She talks to Damaris Agweyu about her journey to building an outstanding career and ultimately empowering others to live out their creative passions.
June, are you water or fire? What do you mean?
Water people tend to be intuitive and reflective whereas fire people are more expressive and edgy. I'd say both. My artistic persona is definitely fire at the point of performance but when I'm thinking about the creative process or planning then I'm a lot more water.
You've taken diverse interests, merged them and created an incredible career. My ability to always be honest about who I am and what I want has helped a lot. I love and need the intellectual stimulation from my legal practice and I've been performing on stage for close to 24 years now. I've never had to pick one over the other.
Let's start with your journey in the creative arts. It started when I was very young. I remember being in school plays, choirs and musicals at the age of 8 or 9. My dad was posted to Paris for work so we got the opportunity to live out of Kenya quite early; this led us to interact with all sorts of people and being part of the international community, I learnt a lot about different cultural practices through dance and music. I would volunteer to be part of anything and everything that was performance related. By the time we moved back to Kenya, I knew I needed to pursue my creative passions for my balance.
With the support of your parents? Yes, on condition I did well in school. At around the of age of 13, my mum agreed to send me to a school to learn music so that I could appreciate how difficult it was then give up. I don't think I was a great singer but I loved it- so every Saturday, she would drop my sister and I off for an hour at the music school. After a month, my teacher asked if I wanted to take music seriously and I was like, 'Who does that? Because this is what society had taught us and this was still the early 90s. And my mum like most prudent parents was probably like, 'this wasn't the plan' I did my singing exams till grade 5 then it became really hectic with all my school work so I took a break.
Mum was right? Maybe at that time. My love for the performing arts never waned. After I went to St. Mary's school which was famous for its leaning towards arts and sports I got very involved in the extra curricula activities; I think the performing arts helps you develop your interpersonal skills because you interact with so many different people. So I became a leader by default…I was the deputy Head Girl at GreenAcres and Head Girl at St Mary's. I then went to University and continued to perform, together with some friends; we started recording very basic music.
What were you studying? Law with French, at the London School of Economics. And when I came back home, I carried on with my creative pursuits while studying at the Kenya School of Law. I signed up for a performance at Phoenix Theatre with Mumbi Kaigwa and Keith Pearson- it didn't work out but then Ian Mbugua spotted me and said he would be interested in working with me. In the end, I got a 15 minute role in the back end of act 2 and I loved it. From that point on, I was absolutely sure that I wanted to incorporate both my interest for the performing arts and my love for law.
Not an easy mix to juggle I'd imagine. No but I would tell bosses from the very beginning that my creative passions were a huge part of my life. I remember the day Total called me to interview for a position in their legal department, I was on set, filming a movie called Project Daddy. I told them I couldn't make it and they were like, 'do you want this job or not?' I said yes and they were like, 'then what are you doing that's more important?' I told them I was filming and it was not that it was more important, I had made a commitment to be part of the movie- and they were like, 'you're in a movie!' I said yes and asked if they could reconvene the next day when I'd be done.
That was quite the gamble. It was but I had to be honest from the very beginning. If I had dumped the movie for the interview, then...
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