Moi Girls Nairobi tops charts in drama fete

Moi Girls School Nairobi students perform a creative cultural dance ‘Dabo Tap’ during the Nairobi Region drama festival at Sunshine Secondary School in Nairobi on Saturday. [George Orido, Standard]

Moi Girls School Nairobi emerged the overall winner at the just-concluded Nairobi Region drama festival.

The school won with their creative cultural dance ‘Dabo Tap’ and a choral verse titled ‘My Pastor My Preacher’. They also presented the best Kiswahili play, ‘Itapasuka’, at the fete held at Sunshine Secondary School in Nairobi.

‘Dabo Tap’ - produced by the school’s Principal Margaret Njaga - is a beautifully woven story, depicting the impact of technology and mobile phones on the lives of teenagers today. Awiti, a young girl joins her new boarding school and finds the students are using tablets and phones as learning aids.

She asks for help from her classmates on how to use the phone to access notes, instead her classmates teach her how to access social media and take selfies which are posted on Instagram.

Her father refuses to buy her a phone at home. Upon returning to school she gets a sponsor, via social media, who buys her a phone but she in turn has to give up her purity.

She falls pregnant and attempts to commit suicide after her father rejects her. The parents are able to stop her and eventually reconcile with her. Their choral verse ‘My Pastor My Preacher’ is an unflattering audit of what our churches have become.

From scandals of financial impropriety to sexual misconduct with faithful to deceitful prophecies and the recent bizarre report of a pastor resurrecting a dead man.

“We are proud of our girls for the achievement and we commit to support this endeavour to the end,” said Mrs Njaga while celebrating the big win at Sunshine School.

Shawn Mwangi of Sunshine Secondary School wowed the audience with his spoken word, depicting a boy under siege. 

Stanley Gachagua of Nairobi School was declared the best actor for his role as Hummingbird in the play ‘Utopia’ by Chris Wangalwa and produced by Caspal Maina. The play emerged third.

“We used to score Ds and below, but after Hummingbird interceded on our behalf, we are now scoring As. Thank you Hummingbird,” says one of the students at Utopia School that is embroiled in exam cheating.

St George’s Girls’ scooped the best play in French as Nile Road won in French choral verse. State House Girls won with a French solo verse.

Samuel Karanja of Moi Forces Academy won the adjudicators’ award.

“We are glad to be associated with the Kenya Schools and Colleges Drama Festival and are excited to help children shape messages that are geared towards forming character,” said Ezekiel Mutua, the chief executive of the Kenya Film Classification Board.