To Yearn for the Vast & Endless Sea

FROM PHILIP HIMBERG:

We gather for the last time here on Manda at the Akili Dance Studio to say goodbye. I ask one question: What will you take away from your time at the Sundance Institute East Africa Theatre Lab? Here are some of the replies:

• I am richer as a person and as an artist
• It has really touched my heart. I am more human.
• I go away absolutely certain of my abilities. I have seen what more is possible. I am a playwright.
• I thank God I have made new friends. I go back with loads of knowledge, challenged as a creator. I want to sustain the growth.
• A reinvigorated sense of hope for the theatre of East Africa.
• It’s nice to know I’m not alone, there are artists I share the same dream with.
• I feel “re-incarnated” in the theatre.
• I feel pressure now not to give up on that space between idea and production. Anytime you are in Uganda, I have that ‘space’ for you.
• I have happy tears. You have all re-defined who I am.
• Now we’ve become a family. I’m leaving this place a more rejuvenated Jacob.
• For me, like a dream comes true – to meet many artists in East Africa. Thanks Sundance for making this happen. This is a new beginning for us to create a network in East Africa. I hope there is a next and a next and a next and a next…
• I came as “Andnet”; I leave as CNN (note: we called him CNN because he was filming us every day, as our archivist).
• To me, this is a family now. Your Sundance have protected us in a way. Sundance has started and “we” have to continue it.
• I feel like I’m Kenya, I feel like I’m Ethiopia, I feel like I’m Uganda. I feel like I’m Rwanda.
• The important thing to me is ‘the space’.
• You’ve enriched me in ways you may not be able to know.
• I will miss the way we danced.
• The first thing I take away is the value of smile. And I learned the word: Dramaturg.
• I take away the power of listening. People here were listening.
• Thank you for being true to you so I could be true to me.
• I go back having learned to listen to the unsaid and unspoken.
• Our destiny is in our hands.

The last story I told was the confluence in my life of Antoine de Ste. Exupery’s THE LITTLE PRINCE. I am staying in a house called BAOBAB surrounded by Baobab trees. Sundance's Theatre Program recently developed a musical called SAINT EX, about this author and pilot. In Rwanda, we stayed in a hotel called Le Petit Prince. And this morning I found this quote. I recited it as we watched the sea from our Studio window:

"If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead teach them to year for the vast and endless sea.” -Antoine de Ste. Exupery

Deborah Asiimwe in Lamutown square performing a portion of THE BOOK OF LIFE