Amandina Lihamba Explained

Amandina Lihamba
Birth Place:Morogoro District, Tanganyika Territory
Occupation:Actress
Director
Professor
Notable Works:Maangamizi: The Ancient One
Alma Mater:University of Leeds

Amandina Lihamba (born 1944) is a Tanzanian academic, actress, playwright and theatre director. She is a professor at the University of Dar es Salaam in the Department of Fine and Performing Arts and has served as its dean, head of department, and university council member. In 1989, she co-founded the national Children Theatre Project and festival. She also founded the girls drama group Tuseme (Let's Speak Out) festival with Penina Muhando in 1998.[1]

Lihambra was born in Morogoro District, Tanzania in 1944.[2] She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Leeds. Her 1985 doctoral dissertation focussed on "Politics and Theatre in Tanzania after the Arusha Declaration 1967–1984".[3] There, she describes how after the Arusha Declaration the Tanzanian verse drama ngonjera evolved from a propaganda tool of the ruling party into a subversive and syncretic form.[4]

Apart from plays and children's books, Lihamba also wrote Hawala ya fedha, based on Senegalese film director Ousmane Sembène's The Money-Order.[5]

Selected works

Plays

Fiction for young readers

Filmography as actress or writer

Notes and References

  1. Book: Koch. Jule. Karibuni Wananchi: Theatre for Development in Tanzania : Variations and Tendencies. 2008. Thielmann & Breitinger. Eckersdorf [Germany]. 978-3-939661-06-1. 107.
  2. Book: Akyeampong. Emmanuel K.. Gates. Henry Louis Jr.. Dictionary of African Biography. 2012. Oxford University Press. Oxford. 978-0-19-538207-5. Lihamba, Amandina (1944–).
  3. Book: Plastow. Jane. African Theatre and Politics: The Evolution of Theatre in Ethiopia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe: A Comparative Study. 1996. Rodopi. Amsterdam. 978-90-420-0038-4. 3.
  4. Book: Justice-Malloy. Rhona. Theatre History Studies 2010. 2010. University of Alabama Press. Tuscaloosa. 978-0-8173-7107-4. 35, 40. 2nd.
  5. Mwangi. E.. Amandina Lihamba's gendered adaptation of Sembene Ousmane's The Money-Order. Research in African Literatures. 2009. 40. 3. 149–173. 10.2979/ral.2009.40.3.149. 143142294.