ALUMNI PROFILE By Karen MacEachern
The Africa Project: Dance With Us – Not AIDS

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Everywhere they went, people would turn to look – furtive glances and wide stares. Children stopping and pointing, falling down in the streets of Quelimane, Mozambique, in fits of laughter.

When the four artists departed on their journey to Africa, they had no idea they would receive such a strong dose of celebrity. At first it was intriguing – to be the focus of the incessant attention and curiosity. Two weeks later, it had become exhausting.

Kennedy C. MacKinnon, Edward Daranyi BFA ’93, Karin Randoja, and Dana Vranic BFA ’93, former students of the University of Windsor’s School of Dramatic Art, travelled to Africa this summer to share both Shakespeare, and their collective experience as actors, teachers, directors, and singers. They co-created a theatre piece,

“Dance With Us – Not AIDS” with Montes Namuli, a Mozambique theatre company, using Shakespeare as a medium. The remarkable result integrated Shakespearean text from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” with local methods of traditional story-telling, music and dance, to craft a commentary on the plight of the people of Mozambique and their struggles with AIDS. The African artists chose to emphasize two primary messages: the need for sexual protection and for social acceptance.

The performers developed a piece that educated people on how they can help reduce the rate of infection, and cope more effectively as individuals, and as a society with the infected members of the population. “The infection rate in Quelimane is 25 per cent,” says MacKinnon. “Yet people do not talk about it. Those who are infected are ostracized.”

Audiences came in droves to witness the productions. “It was a packed house,” says MacKinnon. “We were feeling alarmed at how quiet the audience was during the performance. (But) the silences were interspersed with outbursts of applause or laughter – it was such an overpowering response it would almost stop the show.

After the show, people were silent and we thought they hated it.” When the show finished, the director of the cultural centre rose and addressed the crowd. “There are no words. There are no words,” he said. MacKinnon attributes his emotional response to the disbelief “that we would care at all. They were simply beyond belief that these people from Canada would get on a plane, and travel so far, to work with them.”

The love and appreciation these former University of Windsor students share for Shakespeare can be traced back to work that MacKinnon, Daranyi, and Vranic did in their graduating year with the English Shakespeare Company.

“Susanna Best and Philip Bowen were a part of the company. They made such a mark on our lives that Ed and I travelled to England to work with them the year after graduation.” This led MacKinnon to form Shakespeare Link Canada, the sister company to Shakespeare Link, started by Best and Bowen.

They collaborate on projects that involve working with deaf actors to interpret and integrate Shakespeare into American Sign Language (ASL). Shakespeare Link Canada has also begun work alongside the Native Earth Theatre Company towards a production of “Julius Caesar: The Death of the Chief.”

Lionel Walsh BFA ’81, director of the School of Dramatic Art at Windsor, holds MacKinnon and her colleagues in high esteem: “It is admirable that these former School of Dramatic Art students, along with other theatre artists, have decided to use their art to better the lives of those who are suffering.”

The Africa project isn’t over – the next leg of fundraising will allow MacKinnon and her colleagues to have the 11 hours of documentary footage shot in Mozambique professionally edited. Shakespeare Link Canada is also fundraising to bring some of these artists to Canada. “We are working to pair 16 with artists in Canada next summer, provide opportunities for additional training and international exposure.

“We also want to give more artists in Canada the chance to work with these gifted performers,” explains MacKinnon. “It’s amazing to be a part of their experience.”

Bill Dowling Comm'94, Kennedy C. MacKinnon, Edward Daranyi BFA ’93, Dana Vranic (kneeling) and Karin Randoja.

ŠNovember 2005