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Portrait of Forward KwendaNolan Warden, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Artist profile

Forward Kwenda

Shamanism · Mbira dzavadzimu

Zimbabwean mbira player from Buhera, known for calling the ancestral spirits during mapira, the Shona ceremonies in which the ancestors are present. The Shona bira is an ancestral tradition of its own, and he describes his playing as not being his own doing.

ShamanismZimbabwe
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About the artist

Forward Kwenda

He has performed at the Kennedy Center. In 2020 he co-founded mbira.online, an archive and teaching project, and Mbira Magic.

His album Svikiro, Meditations of an Mbira Master, records his solo playing.

“It is not me, my spirits play through me.”
Forward Kwenda
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Nature & ritual

Shamanism

Ritual, connection with nature and symbolic journeys within living traditions.

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