📖 About this program
Following the NIPAI "The Director and the Play" scholarship, ShebaStage's six trained artists step forward as ambassadors — each delivering a hands-on workshop within their own group, band, school or discipline across Ethiopia. From music ensembles to circus and theatre, every ambassador passes on the directing-and-analysis method they mastered, contextualised to Ethiopian performing arts.
But this is about more than directing. The method is a working technique any performer can apply to their own craft — to read a work deeply, understand its concept, and shape it into a clear, structured performance. It strengthens each artist's individual creative capacity, not only the skills of those who wish to direct.
At its heart, the programme closes a gap. Ethiopian artists carry extraordinary talent and living traditions, yet have had few routes to the structured, concept-driven methods that international and Western production companies expect. This gap — between Ethiopia's rich live-performance heritage and the production standards of the global stage — has kept world-class talent from being fully understood, and fully booked, abroad. These workshops give Ethiopian artists a shared professional language: the ability to analyse, structure and communicate their work so they can step confidently into international productions and live performance at the highest level.
Over 12 – 15 hours with 15 – 20 participants each, the workshops follow a twelve-module journey — from reading a work to staging it — drawing on Ethiopian stories, the qenet modal system, and the country's diverse movement traditions. The programme multiplies the impact of the scholarship: strengthening local capacity, building a common creative standard across disciplines, and nurturing the next generation of Ethiopian creators — directors and performers alike — ready for the world stage.
Every workshop is documented and shared, feeding ShebaStage's growing network of Ethiopian performing artists.
Grew out of
The Director and the Play→