed by Kiminginnchi Wabende and produced by Prof Peter Mbithi.

The University also came in second with Dreams in the modern dance category after Zetech University scooped the top award.

Kenyatta University easily defended their turf as the higher education champions in plays with their HIV/Aids-themed piece Euthanasia which was directed by Derrick Waswa.

Zetech University won in the Mime as well as the Cultural Dance categories as Moi University romped home with a win in the Narrative category.

Kenya Institute of Mass Communication KIMC continued to dominate the drama stage with wins in the play and choral verse categories.

Kisumu National Polytechnic came through with a narrative by George Chunga in a day that Lake Region was declared the best region at the Secondary School level and Nzoia was the best Region Overall.

Dr Ongo’ngo encouraged teams to stick to the theme of the day and to minimise sideshows sticking to the storylines and let the children and the youth participating enjoy the performance.