"Dancing Queen"; Musical Theatre to the Rescue

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Category: Theatre

Published on Wednesday, 01 February 2012 05:22

Written by Moses Serugo

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My harsher side would have bashed Dancing Queen for its higgledy-piggledy plot, protracted dialogue that saw it stretch a whopping three hours and amateur acting. The Ugandan stage adaptation of ABBA’s Mamma-Mia ended its two-month weekly run at Theatre La Bonita on January 26, 2012. I’ll hold my horses this time and give AMK Productions an “A” for effort. This posse of mostly white-collar friends deserves a pat on the shoulder if anything for boldly coming out of their respective performing arts closets. This “coming out” stage party was like a high school reunion of sorts for some of the cast.

And now to the plaudits! Power dance couple Michael Kasaija and his ravishing trophy girlfriend Natasha Sinayobye brought their A-game with imaginative choreography. Meddie Kasoma may have delivered a wooden performance as Jeff, the groom-to-be but his attempt at pulling off the complex piano melodies on The Winner Takes It All was commendable.

True, most of the acting was nothing to write home about especially with the actors speaking “hands-free face microphones” some of which had nagging transmitter issues. There was some outstanding acting talent though. Isaac Lutwama Nsubuga kept the witty lines flowing as the boisterous Aine Ankunda a.k.a. MM (milk millionaire) courtesy of his “eshabwe” catchphrase. This Economist who works as at Fina Bank probably has his sights on being a gastronomic entrepreneur that will trademark eshabwe into lattes, espressos and cappuccinos.

Nina Kebirungi Rutaagi was the obvious audience favourite playing the designer-label-obsessed Lorna. Her impromptu pronunciation class yielded “jee-vo-nshi” for Givenchy and “yve-sa-loho” for Yves Saint Laurent, good tongue-twister practice for all you folks that love to pinch inflight duty free shopping magazines. This IT specialist also takes credit for designing the costumes and is the lead designer at Free Spirit Fashion House in Ntinda.

Plot-wise, the nagging desire of a child to know who her dad is was resonant in the single mother and protagonist Sanyu Birungi (played by Lynn Abarungi Atuhwera). Her promiscuous lifestyle from 21 years ago may be catching up with her what with not knowing who of her three exes Opio, Aine and Kato is the father of her child Carol Birungi (Carol Nabwire). But Sanyu’s entrepreneurial streak that has seen her set up a tourist abode on Ssesse Islands is commendable. The Lake Victoria isles got great mileage as a great escape from the hustle and bustle of the city. And true every child deserves to know its dad, the moral here being that parents should philander less. But kids need to know that happy accidents happen all the time.

That said, AMK Productions could be on course to liberating the [stage] arts from the doldrums. There must be so many professionals out there itching to take a break from “corporate slavery” to raise a bit of stardust on the stage. The payoff her would be the guaranteed audience of workmates, your boss, school contemporaries, family and friends. These are the new patrons local theatre needs. Soon, your fun loving “corporate” will be going to the theatre not because he/she can “a-ha” to ABBA’s Voulez Vous but simply out of habit. Perhaps next time, AMK Productions will be bold enough to give us a fully-fledged Ugandan musical. Artistes like Elly Wamala, Philly Lutaaya and even contemporary ones like Iryn Namubiru boast a catalogue of songs from which a two-hour stage storyline can be strung. 

MOSES SERUGO ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. )

Dance "breaks" free to offer "Big Apples" in 2012

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Category: Theatre

Published on Tuesday, 24 January 2012 08:54

Written by Moses Serugo

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Dance may no longer be the performing arts underdog if the two performances that opened the National Theatre 2012 calendar are anything to go by. The annual collaboration between dancers from New York University and Makerere University’s Department of Performing Arts and Film kicked off the auditorium activity on Friday January 13, 2012. Dancers from the Big Apple make an annual pilgrimage to the Pearl of Africa to pick up ethnic dance routines while sharing a bit of their textbook dances a la ballet et al with their Ugandan counterparts. In the past, there was experimentation with pointe work done to adungu (traditional harp) much to the audience’s delight. This year, the level of dance was rather wishy-washy, what with “I Love New York” T-shirt clad youngsters grooving to Eddie Kenzo’s tasteless hit Stamina while the New Yorkers mostly pulled of lacklustre music video routines.

But that is not to say there were no moments of dance brilliance. It was quite an insight seeing a Runyege dancer square off with a tap dancer. Dancing in the former has a male wearing rattles below the knees and stomping his feet to the pulsating sound of attendant drum rhythms. That is the highpoint of this revered courtship dance from the Runyakitara ethnic groupings of Western Uganda. Tap dance on the other hand has a dancer tapping their feet thanks to the sound made from metallic-tipped shoe soles rhythmically tapping the wooden stage floor in this instance.

These two dancers, each showing off their individual skill was less about one routine being superior to the other. Rather it was about the hybrid possibilities available although one could also say one dance form visibly copied its technique from the other. But that said, dance needs these [Pearl of Africa/ Big Apple] synergies and maybe next time we’ll see the New Yorkers wearing “I Love UG” T-shirts in reciprocity.

Breaking Free held better promise thematically in its attempt at bringing together nine individual dancers from Kampala by way of a unique and dynamic fusion of B-Boying, contemporary dance, popping, locking, African Tribal Dance, krumping, house dance and physical theatre. It was also a testament to the domineering hold “break dance” has on theatrical dance in Uganda with eight of the dancers coming from this genre. But then again it could be that visiting German Korean choreographer Seb Kim Jaekwon's core competence is in "break dance". Thankfully, there was Cathy Nakawesa, arguably Uganda’s top contemporary dancer to break free from this "monotony" of everything inspired by the Shaba Doo and Electric Boogaloo ‘80s dance era.

For the second time in two days, the audience partook of a nascent possibility in dance fusion when Nakawesa paired up with Faizal Ddamba, a break-dancer with an equally superior technique. Nakawesa’s agile gymnast-like dancing comfortably sat well with Ddamba’s comic krumping. Honestly, the whole thing about white facemasks on Black faces and lower limb rattles was lost on me. It was only during a comic portrayal of two masked male dancers humorously hitting on each other with sissy-like dance routines that the simmering issue of “coming out” from behind a gay mask seemed to make sense here. That said, it was still a worthy toast to the potential of dance, one that needs to go beyond the benevolence of Alliance Francaise and Goethe-Zentrum Kampala. Hopefully, the Dance Week will keep this momentum come the first weekend of March 2012.     

MOSES SERUGO ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. )

Dancing in a mental exile

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Category: Theatre

Published on Monday, 09 January 2012 08:41

Written by Moses Serugo

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Nigerian choreographer Qudus Onikeku presented his acclaimed work My Exile is in my Head at the 2011 Dance Umbrella Festival in Johannesburg, South Africa. In the piece, he deals with personal questions of home, belonging, non-belonging and forms of exile. Onikeku also presented a documentary film, Do We Need Coca Cola to Dance showcasing the state of contemporary dance on the continent.

Tell us a bit about the personal questions you raise in your dance piece…

To me exile goes beyond feeling disconnected from your natural habitat and it is not just a political thing. But there is a sense of displacement at some point. I became an artiste in the borders of different countries I travelled to and I have been travelling since I was 16, which was also a journey in figuring my own way out because I am the only artiste in my family. But it was at 23 while attending an arts school in Paris that I began to question the concept of home as I fantasized about Nigeria. When I went home in 2009 I realised I had lost that thing called home. I guess that due to my profession and choice of life I now live, the only home I have is within my [dancing] body.

The question of belonging ever present in the dance piece…

I sought to know what it really means. There is something about wanting to attach oneself to one ideology, clan, one race or one gender. I find this dividing. When you say “I am South African” and you are very passionate about it, you are in effect saying “I am not Nigerian, so f*** all Nigerians”. That’s how xenophobia, racism, homophobia start. I want to acquire that state of “non-belonging”. I want to belong not by bloodlines but by affiliation. If there is someone in Johannesburg I feel connected to intellectually, spiritually or in Mexico that is the sort of affiliation of connecting with people from different places that I prefer.

Your documentary seems to redefine the whole concept of dance spaces…

I did it at a time I was questioning the idea of performing arts being confined to the theatre as a formal space. Art needs to get out of buildings to the marketplace and the streets. In Brazil and France, I performed My Exile is in My Head outdoors without the video and lighting effects of course. Part of me wants to bring back the Yoruba travelling theatre of the 40s, 50 & 60s where performances were done in town halls and not five star theatres. I also want to bring the Yoruba theatre aesthetic to my work. It is much like the French concept of arte vivant (living art). We still need to figure out how art can be a part of life as a living thing.

How does your choreographic process come together especially the movements?

My movements do not come with a label. It is not that I name them African, yoga, Yoruba, butoh, tai-chi or capoeira and keep them in a certain bag. They are not a process of accumulation. And labels come with a lot of prejudices. I prefer to draw from my experiences, which help me to move forward. My dance is like a collage in which I mostly concentrate on the now.

Your piece is a mixed media work in which you literally dance on a page…

My Exile is in My Head is highly inspired by Wole Soyinka’s book The Man Died. When you read a book, how do you get the message? How does it come back to you? It might be just one phrase although some people can memorize a whole page. The important thing about a book is the emotive power the text. Of course we filmed the book and worked on the text. I chose this particular book because it resonated with what I went through in school. I felt I was in a prison and I needed a liberation, a serious one. He was saying something very close to what I felt in that book despite his narrative being set in 1976 and while mine was in 2010.

Your dance credentials…

I started dancing as a kid and at 13 I was a star dancer in high school despite being a science student. Everyone thought I was mad, crazy but I realised this is what made me productive and gave me so much joy. After high school, I joined the Lagos State Arts Council at 17 as an artist in residence, something my family was against. But I am this kind of person who can only think by moving. I can’t think while seated. From then on I attended every workshop, watched videos and in one year I had travelled to Madagascar and Croatia. For a teenager this was interesting and it was in that process that I started falling in love with contemporary dance. In 2004, I had to choose between studying Mathematics at university to please my parents or a contract to perform with a dance company in France. It was a difficult decision but even after I chose to dance, I knew the importance of going to school, which I also did for three years in France.

How can we get local audiences interested in dance?

I do not believe you can make audiences. I think what the artiste has to do is decide for yourself what you want as an artiste. Some feel it important to have a theatre stage, others to engage in popular art while others feel they need to get to the people. But a festival can’t do that for you. You just have to go do what you have to do be it creating work that would only be performed in the street.

Any advice to aspiring contemporary dancers…

Unlike professions like law where there is an established and very defined way of becoming a lawyer, art tends to be different. An artiste does not have to follow a similar journey. Your can be defined in one year or 10 years. An artiste should just keep asking themselves “how do I make myself better?” taking advantage of everyday and every opportunity. I have lived it. Nobody is going to give you an opportunity but a day is going to come when you are going to have the podium. And that will be the summation of all those sweaty rehearsals. Your audience will appreciate that. It also helps to keep your values higher and higher.

How do you respond to prejudices against Nigerians?

Most times I do not try not to respond in as much as prejudice doesn’t mean it is not true. I only try to be the better person and present myself in a nice light which will have you saying “but he is not quite like what people say about Nigerians”. The fact is Nigeria does not have a single story and people also need to understand that Nigeria comprises half of West Africa’s population. There are 16 countries and Nigeria is like 15 countries compressed into one. The things we are prejudiced about are also in Paris and London and having travelled a lot I would know.

What legacy would you like to leave?

I want to do impactful art. That is very important to me. I do not just want to come and go. I would like to change the face of dance in Africa. I see my dance as the expression of the word of God, an opportunity to get closer to God and to reinvent myself in my own image.

MOSES SERUGO ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. )

Space, Issues and SA Contemporary Dance

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Category: Theatre

Published on Wednesday, 04 January 2012 10:52

Written by Moses Serugo

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Dance Week Uganda returns for a ninth edition in 2012 and as in years past the annual contemporary dance showcase will be restricted to a paltry three days at the National Theatre auditorium in Kampala. Yet the wooden stage and attendant seasonings like lights, crimson and black curtains and an audience seated on cushioned seats but confined to four walls shouldn’t be the dancer’s only space.
The 23rd Dance Umbrella (February 24 to March 6,2011), South Africa’s premier contemporary dance event seemed to rewrite the rules when it came to thinking (and choreographing) outside the theatrical box.

Read more: Space, Issues and SA Contemporary Dance

Fana; Heart of an ace dancer

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Category: Theatre

Published on Friday, 30 December 2011 09:50

Written by Moses Serugo

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Fana Albert Tshabalala personifies a dance Adonis, one who combines awesome talent with a well-sculpted body. His two appearances at the 2011 Dance Umbrella, South Africa’s premier contemporary dance showcase attest to this. Fana featured in Mark Hawkin’s "Hotel" and in the self-choreographed "Fractured". MOSES SERUGO sounded him out about his work at Moving Into Dance Mophatong (MIDM) located in Johannesburg’s Newton Cultural Precinct where he runs an Afro-fusion Open class.

Tell us a bit about your dance journey…

Dance for me is both a passion and a calling, although in my community it is seen as entertainment and not a career especially one that requires one to go to school to study dance. I had wanted to be an engineer after Matric (high school) but couldn’t afford the fees.

Read more: Fana; Heart of an ace dancer