Breaking Light
Harare, September 26th 2018 | Patrick Miller
It is not always fun to stand in front of an audience of mostly strangers, acquaintances and a few new friends. It can be nerve-wrecking, well it was for me. Nonetheless, with the Zimbabwean flag wrapped around my neck giving me courage to speak, around my wrist the familiar weight of my bone bracelet providing a spiritual anchor, symbolically dressed in all black, I stood in front of them and shared a piece of my passion. With a heart both heavy and light I spoke my truth, unpacking and selling the politics of my creative work in a foreign land. The magic which was in that room that night during the Artists Cabaret was an amalgamation of my entire experience as a writer in residence at the 2018 Ojai Playwrights Conference. It was intense, awe-inspiring, a challenge, a victory, a start of something new and at the same time a fulfilment of an age-old desire.
Ever since I heard of the Ojai Playwrights Conference (OPC) back in 2015, I wanted to take part in it. Fast forward to 2018, I took part in the 2nd Almasi African Playwrights Conference (AAPC) where I got to further develop my play The Prophet. Through this, I had an opportunity to not only apply but be accepted to take part in Breaking Light, the 2018 edition of OPC.
One of my big takeaways from my entire OPC experience is that it was not only through my talent and hard work alone that made it possible for me to make it. The help and efforts of those who have been there before me cleared some hurdles, blazed pathways to explore and left room for me to create paths of my own which I hope in turn will help the next Zimbabwean playwright who will attend OPC.
The +30 hours of flying and jet-lag notwithstanding, there was work to be done from the moment I arrived in Ojai California. It was terribly hot, I was tired and in need of a shower but I did not allow that to stop me from actively (well as active as one can be trying to adjust to a 9 hour time difference) engaging in the experience. It was an interesting mental challenge to listen, respond, speak about myself and my work coming from a completely different context and lived reality.
Being the slow writer that I am, I enjoyed the writer in residence experience because it allowed me time to dig deeper inside myself, come to those “Aha moments” at my own pace, interrogate the politics of my work, learning and unlearning some things that made up the core of my context as a Coloured Zimbabwean playwright striving to tell stories rooted in the lived realities of disadvantaged minorities.
The Prophet has been years in the writing, its story is not only dealing with the ‘prophetic craze’ that still has a stronghold on Zimbabwe, but the play also delves into sexuality and politics of identity within a Coloured context. A play with Coloured characters dealing with issues arguably unique to them is something yet to be commonplace on the current Zimbabwean theatre scene. The Coloured context within the arts is still something I am exploring, trying to understand and share, so imagine trying to unpack all that in a place where even the term Coloured has a whole different world of meaning; telling the why’s, what a revelation that was for me. Maybe later, over coffee and carrot cake we can delve more into that, I personally would love that.
The community of artists who were part of OPC made it more than a worthwhile 2 weeks in Ojai. I learned quite a bit from them, I hope they too learned something from me and the connections we established will flourish. My residency was part of an ongoing collaboration between OPC and the Almasi Arts Alliance. I am grateful to Danai Gurira and the entire Almasi team for their work and support that makes it possible for creatives such as myself to amplify their light in this dark world, break down barriers, or at the very least try to. It is my hope that our collective light will continue to shine and push back the darkness to make it a bit easier for the next generation to find their breaking light.