2015-2016 Watah Season: KENTE

 

The story goes that Kente was first made by two Akan friends who went hunting in an Asante forest, and found a spider making its web. The friends stood and watched the spider for two days then returned home and implemented what they had seen. 

 

The spider is a global mythic icon who spins the world into and out of existence. The spider-web itself is one of the strongest threads on the planet. Anansie the spider is a clever trickster archetype emerging out of Ashante storytelling heritage who teaches us about our humanity and potential for growth through endless journeys of parables, fables, pithy saying and proverbs. Anansie stories travelled with enslaved Africans through the trans-altlantic slave trade and continue to impact the self-knolwedge of diasporic African peoples. 

 

Kente cloth, known as Nwentom in Akan, is a type of silk and cotton fabric made of interwoven cloth strips and is native to the Akan of South Ghana. As one of the prominent symbols of African arts and culture, Kente cloth has been embraced by the broader African diaspora.

 

We celebrate the strength, meaning and wisdom of the Kente cloth and Anansie the spider this 2015-2016 season, as we celebrate the tenacity, courage and perseverance of African peoples of the diaspora. We survive. We thrive. We innovate. We collaborate. Thank you ancestors, thank you Anansie, thank you to the weavers of Kente for continuing to wholistically shape our humanity through time.

 

The 2nd season of The Watah Theatre features an incredible storytelling journey of 28 artists-in-residence, 73 public engagements, one mainstage production, 3 mainstage workshop presentations, 9 Sage Secrets Lectures, 10 book launches, 18 film screenings, 3 art exhibits and 3 festivals featuring unapologettically courageous new theatre.

 

The Watah Theatre dares to weave a new web of possibilities for brilliant Black art, whose design is as phenomenal, dynamic and unrelenting as the multic-coloured patterning of the Kente inspired by Anansie the spider.

 

The Watah Theatre, where Black Plays - Like Black Plays Live - MATTER! See you at the theatre!

 

Symbolic meanings of the colors in Kente cloth

Akan Kente cloth color variations.
 

• black—maturation, intensified spiritual energy

• blue—peacefulness, harmony and love

• green—vegetation, planting, harvesting, growth, spiritual renewal

• gold—royalty, wealth, high status, glory, spiritual purity

• grey—healing and cleansing rituals;

• maroon—the color of mother earth; associated with healing

• pink—assoc. with the female essence of life; a mild, gentle aspect of red

• purple—assoc. with feminine aspects of life; usually worn by women

• red—political and spiritual moods; bloodshed; sacrificial rites and death.

• silver—serenity, purity, joy; assoc. with the moon

• white—purification, sanctification rites and festive occasions

• yellow—preciousness, royalty, wealth, fertility, beauty