Kenya’s African Heritage Festivals

Alan Donovan with models at African Heritage 40th anniversary celebrations

1982 AH TOUR OF EUROPE SPONSORED BY HILTON INTERNATIONAL AND SABENA AIRLINES.

African Heritage Festival 1995 Tour of Europe - Programme

This is the centerpiece for the AH Tour of Europe l995, take from Angela Fisher’s glorious book, AFRICA ADORNED in National Geographic Magazine. The tour was sponsored by Lufthansa.

The largest festival held by African Heritage was in l979 at San Diego Zoo to open their new shopping area, “Jungle Bazaar” Sixty thousand guests were invited for the two night event. Models emerged from a forest on to a bridge over a lagoon filled with flamingos. The Ghanaian National Drum Ensemble played on one side of the bridge while an American jazz band performed on the other sides. Models then strutted around the zoo grounds as guests dined on Kenyan food cooked in semi trailer kitchens in Los Angeles and trucked down to San Diego for the occasion.

Gala Night of the Century staged over the pool of the Nairobi Serena Hotel for two nights before departing for the coast to present the festival to 22 other Kenyan Hotels to usher in the MILLENIUM.

Africa Unzipped

A film by Callie Ann Lum of Cool Loon Movies about Kenya’s African Heritage Festival.

A story about Kenya and the African Heritage Festival Millennium Tour. Stunning models, acrobats and dancers rock the runways from Nairobi to Mombasa welcoming in the new millennium.After 30 years in Africa, American expatriate, Alan Donovan, gives Kenya a show they’ll never forget, come hell or high water!

Notable African Heritage Festivals & Reviews

Click image to open pdf in a new window:

Nairobi Centennial Celebrations

European Tour 1995

Gala Night of the Century 1999/2000

African Heritage Festivals – Reviews

African Renaissance Shows

First African Renaissance Show 1998 in South Africa

THE AFRICAN RENAISSANCE SHOW was first staged in South Africa for the First African Telecoms Conference in May 1998, sponsored by the Government of the Republic of South Africa and the International Telecommunications Union.

It was a very memorable event. The South African organizers came up to Kenya three times to see Kenya’s African Heritage Festival perform at African Heritage Libra House on Mombasa Road. They had surveyed the whole of Africa to find the best cultural show and finally unanimously agreed that Kenya’s African Heritage Festival was the best on the continent. However, the South African government was still hesitant about having a group from Kenya as the headliner for this very important and prestigious conference. It was only at the last minute that the air tickets were finally released and Kenya’s African Heritage Festival was on the way.

ticket

Ticket to the African Renaissance Show

festivals – table setting for african renaissance shows with program

Table setting for African Renaissance Shows with program.

Program Cover

The show combined music and dance groups from every part of South Africa as the curtain raiser for the “Textile Tour” from African Heritage. It was renamed the African Renaissance Show and a song African Renaissance was especially penned and performed for the occasion.

As the organizers could not find a hotel facility large enough for nearly 4000 guests, they finally bought an old warehouse near Johannesburg (where incidentally Nelson Mandela had once worked as a watchman) and bulldozed out the interior. Stages, catwalks were set up according to African Heritage specifications and kitchens, a façade and parking lots were added all within three weeks! The facility is now the Crown Mines Entertainment Centre.

The show was performed for three nights on South African television although it was never shown in Kenya. The show was later produced for the Gala Night of the Century and Millennium Festival in Kenya in 1999-2000.