Odile Gakire Katese
Playwright AND PERFORMER

Odile Gakire Katese (Kiki), as she herself describes it, is a professional dreamer and a woman of firsts. She is a Rwandan playwright, director and cultural entrepreneur. Among her many accomplishments in Rwanda are the first women’s drumming company (Ingoma Nshya, Women Initiatives), the first professional contemporary dance company (Amizero Dance Kompagnie), the first international festival (Festival Arts Azimuts), the first national festival in Rwanda (Rwanda Drum Festival), the first coop ice cream store (Inzozi Nziza – Sweet Dreams) and the first recipient of the League of Professional Theatre Women’s Rosamond Gilder/Martha Coigney International Award. Kiki is a grand person with a warm, generous, insightful outlook on life. She has a vision that is a long one, of how art will heal and inspire her country.

Kiki is the founding director of Rwanda Professional Dreamers and is currently working on “Mumataha, Remember Me” and "The Book of Life". More than projects related to the commemoration of the 1994 genocide, they are dressing of wounds and come to lessen the sounds of tears and sorrow and to accompany the dead and the living on their respective journeys.