Chisomo Mdalla

Malawi

Chisomo Mdalla, elsewhere known as Nyamalikiti Nthiwatiwa, is a Malawian artist working in theatre, poetry, prose and fine art. He has performed his poetry at the Crossing Borders festival in Uganda and the Arts Alive Festival in Johannesburg, and recorded a yet-to-be-marketed poetry collection. After he has completed his Honours degree in drama and film at Wits, he hopes to have his cartoon strip published in one of Malawi’s leading newspapers.

Previously a student of medical geography, French and education, he has been running Chiphwelemwe, an arts outfit that fuses theatre and folk music to poetry as a fully staged performance. The course at Wits, tailored towards making a difference to the responses to HIV and AIDS, bridges his life as an artist and his earlier training in health, language and education, and he values the opportunity to work with people in their communities. His present research examines the effectiveness of the outside-in approach of theatre for development as an HIV and AIDS intervention.