Pnindi

PAX NINDI

Pax Nindi is an artist, strategist and creative director in the combined arts world (Carnival, Circus, Street Arts and Digital arts) where he is a renowned international carnival expert. He is involved with various artforms and projects in UK, the Caribbean, Africa, Brazil and Europe.

Born in Zimbabwe, Pax left his homeland at the age of fourteen to attend school and college in Malawi where he lived for seven years. In Malawi he taught himself to play bass guitar and founded a trio “Electric Mud” with his friend Benjamin Zodetsa (Guitar and vocals) and Musa Saidi (Drums). Electric Mud was the first youth band to win the Malawi Battle of the Bands held in Kamuzu Stadium in the late 70s. He later left Malawi Polytechnic where he was studying Graphics and joined Malawi Young Pioneers’ “Spearhead Band” as bass player and rhythm guitarist.

Seven years later he returned to Zimbabwe where he studied Printing Science and Graphical Reproduction at the Harare Polytechnic. He continued playing music with various Zimbabwean musicians and bands as well as work on freelance photography and design projects which landed him a job in the national newspapers “The Herald” as an Originator in the graphics department. In his contribution to Zimbabwe theatre, as Musical Director, Pax collaborated with Zimbabwe’s best actors Walter Muparutsa and Dominic Kanaventi on their adaptation of Athol Fugard’s play “Sizwe Bansi Is Dead”. During this time he was writing his own music which local record companies felt were too political to release in Zimbabwe. That became a frustration for him that he left the country searching for artistic freedom and in the mid 80s settled in London.

In London his first recording “Innervision” was produced as part of his studio engineering training with Media Productions in Brixton which inspired him to record an album “Cultural Rhythm” with members of Misty In Roots. With musicians such as Charles Bullen (This Heat ) and Dave Fullwood (Love Grocers) he started performing and touring his African Reggae rhythms as “Harare Dread”. While working as an artist in the late 80s Pax founded an independent community video company in South London “Paxvision” which provided production, editing facilities and training for independent filmmakers. Through his use of new technology and film Pax established himself as digital artists and the Jamaican paper The Gleaner, crowned him “The World’s First Ever Dub Vj”. Paxvision served as Harare Dread’s management and record label which released over six albums written and produced by Pax. Through his work in the community Pax was chosen to direct the one day Deptford Festival which he ran for 5 years and became a month event with activities taking place in the Albany Theatre and all around Deptford. The work introduced Pax to the Carnival artform, which he is still involved in.

In 1996 while still maintaining his artistic life, Pax joined the Arts Council</ref>Arts Council of England</ref> as a Combined Arts Officer and later became their Senior Officer/Head of Department in its West Minister Head Office. Here he lead on Circus, Carnival and Street Arts and became an expert in carnival arts that he wrote and published the Arts Council National Carnival Arts Strategy, ran two On Route International Carnival Arts Conferences at the School of African and Oriental Studies and the Camden Centre. In the Arts Council he also produced and edited the On Route book and set up the Carnivalnet website as well as a set up artists International Carnival Fellowships in USA, Trinidad, Brazil and Europe. Some of his other projects there included programming Black History Month events in the Millennium Dome, running six Archive Conferences in six cities, support for the establishment of Independent Street Arts Network, East Midlands Carnival Arts Partnership and Circus Arts Forum.

After ten years in the Arts Council, Pax went back to freelancing and founded the Global Carnival Centre, a virtual centre for all things to do with Carnival arts. As an Advisor he lead Western Union’s support for Caribbean projects as their Cultural Advisor and became the Vice President of the World Carnival Commission in Canada as well as represent the National Carnival Bands Association of Trinidad and Tobago as their European Representative. Continuing with the arts he devised a one-man multimedia show “Whatever Made In Malawi” which he toured for a year. He also found new avenue for his music in NE Brazil where he has been touring for the last four years and recorded a new album “Povo” which was launched at the 2010 Recife Reggae Festival.