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. )