AWPN-Warwick artist-in-residence 2022 – Getrude Vimbayi Munhamo-Pfumayaramba from Zimbabwe who will visit the University for eight-tenweeks to develop her new work, SIZWE (NATION), which looks at ethnic hatred that leads to genocide in various nations. She seeks to answer the question what now?

Getrude is a performance artist, translator, radio dramatist, copywriter, theatre and script writer and dramaturge who in the past was Treasurer for the Board of Arterial Network Zimbabwe. She has just been appointed as the first female chair to sit on the Zimbabwe Theatre Association Board (ZITA) and is also the Development Officer for the Board of the International Theatre Institute in Zimbabwe.

Getrude has been widely acknowledged for her contribution to the Arts:  In 2013, she was nominated for the National Arts Merit Award of Best Actress (Film). In 2019, she founded Dendere Arts Trust, where she is now Artistic Director, offering theatrical, radio, television production, promotion, distribution, advocacy and training. In 2021, the Zimbabwe Theatre Academy honoured her commitment and investment towards the development of theatre in Zimbabwe; she was also awarded the Artistic Coach of the Year 2021 by the International Coaching and Mentoring Foundation.

Getrude has performed extensively in local theatre and television, and wrote six plays between 2010-2021. In 2021, she worked on the ‘Here, There, Now’ collaborative storytelling project with Nhimbe Trust and the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre, London. She also produced ‘Withered’, ‘Muripo’, and ‘Through the Eyes of Zimbabwe’, a storytelling video series project by Dendere Arts Trust, in the tradition of African storytelling, particularly with and for children.

Using her arts for activism, Getrude has participated and facilitated in programmes by international organisations including UNICEF, International Organisation for Migration, International Monetary Fund, Doctors Without Borders and Population Services International (Zimbabwe), in community-based projects through roadshows, focus group discussions for various initiatives, and documentaries. She has also worked with children’s homes and the prisons and correctional services in interventions using the arts for healing and restoration. In 2021, Getrude was invited to perform her theatre piece ‘Withered’ on the subject of climate change, at the UN SDG Summit Festival, in Manila, Philippines. She is currently studying multi-media production and sign language as she has a passion for inclusivity, especially when it comes to the hearing-impaired community and people living with disabilities.