Contemporary Theatre Review Popular theatre and development ...

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Popular theatre and development‐challenges for the future: The Tanzanian experience Penina Mlama

a

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Chief Academic Officer at University of Dar es Salaam , Tanzania Published online: 30 May 2008.

To cite this article: Penina Mlama (2002) Popular theatre and development‐challenges for the future: The Tanzanian experience, Contemporary Theatre Review, 12:1-2, 45-58, DOI: 10.1080/10486800208568651 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10486800208568651

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Contemporary Theatre Review


2002, Vol. 12, Parts 1+2, pp. 45-58 Photocopying permitted by license only

© 2002 OPA (Overseas Publishers Association) N.V. Published by license under the Harwood Academic Publishers imprint, part of Gordon and Breach Publishing, a member of the Taylor & Francis Group.

Popular Theatre and DevelopmentChallenges for the Future: The Tanzanian Experience Penina Mlama

Introduction Popular Theatre or Theatre for Development created much excitement in the 1970s and 1980s. Theatre practitioners all over Africa were attracted by the potential in Popular Theatre to effect qualitative grassroots participation in the development process. Various versions of Popular Theatre were put into practice in the rural areas of Nigeria, Cameroon, Sierra Leone, Swaziland, Lesotho, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Kenya and Tanzania. These practices have been extensively documented in a number of studies including Kidd (1979), Kamlongera (1987), Eyoh (1986,1991), Kerr (1981), Mlama (1991), Abah (1994), Bakari and Materego (1995). The enthusiastic response to Popular Theatre was in a way an indication of the post-independence theatre practitioners' search for a theatre relevant to the struggles for development (Kerr: 1991). From the colonial European-type of theatre, the theatre in Africa went through various movements. The protest theatre of liberation struggles had the attainment of independence as its objective and lost direction after independence. The Travelling Theatre of the 1960s by University-based Theatre practitioners with the aim of taking theatre to the people was short lived and discarded as irrelevant to the realities of grassroots communities. Elite Theatre in urban areas and educational institutions was removed from the majority of the citizens who are rural. Popular Theatre's link to the development process at the grassroots level was, therefore, an attraction to theatre practitioners bent on proving to the world that the theatre, as per its African origins, has a direct link to development. 45


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Popular Theatre amd Development-Challenges for the Future

Popular Theatre is basically a process of theatre creation emerging from the community's active involvement in identifying development problems, analysing and communicating them through theatre with a view to solving them. Various versions of Popular Theatre exist in Africa but by the end of the 1980s many theatre people were convinced of the strengths of Popular Theatre and its potential for Development. Various studies analysed the Popular Theatre practice of the 1970s and 1980s and highlighted its advantages over the earlier theatre movements. (Kidd: 1983, Byram: 1981), Kerr: 1981, Kamlongera: 1987, Eyoh: 1991, Mda: 1987, Mlama: 1991). The most commonly cited strengths include the facilitation of the active participation of the community in identifying and analysing their own development problems prior to the decision on action to solve them. This is a departure from common practice in development programme where problems are determined by individuals or forces divorced from the concerned community. Indeed development projects are almost always a top-bottom process where the projects are designed at the national capital or at donor headquarters or by development agents at regional or district level. The Theatre for Development process however, engages the community itself into research and discussion on what they think is the problem, its root cause and the its possible solution. On the basis of this analysis the community decides on what action to take to solve the identified problem. (Mlama: 1991, Kerr: 1991, Child: 1986). This process allows the community's point of view to be incorporated into the development process. The strength of this approach is that it allows for perspectives of the people who actually experience the problems which may not necessarily be compatible with that of the external development expert. Indeed, often it is a perspective which, due to the expert's lack of experience of life in that community, the expert would not have dreamt of. It is also a historical fact that experts have not displayed much respect for the grassroots community's viewpoints on account of alleged community's ignorance. The Theatre for Development practice has shown that in fact, the community's perspectives often point to the roots of problems not identified by development experts and which often lead to the failure of development programmes. Theatre for Development has also been hailed as an effective communication medium for development. In a world where development is tied to the mass electronic media, the majority of rural populations in Africa were pushed aside in communication for development. Like the development programmes, development messages were imposed from above by media that often did not reach the majority. More striking is the fact that communities were expected to be passive audience to messages for-


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mulated elsewhere. Despite many years of demands to orient the mass media towards community participation, they have continued to treat rural communities as mere listeners with little effort to making them active audiences or communicators. The involvement of the community in identifying problems, critically analysing them, communicating about the identified problems in theatre performance have put the community at the helm of the communication process. Here the community is the communicator as well as a participating audience. The members of the community get a chance to express their views, disagreements, frustrations, fears and hopes as well as ideas on how their lot could be improved. Those who have participated in Theatre for Development work will agree that communities always grab the opportunity to communicate, which is rare in conventional development processes, with a lot of enthusiasm and excitement. This has been the case with all the Theatre for Development workshops the author has participated in. Listening to the discussions, one often got the feeling that the community had bottled-up feelings and frustrations they now wanted to vent out. Often, and understandably so, people even became emotional because the issues under discussion touched on sensitive aspects of their very existence. In Tanzania, for example, where water availability is a common problem in villages due to dysfunctioning water systems, women who have to walk many kilometres in search of water get quite emotional during discussions about water problems in Popular Theatre workshops (Mlama: 1991). Another breakthrough for Theatre for Development is its incorporation of community-based media for communication for development. After identifying and analysing their development problems, the community communicates their ideas using artistic forms from the community. These include dance, song, poetry, story-telling, recitations, mime, and drama among others. These are normally the media available to grassroots communities and not radio, television or the printed media. It is also a fact that the electronic mass media is not easily accessible to the majority of rural communities. And even if they are available their structures are such that the grassroots communities cannot easily own them and therefore cannot use them to communicate. They can only be audience. The communitybased media mentioned above on the other hand, are not only accessible and owned by the communities but are also used by the community for their daily communication. Ironically, however, they have not been incorporated as media for development communication. Using these community-based media in the Theatre for Development process, therefore, avails grassroots communities the opportunity to use media which are easily accessible to them and ones that they own


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and ones they can easily handle to communicate their viewpoint on development (Mlama: 1993). Community-based media also facilitates the use of local languages in development processes, an issue that has seen a protracted debate in Africa but little action. Popular Theatre has exposed the possibility to effectively use local languages to analyse development issues. It is also gratifying to note that most Popular Theatre activities are carried out in the local languages. By the end of the 1980s various studies had also identified shortcomings and constraints in Popular Theatre (Mlama: 1991, Kerr: 1991, Mda: 1987, Aba: 1987). Some of the Popular Theatre workshops of the 1970s were criticised as being "developmentalist". Although they sought the view of the communities, the final theatre productions were loaded with development messages whose formulations were not much different from the conventional top-bottom messages of the extension worker. Productions of Laedza Batanani in Botswana or the Malawi Primary Health Care Theatre programme contained extension-worker-like messages on modern farming or acceptable health practices (Kamlongera: 1987, Byram: 1981). At the present time, some Popular Theatre practitioners still impose alien theatre forms on communities despite the call to let communities use indigenous or forms familiar to them. "Elite theatre practitioners engaged in Popular Theatre often find it easier to operate with the European-based play into whose skills they have been trained. Divorced from their traditional theatre forms, they lack the courage to let the community use forms which will challenge their artistic superiority. Rather than expose their clumsiness at performing the traditional dance, recitation, or mime, they choose to work with European drama forcing the community into an alien form for which they have fewer skills than their own indigenous forms. The above mentioned problems, in a way, indicates another point of criticism levelled at Popular Theatre practice; the low level of consciousness among some Popular Theatre practitioners. Since the popular Theatre is a conscientisation process through which people critically analyse their socio-economic conditions with a view to effecting change, it demands more than acquisition of theatre skills. The leader of the Popular Theatre process is not simply a director as in the mainstream theatre, but also an animateur. As animateur one requires a level of consciousness higher than the community one is leading so as to properly guide the analytical processes of identifying, understanding and solving development problems. Some theatre practitioners, most of whom are University-based, take the Popular Theatre process as just another movement, indeed another


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experiment. As such they have at times allowed the process to be appropriated by state bureaucracies or donor-driven projects to achieve goals set outside the community. Popular Theatre workshops are therefore tied to campaigns for projects on AIDS, primary health care, literacy and so on, instead of starting with problems identified by the community itself. Sustainability was another thorny issue whereby difficulties were encountered on how to avoid making Popular Theatre a one-off activity. The workshop-style where the animateurs work with the community for several weeks and then leave proved unable to sustain the process. Successes in raising the level of consciousness of the communities were short-lived. Also there were no structures on the ground to support the implementation of the decisions taken by the community to solve identified problems. The existing structures which were largely responsible for the community's underdevelopment could not, through the short-term Popular Theatre process, change for the positive. For example, Regional or District development programmes which were constructed on undemocratic process would not adopt democratic approaches espoused in a single village Popular Theatre event. A village's democratic decision to solve the problem of water by collectively constructing a water pipe system had to be subjected to the District water master plan where the village had no say. Indeed, there was fear that people's awareness raising without matching action would lead to disillusion and frustration. Unfortunately many of the Popular Theatre activities of the 1970s and 1980s have proved this point of lack of sustainability. They have remained one-off events whose impact on the community have fizzled out with time. The inability of communities to solve problems whose root causes were at the macro level has been a source of frustration to most Popular Theatre practitioners. It is, indeed, disheartening to watch a community's awareness, enthusiasm and commitment to solve their own problems raised and then to realise that they cannot achieve their goal because the control of their fate is their hands, of someone they cannot reach. The successful move from a position of apathy to "we can do it" quickly degenerates into "you can never win" situation. The Popular Theatre movement in Africa entered the 1990s with the challenge on how to overcome these constraints. The question is whether, as we are approaching the year 2000, there is evidence that the problems have been adequately tackled. This is an important question because its answer will determine the role and place of Popular Theatre in the 21st century. It will shed light on whether Popular Theatre was a mere whim of the 1970s and 1980s, just another Theatre movement to go into the annals of history like many others before it, or whether it is a process that can be effectively and permanently linked to development.

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Popular Theatre ami Development-Challenges for the Future

In the following section observations are made on how in the 1990s Popular Theatre in Tanzania fared with regard to the above mentioned constraints.


The Tanzania Experience in the 1990s The Popular Theatre movement in Tanzania up to the end of the 1980s is extensively covered in the author's book Culture and Development: The Popular Theatre Approach in Africa (Mlama: 1991). The 1990s have seen more work in Popular Theatre in Tanzania. This includes work done in Misalai (1990), Mbuyuni (1991), Kisiwani (1992), all in Tanga region, Kigoma (1993), Rukwa (1994), Kongo, Bagamoyo (1994), Mbeya (1994), Mtwara (1994), Boko in Dar es Salaam (1995), Mtwara (1996). The Popular Theatre movement in Tanzania is constructed through a process entailing the active participation of a community in identifying development problems, analysing the root causes and possible solutions, communicating the community's view through theatrical performance, discussion and follow up on action by the community to solve the identified problems. This Popular Theatre process involves the following stages: stage one, is familiarisation of the community by the animateurs who are also theatre experts. This involves gathering knowledge about the socio-economic context of the community, including knowing the operating political, cultural, economic and other social structures, historical perspectives and general context of the community in relation to its neighbours or the national map. This is achieved through visits to the community, district and regional head quarters and literature survey prior to the Popular Theatre workshop. Also a few days are spent on this process in the community at the beginning of the workshop. Stage two is information gathering. A team consisting of the animateurs and the members of the community is constituted to form the pools of resource persons for the whole process. This team gathers information on what community members think are their development problems. Efforts are made to get views of as many members of the community as possible as well as a representation of the different interest groups such as women, the youth, men, elders, leaders, religious groups, different occupational groups etc. The aim is also to engage people in discussions to give them the opportunity to air their views adequately as well as to identify the causes of the problems. Stage three is analysis of the information gathered. Here the whole community is encouraged to participate. They are divided into discussion groups of their own choice and each group discusses one or two of


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the identified problems. The focus is on identifying the root causes and possible solutions to the problems. Animateurs are assigned to each group. Stage four, the discussion group turns into a Theatre group. Community artists are assigned to the different groups to assist with artistic creations. Each group creates a theatrical performance using community based artistic forms of their choice and expressing the problem they have discussed. The animateurs assist in making the theatre performance reflect the analysis of the problem and serve as a catalyst for discussion by the audience on what action is to be taken to solve the problem. A performance by all groups to the whole community constitutes the fifth stage. The community gets the opportunity to see the different perspectives of their problems from the different groups. It is also a theatre event where they participate as both performer and audience. Immediately after the performance, the sixth stage; the post performance discussion takes place in which the whole community gathered is engaged in a discussion of what action to take to solve the problems posed in the performances. The discussion is intended to arrive at concrete decisions for action and strategies for implementation before the audience disperses. Stage seven is follow up on the implementation. The follow-up can involve meetings, visits to offices within or outside the community and other long-term measures towards solving the identified problems. This process was adopted in the belief that it engages the community more actively in all the processes as opposed to other approaches in other parts of Africa where the Theatre experts create the Theatre piece and impose it on the community. The Tanzanian experience of the 1980s and 1990s has proved the above process to be very effective in eliciting the community's active participation. As such the Tanzanian Popular Theatre has overcome quite a number of constraints relating to the inadequacy of the process. The use of local artistic forms and languages, the involvement of members of the community as co-resource persons with the animateurs, letting the community itself create the theatrical performance and engaging them in all stages of the process have proved very effective in making the process genuinely participatory. There are areas, however, where Popular Theatre in Tanzania has faced insurmountable problems. Sustainability is one such area. A recognition of the need to build in sustainability came about as early as the first half of the 1980s. This accounted for the attempt to structure the Malya Popular Theatre programme in a way that it was a long term process. Animateurs visited the community and conducted workshops a


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number of times in a two year period. Local animateurs and a village core group was formed which continued to apply the process even when the external animateurs were not around. Village government structures were incorporated to support the process which they did by including the decisions for action in the village development plans and giving moral and material support to the young projects that resulted from the Popular Theatre process. For three years things went well until the chairman of the youth projects stole all the project funds and ran away from the village. The disillusion from this act was enough to make it extremely difficult to mobilise the youth, whose three years' effort had gone to waste, to participate in any other collective development project. Other strategies were found to address the issue of sustainability. One, was the decision to involve local extension workers and officials responsible for development programmes of the concerned village at the ward, division and district level. To every Popular Theatre workshop the District was invited to send these officials who then participated as resource persons in the whole process. Community Development officers, agricultural or health officers, cultural officers, development planning officers and project officers participated in all the various workshops. This strategy produces some interesting results. In Mbuyuni, Tanga, for example, the participation of the Division Community Development officer introduced a problem into the process. Unknown to the animateurs this officer, one Mr. Bwengo, had in the past been involved in the embezzlement of village funds in collusion with the village chairman. The villagers went up in arms and refused to see this man in their village. Indeed, some accused the animateurs of collaborating with the enemies of the village, a view that eroded the community's trust in the process. A lot of time had to be spent to correct the situation which included withdrawing the officer from participating in the process. A decision was reached, however, that he should not be turned away from the village. He had to stay to the end and hear what the community had to say. At the performance, which Mr. Bwengo attended, one of the groups composed a poem implicating him in the financial scandal some of whose stanzas were as follows:

Kiswahili Hatuogopi kuoza kufa tumekwisha kufa Tarafa ilitusoza, kijiji katia nyufa Kila tukimuuliza, mahesabu yamekuja Kuchangia kutusoza Tarafa mstaafu

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Tarafa na pia kata, kwa pamoja walifika Kuja kuona matata sisi yaliyotufika Mara nyingi tulileta, fedha zetu zimetoweka Mhasibu aliletwa, Ndugu Bwengo jina lake Ndugu Bwengo alipofika kakutana na magwiji Hapo jungu lichemke, kuporwa wanakijiji Mahesabu lotamka tuliona ni ya foji Tarafa alituacha kwenye mataa sikia

Translation We are not scared of rotting, we are already dead The division leader harassed us, he caused a crack in the village Every time we asked him, the financial statement is unacceptable He contributed in harassing us, the retired Division secretary The Division secretary also the ward secretary, they came together To come and witness the problem that had befallen us Time we said that our money had disappeared An accountant was brought, Mr. Bwengo (The Community Development Officer) his name When Mr Bwengo arrived he met the veterans The pot boiled the villagers to be robbed (a plan was hatched) The financial statement he gave was forged we could see The Division secretary abandoned us . . . (Mlama: 1993).

The involvement of these development-related government officials did not produce the required results because after the workshops the officials resorted back to their "business as usual" bureaucracies. No attempt was made to replicate the process in their consequent dealings with the communities involved. Probably they found the process too involving or they viewed themselves as not having adequate skills to handle the process. There was no effort, however, to seek the assistance of the animateurs. It was disheartening to note that some Community Development officers admitted that they had been trained in animateur techniques at college but had never tried them out in the field. Between 1985 and 1995 officials have participated in twenty Popular Theatre workshops but only one community development officer in Namionga has adopted the process for child care programmes. The lesson from this experience is the difficulty in bringing about change in the rigid government bureaucracies. Whereas it was assumed that the government structures which in Tanzania are decentralised


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to the village level could render themselves useful structures for adopting the Popular Theatre process, it became clear that there is no interest from that quarter. May be the assumption that government bureaucracies could adopt the Popular Theatre process was wrong from the start. The second strategy was to target the donor development agent. Tanzania, like many African countries, has heavy donor driven development programmes and projects. Donors, directly or through government structures, finance and control the majority of development projects at the community level. The vagaries of underdevelopment include the numerous problems associated with donor driven development projects. Like the government, donors often impose projects on communities and operate in the conventional top-bottom approach to development. In the villages where Popular Theatre workshops were conducted there were examples of projects that had failed basically due to the non-involvement of the communities involved. In Mbuyuni, Tanga for example, a donor decided to build a grain-storage but the villagers refused to take part in the construction because considering the volume of household based grain production, there was no demand for a village grain storage. They had instead great need for a health centre and a clean water system in which the donor was not interested. A need was therefore, felt to involve the donors in the Popular Theatre movement. Again some results were interesting. Several donors jumped at the opportunity thinking here was a way to get people at the grassroots level quickly adopt their projects. Like conventional extension officers they thought of the theatre as merely a vehicle for disseminating messages from the project. Such donors lost interest once it was clear that the Popular Theatre process starts with what the community thinks is the problem. In 1993 The Theatre Arts Department of the University of Dar es Salaam organised a workshop for development agents to try and explain the Popular Theatre process. The aim was to pursuade these agents, especially the donors, to adopt an approach whereby they could conduct Popular Theatre processes to enable communities to identify their own problems and to decide on possible action for solutions. After a community has identified possible action then donors should come in with assistance to the communities to implement their intended action. In this workshop experiences from previous Popular Theatre activities in Misalai, Kisiwani and Mbuyuni were demonstrated. Some members of the three communities were invited to the workshop to demonstrate the process. Twenty one donor organisations responsible for most development projects in Tanzania were invited. Only two small donors responsible for small rural based projects and attended the workshop. This was a


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clear indication that the donor community is wary of a process that might take the development process away from their control. A few donor agencies have, however, taken genuine interest in the Popular Theatre process and have since used the process in the development work. Examples include the German TGZ, the Finnish RIPS (Rural Integrated Project Support) - (Mtwara region), The British Council - and the village Development Programme (Tanga region). GTZ conducted Popular Theatre workshops in over ten villages in Rukwa (1994) and Kigoma (1993) on the basis of which they have designed support programmes in health care and nutrition in the relevant villages. RIPS conducted workshop in three villages in Mtwara region whose results provide guidance on how to overcome the problem related to their operations in the development of Mtwara rural areas. VDP (Village Development Programme) in Tanga region presented an interesting case where the donor decided to train its own project officers into Popular Theatre skills. Five project officers took part in three Popular Theatre workshops in Misalai (1990), Mbuyuni (1991) and Kisiwani (1992) to acquire the relevant skills. These villages were situated in VDP's area of operation. Then the project officers conducted their own Popular Theatre workshop in two villages. The project officers were also expected to continue working with the three villages mentioned above in implementing what the communities decided upon during the Popular Theatre process. At first this seemed to be an excellent way in which a development agent could effectively adopt the Popular Theatre process. Unfortunately, despite the practical training they received, the project officers were not keen to adopt the process. Even though the villages were in their area of operation, they did not even bother to monitor the implementation of the action the villages had decided to take to solve their own problems. They went back to their desks and continued to try to bring about development from the comfort of their offices. The above mentioned examples go to show the seriousness the constraint of lack of structures to sustain the Popular Theatre process. Indeed, many existing economic, political and cultural structures are not by nature supportive of this process. The increased control of the economy by international capital, World Bank/IMF conditionalities are to further marginalise and deprive grassroot communities of the power to determine their fate. The problems whose causes are at the macrolevel are increasingly incomprehensible not only to the grassroots but also at the national level. Indeed, the 1990s have seen an accentuation of poverty and the further entrenchment of capitalism. The struggle for survival is getting bitter leading to a growth of individualistic tendencies that threaten the core of the spirit of the Popular Theatre process itself

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Popular Theatre atnd Development-Challenges for the Future

which is collective action. Development problems at the grassroots level have multiplied leading to some sense of helplessness. One visiting Finnish student participating in the Mdui Mtwara (1996) RIPS workshops echoed the situation when she commented:


"Many of these problems we were processing are so huge that - to be honest - the villagers can't solve them by themselves" (Theatre Dept. 1996).

One should also not lose sight of internal structures that add to the gravity of the situation. Traditional cultural structures were found to be a major problem in most workshop. For example, in several villages including Misalai (Tanga), Masolo (Rukwa), Mtowisa (Rukwa) a strong belief in witchcraft contributed significantly to underdevelopment (Mapii: 1994). In Misalai the community members were so scared of the village chairman's witchcraft powers that they refused to discuss anything relating to development. The chairman had embezzled village funds, and mismanaged village projects but the community was scared to confront him. Instead they withdrew from any development work leading to numerous problems. The Popular Theatre process almost collapsed due to this fear of witchcraft (Mlama: 1993). Without exception all workshops had gender-related cultural problems where the women were subjected to many types of suffering due to gender imbalances. Unfair division of labour, women's oppression and exploitation, sexual harassment will rage on until a time the gender issue is adequately addressed, not only at the level of one village, but at the level of the overall cultural structures. Undemocratic structures were cited as another constraint to the Popular Theatre movement. Theatre practitioners in Tanzania watched with enthusiasm the introduction of a multi-party political system which was hailed as the answer for democracy. It was hoped that the new political parties will quickly recognise the potential in Popular Theatre for democratic mobilisation of the grassroots communities. To date not a single political party out of the existing thirteen seems to be aware of the existence of the Popular Theatre movement. Indeed, a search for democratic process does not appear to be on their agenda. Instead the Tanzanian population has only seen a multiplication of undemocratic, often demagogic, political structures with little interest in the welfare of the common man and woman. A final observation on the constraints Tanzania has had to grapple with in the 1990s is apathy. People are tired of being cheated, of government officials who grow fat off their sweat, of suffering that has no end in sight. They are sceptical of any attempt to try to change their situation. They often see the Popular Theatre practitioner in the same vein as many others who have come to the village without any benefit to the community.


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This scepticism makes the Popular Theatre process more difficult because time has to be spent to win the confidence of the people before they can genuinely start participating in the process. Often the first few days are characterised by concealment of information, reluctance to discuss issues, certain levels of hostility or mere abstinence from the process. The challenge is also in not leaving the community disillusioned at the end, and to avoid the conclusion "we knew, just another one of them." This becomes quite trying, especially when dealing with problems that cannot be solved by the community itself. The challenge is for the animateur to avoid being blamed for false promises.

Conclusion On the basis of the observations outlined above, it is clear that Popular Theatre still faces many challenges if it is to play an effective role in development. If one takes a pessimistic view, it could be argued that the future of Popular Theatre is bleak. The forces responsible for Africa's underdevelopment are formidable. The last three decades have not given enough proof that Popular Theatre can overcome such forces. Popular Theatre practitioners, though, cannot afford to be pessimistic. By its nature the Popular Theatre process is a process of struggle against forces that undermine the welfare of people. Popular Theatre should therefore, not falter in the efforts to mobilise communities to critically analyse and confront development problem. On the other hand, Popular Theatre practitioners need to put their heads together to evaluate the role of Popular Theatre in the light of the complex global forces with a view to searching for new techniques and approaches that could sharpen the effectiveness of the Popular Theatre process. Indeed, it is necessary to debate to what extent the Popular Theatre process is capable of handling the challenges posed by the forces against the development of Africa in the twenty-first century. Such an evaluation and debate could be a valuable source of new artistic creativity leading to an even greater link between Popular Theatre and Development.

References Abah, Oga (1994) "Perspective in Popular Theatre: Orality as a Definition of New Realities" in Breitinger, Ed. Theatre and Performance in Africa Bayreuth African Studies Series 21 Bayreuth. Abah, Oga (1987) Popular Theatre as a strategy for Education and Development, The Examples of Some African Countries, Ph.D Thesis, University of Leeds.

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Bakari, J. and Materego, G. (1995) - Sanaa kwa Maendeleo Stadi na Mbinu za Mazoezi Amana

Publishers, Dar es Salaam. Byram, M. (1981) The Report of the workshop for Integrated Development, Dept. of Extra Mural Studies, University of Swaziland. Eyoh, H. (1986) From Hammocks to Bridges, BET and Co. Pub. Ltd. Yaounde. Kalipeni, E. and Kamlongera, C. (1987) "Popular Theatre and Health Care" (unpublished) Chancellor College, Malawi. Kerr, D. (1981) An Experiment in Popular Theatre in Malawi: The University Travelling Theatre's visit to Mbalachanda, Chancellor College (unpublished). Kerr, D. (1991) "Participatory Popular Theatre: The Highest Stage of Cultural Underdevelopment" in RESEARCH IN AFRICAN LITERATURES, Fall 1991, Vol. 22, No. 3, Indiana University Press. Kidd, R. (1979) "Liberation or Domestication - Popular Theatre and Non-Formal Education in Africa" Educational Broadcasting International, March. Kidd, R. (1983) "From Outside in to Inside out - The Benue Workshop on Theatre for Development" MEDIA IN EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT, March. Kidd, R. (1986) "Popular Theatre: Conscientization and Popular Organisation", mimeo, Toronto. Mapii, A. (1994) Popular Theatre in Health, an Experience in Popular Theatre, a case study of Intergrated food Security Programme - Rukwa Report, University of DSM/GTZ. Mda, Z. (1987) "Towards an alternative Perspective of Union of African Performing Artists Newsletter, Yaounde, No. 16, November. Mlama (1991) Culture and Development, The Popular Theatre Approach in Africa, Scandinavian

Institute of African Studies, Uppsala. Mlama (1993) "Women participation in Communication for Development", Research Report International Development Research Council, Nairobi. Theatre Arts Dept. (1996) - Mtwara-Lindi Community Theatre Project, Report, University of Dar es Salaam.