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Amandina Lihamba will play two roles during her visit to the Charleston area this weekend.
But that will be nothing new for the native Tanzanian, who adeptly juggles two professions: teaching and acting.
As theater department chair at the University of Dar-es-Salaam, she will participate in the Middle States African Studies Association's second annual conference at West Virginia State College. The conference runs today through Saturday.
And as the star of "Maangamizi - The Ancient One," she will appear on the big screen for showings at State on Friday and at the West Virginia International Film Festival on Sunday.
Lihamba, who is living in the United States until July as a Fulbright-Hays Visiting Scholar at UCLA, said her two careers are not mutually exclusive.
"They both are things I just do and I feel they are important to be done," she said during a telephone interview from Los Angeles. "They're not necessarily oppositional. Of course, I'm not trying to make it that it's easy. Somehow, the two have always developed alongside each other. It's a matter of trying to program it into one's life."
Lihamba is researching contemporary trends in the American theater. "I'm looking at what has happened to the energies of the '60s and '70s and what kind of new energies have come up," she said.
She was invited to participate in the MSASA conference as the result of her friendship with filmmaker Danny Boyd, an assistant professor of communications at State. The two met while Boyd was on a Fulbright fellowship at the University of Dar-es-Salaam.
At the conference, Lihamba will discuss the use of dramatic arts in East Africa as a tool of social change. She and her colleagues in Tanzania rely on the theater to promote education, female empowerment, health information and other issues. She said she believes this can be more effective than community meetings.
"People will come and look at a play and at the same time hear what the play is saying," she said.
Lihamba's acting resume includes a master's degree from the Yale Drama School, the film "The Marriage of Mariamu," the Broadway production "The River Niger" and performances with the Negro Ensemble Company.
In "Maangamizi," she plays Samehe, a patient in a psychiatric hospital who was literally struck dumb as a result of a childhood trauma. The film was directed by Ron Mulvihill and Martin Mhando, with American filmmaker Jonathan Demme ("Philadelphia") serving as executive producer.
Hallucinations in which Samehe sees the fierce yet grandmotherly Maangamizi (a Swahili word that translates as "destroyer") gradually force her to confront her past. Her breakthrough is aided by a visiting African-American doctor, Asira, who is battling her own personal demons. With the help of the Maangamizi, the two women undergo a spiritual rebirth.
Asked if she and Samehe share anything in common, Lihamba laughed and replied, "Oh dear, oh dear."
"There are certain things that are like me," she added after a moment of thought. "I wouldn't want to say which ones. I think the one thing I really could identify with is we all try to search. [In] this search for meaning in our particular lives, we face the future only if we know what the past, the present, is about.
"I think emotionally, Samehe feels very intensely. I like to think maybe that is one way in which we touch each other."
A girlhood experience made it easier for Lihamba to interpret Samehe's refusal to talk.
"In my early years, I went to a Catholic school," she said. "We had these retreats where you'd go for several days a week without speaking - just communicated with words if it was necessary.
"It was not a problem [to portray this]. I felt that as a character, she had retreated into that, didn't feel the necessity to use words, to communicate with the other people around her. It's a way of saying something happens to somebody's life, and there is a change. The change is so profound that it changes the character."
From an acting perspective, she added, a device such as this is a great tool.
"As a matter of fact, it's also one of those things you think, 'It's so theatrical.' In a sense, we're so used to thinking the word is the art form. I think maybe it's a greater challenge to think."
"Maangamizi," she reflected, is a profound film that should speak to people in different ways.
"You don't have to be African, you don't have to be African-American," she said. "There are some general human factors that the film addresses. If people go with an open mind, they'll probably get something."
To contact staff writer Marina Hendricks, use e-mail or call 348-4881.
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