By Meshack Ngangi
The battle for supremacy and retaining victory crown at the Kenya Universities Performing Arts Association (KUPAA) 2023 Drama, Beauty Pageantry, and Film Festivals by The Co-operative University of Kenya’s Metropolitans Drama Club did not end at the Regional level but ensued to the National competitions held at Dedan Kimathi University of Technology, Nyeri between 3rd and 10th November 2023. This iconic Festival marked the 5th series since the organization KUPAA initiated the competitions in the Kenyan Universities and attracted over 3,000 students from 40 Universities in the country.
This year’s KUPAA Festivals were themed “Supporting Economic Transformation through Performing Arts” under the hashtag “.” The theme highlighted the core of the Government’s agenda of empowering Youth in Kenya through leveraging talents and abilities beyond the classroom setting. KUPAA’s mandate, which is to improve the standing of Kenya’s performing and visual arts, music, and film industry through a commitment to developing work of the highest quality and promoting music, theatre, visual arts, and film, was the spearheading spirit behind the resounding success of this event.
The participation of CUK students at the national Festivals organized by KUPAA resonated with the University’s vision of becoming a University of excellence in education, research, innovation, and co-operative training that traverses the classroom confines but seeks to nurture all-rounded graduates, competent enough to suit the contemporary world. The University utterly recognizes the essence and centrality of harnessing learners’ talents for an empowered society in pursuit of socio-economic transformation.
Our University Drama Club undertook and competed on three items in different performing arts genres: a dramatized African play (Mbaitu Nimukuly’a), a Kiswahili Play (Hali Tete), and a Puppetry. These creative works of art performed differently, with the dramatized African praise poetry, acted by Lucas Kalonzo, scooped the 1st runners-up, followed by the Kiswahili play emerging the 2nd runners-up and puppetry garnering the 3rd runners-up position in the stiffly competitive national KUPAA Festivals.
Nonetheless, the University’s Metropolitans Drama Club’s Hali Tete, under the short film category, won several awards as the short film with the best sound design and edited short film. Also, Abdulaziz Dima, a member of the Drama Club and a first-year student pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Finance at CUK, won the best actor award under the short film category. The University takes pride in the incredible results posted by The Metropolitans at the National Drama Festivals and pledges support to all registered student clubs.