CASTLE ARTS, Bulawayo, the venue for a unique school of excellence for performing artists from all over Africa

THE PROXIMITY OF LIVING ARTS IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

Chaired by Daniel Labonne, a work session on Theatre for Development with civil servants and students from University of Yaounde

Daniel Labonne, leading his group through the bush in order to study traditional forms of performing arts in central Africa.

After in-depth stage work in French-speaking Africa, field-work, and researching THEATRE FOR DEVELOPMENT in English-speaking Africa. Here, experimenting with cocoa farmers in a village in Cameroon.

At the Abidjan (Ivory Coast) seminar on African theatre, in 1979. Daniel Labonne (front, third from right) is one of the participants invited to present his research in Mauritius.

At Dosso, in Niger, Daniel Labonne runs a one-month training programme attended by actors from all over this vast country. Programme sponsored by ACCT, Paris.

With the minister of Culture of Zimbabwe (Mrs. Fay Chung) and the Ethiopian actor, president of the UAPA (Debebe Eshetu), Daniel Labonne formally opens the African Centre for the Training of Performing Artists (ACTPA) in Zimbabwe. (1990)

Thanks to the African Theatre Exchange (ATEX) women theatre practitioners from all over the world comparing training methodologies in 1989. (Standing) Finland, Tanzania, Madagascar, Ivory Coast, Mozambique, Ghana, Finland, Mauritius, USA. (Sitting) Mauritius

Thanks to ATEX, practitioners from performing arts discussing cultural development on the beaches of Mauritius. On this picture, they came from Tanzania, Seychelles, Ivory Coast, South Africa, Burkina Faso.

Two of the founding members of the Union of African Performing Artists meet in Monaco for consultations with world theatre practitioners: Hansel Ndumbe Eyoh from Cameroon and Daniel Labonne (Mauritius).

FOOTPRINTS a first pan-African dance-drama developed and produced at Castle Arts, Bulawayo. ‘Exchange material’ ready to cross borders to activate ‘exchange theatre’…

In Paris, ATEX (African Theatre Exchange) successfully organises a round table brings together the French-speaking, the English-speaking, Americans, Scandinavians, Southern Africans, West Africans, East Africans in a common effort to support the cause of cultural development of Africa and the promotion of the performing arts.

This smiling couple could have been casted in a film. He is Prosper Compaore, a professor of theatre at the University of Ouagadougou and a practitioner; she is a ballet dancer from Cote D’Ivoire.