A very good friend of mine in Kampala called me asking about
the things that have transformed the dance industry in Uganda. He was left
gasping in shock when I mentioned HIV/AIDS and War as the key factors that have
altered the dance landscape in Uganda. At first, he thought that I had smoked
or sniffed something strong. But as our discussion progressed, he realized that
there was some meat in my bizarre response.
Yes, HIV/AIDS has had far reaching consequences on the
people of Uganda. It always leaves bitter test in our mouth. Since it was first
detected in early 1980s, HIV/AIDS has claimed lives, wiped away villages, and condemned
masses to orphanage. Sadly, it has
defiantly refused to vacate center stage. My friend and I had elected not to
talk about these things. Both of us have lost our beloved ones to this scourge,
and memories of this loss precipitate indignation and despondency. In our good
old days, worms would spread into our bottles of beer and glasses of wine each
time we chose to open this HIV/AIDS can.
And for this pain, HIV/AIDS should be condemned and cursed. But
this should not blindfold us not to recognize the changes it has had on the
social and cultural milieu. One can argue that, possibly, the dance industry
would not be what it is now had it not been for HIV/AID. HIV/AIDS paved way for
emergence of a recognizable number of dance troupes in Uganda. But the most
significant contribution is that it marked beginning of orphanage-troupe model
of running dance business.
Most traditional dance troupes started as orphanages,
offering services to children orphaned by HIV/AIDS. AIDS created a certain
category of labour for dance. These
children were willing to learn and stage dance and music performances in
exchange of accommodation, education, healthcare and other services. The
Chinese saying tells us that a wise wo/man sees an opportunity in a crisis,
while a foolish one sees problems in an opportunity. The directors and proprietors
of traditional dance troupes heeded the first part of this Chinese apothegm:
they poked a hole of opportunities in the HIV/AIDS cobweb.
HIV/AIDS scourge and the agony that comes with it changed
people’s thinking about traditional dances. People stopped viewing traditional
dances as something that hunters perform somewhere in the forest around a
carcass of a speared elephant. They stopped seeing ethnic dances as an activity
that is only performed to appease gods, deities, spirits, and traditional leaders
and elders. A new philosophy emerged – a philosophy that considered dance as a
service that can be offered to support, rehabilitate and transform those in
need. And the end users/beneficiaries/clients (orphans) were floating around in
abundance seeking out for this support.
This simplified recruitment for orphanage-troupes. A person would
just walk into a village and pick orphans, get them together into an orphanage,
and train them as performers. But these recruits needed to eat, to be
accommodated, and to be educated. This required money – a lot of it. The idea
then was to make the recruits perform on different occasions – weddings,
seminars, conferences, and international festivals to raise money. An internal
interplay between an orphanage and a commercial troupe slowly took shape to
take care of the economic demands of this arrangement.
This orphanage-troupe interplay is also visible on the
international scene when troupes go for tours in Europe and America. The
exportation of traditional dances is more colored in a humanitarian and charity
agenda than artistic mission. Often times, the dances that are performed are
accompanied by the sad and touching stories of how the performers have been pounded
by the HIV/AIDS scourge, and more dollars euros and pounds are thrown into the
envelope.
Like HIV/AIDS, the footsteps of war can be traced in the
dance industry. We can excuse HIV/AID for whatever it has visited on humanity,
but we cannot excuse war. Yes, we can excuse HIV/AIDS because it is a natural
consequence. You cannot refuse wo/man from having sex. If you did, s/he would
throw everything, including the kitchen utensils, at you. But war is borne out
of wo/man’s madness. As Nelson Mandela noted, war is one of man-made problems. The
demons of war have been making rounds in the great lakes region and squarely competing
with HIV/AIDS in claiming millions of lives.
Because wars have caused forced migration, dances and music
traditions have crossed tribal and geographic boarder as a result. For the case of Uganda, the northern insurgency and other armed
conflicts in the entire great lakes region that have lasted for more than 20 years led to exodus
of dance and music traditions to different parts of the country. Some dancers
in troupes migrated with their cultural music and dance, joined
and performed with and for troupes to access education, accommodation and other forms
of welfare.
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| Dancers performing Larakaraka courtship dance from Acholi people of Northern Uganda at Ndere center, Kampala. Courtesy photo. |
This trend flouted the idea that traditional dances belonged
to regional tribes and sub-tribes; cultures became open and got exposed to new artistic experiences. The
advent of inter-tribal and inter-regional artistic and cultural dynamic, with
orphanage-troupes as centers of this exchange, appeared on the horizon. There
are people in central Uganda who had never seen dances from the greater north
who started interacting with these new cultural experiences. Within dance
troupes, performers from different tribes started learning different music and
dance forms from one another.
Migration of music and dance traditions as a result of war
spilled beyond national border. It is after the Rwandan genocide and Burundian
war in 1990s that Uganda witnessed the influx of dancers and drummers from Rwanda
and Burundi, respectively. Some of these immigrant performers have made a
fortune in Uganda that they forgot all about home.
The traditional dance orphanage-troupe model owes some of
its legs to HIV/AIDS and war. But this model has posed a challenge. A number of
dance troupes are stuck with this standard and have failed move on. Over-reliance
on funding and charity has thwarted possibilities of elevating these dance
troupes into fully-fledged and self-sustaining economic ventures.
This does not take away the fact that HIV/AID and war have
pushed the dance industry this far. We can say whatever we want about the
HIV/AIDS and War, but when the sun goes to rest the dance practitioners will
sit down and say that HIV/AIDS and war taught them how to turn on different
lights.
Alfdaniels Mabingo is a Fulbright Fellow at New York University
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