A highlight of our Christmas preparations was the "Christmas canata" at the English-speaking Christian Life Assembly church in Kigali. John, Naomi and I went. (Isaac not interested.) We had an inkling that this was a highly produced theatrical piece from the video-ads that were played during the announcements time at church during Advent. But still, I was not prepared for the level of excellent music and drama the CLA troupe produced. Off-broadway quality for sure!
It's free, so the house is packed, and then towards the end there's a Pentecostal call to come to Christ and a love offering taken. I enjoyed it even more than I thought I would. They had a tenor sax soloist who blew me away on the opening number and then, to top it off, they let him play a kind of encore 'guest solo' at the end. I'll have to find out what his name is, because he was unbelievably good. He made Christmas songs sound like jazz classics, and performed them with style! They also had an 10 person acapella choir that sang two "Pentatonics" songs -- do you guys know that popular acapella group in the US? They are quite famous for their "Drummer Boy" rendition and this group last night did it so well. It gave me chills to hear it performed live. All of this was accompanied by a dance troupe of about 12 dancers (male + female) who kept everything lively with energetic, modern + ballet dance. There was also a 30 person choir on the "second floor" of the set, which is where the electric guitars, drums, piano, violin and gospel soloists were.
The story behind it reminded me a lot of the youth productions of "Bethlehem Inn" at FUMC Ann Arbor. They took the perspective of the Innkeeper and his family. The poor guy was thinking he was finally going to earn a decent living from his inn when the Roman census was announced. Then the evil Roman guards arrive in Bethlehem and occupy 7 of his 8 rooms, quite rudely (insulting them as Jews) and without paying. They did a good job of portraying how oppressed people felt in those times. And then, I think this is the first time I've seen a production where the actual birth of Jesus was included on stage!! The spotlight is on the innkeeper, thank goodness, (mary and joseph are out of the spotlight with joseph in front of mary). It's the middle of the night, and the innkeeper is re-evaluating everything he's done, because he can hear Mary giving birth in his stable! The actress was quite good at making loud "birth-giving" sounds!
Then the baby's newborn wimper is heard and things settle down into the glowing, beautiful scene that is so familiar. (Well, except all the actors are black, but we hardly notice that any more.) But it was exceptional in some ways because i had a real sense of how anticipated this "savior from bondage" was.
Note to those who want more photos: check https://www.instagram.com/kaczorfamily/ for photo updates! And eventually I will get some new blogs up too! (www.rwandakaczor.blogspot.com)
"Noheli Nziza!"
[Author: Ruth Ann]
No comments:
Post a Comment