When I first spot Julius Lugaaya across a room, it’s because of his impeccable outfit. He has on a suit and colorful tie in an environment where most people are wearing T-shirts and comfortable dresses. He tells me that art has to compete in the business world and his clothes reflect his professionalism. He is proud of Uganda’s unique position as a point-of-business for products and goods traveling in and around East Africa. Lugaaya reports that the education, arts and culture, economic, film, transport and financial sectors are all currently experiencing growth.
Lugaaya works as an arts manager and cultural specialist for art and film projects. He also teaches, runs a dance studio and company, manages the city’s Dance Week Festival, and—together with Philip Luswata—runs Theater Factory, one of the few established companies in Kampala. Theater Factory produces a weekly live comedy night, TV and radio shows, promotes theatre as a business opportunity and offers training to students and young people.
“Art has driven our country through informing, changing, empowering the people,” Lugaaya says. He cites a long history of stories passed down from generation to generation: “Theatre has always been used in many forms for politics, health, leisure, celebration, death, lifestyle, short dramas, music, etc. There are new forms of art emerging. Technology has made arts and culture more visible.”
When I visit Lugaaya at his office, housed within the National Theatre Building, I assume that the space will mirror his sense of refined fashion. The level of discourse and comfort of the conference venue do not prepare me for the office’s old furniture, lack of books or the broken windows that still hold traces of lootings from the mid-’80s. It vividly puts into focus how much Lugaaya and his colleagues are making happen on a shoestring budget. “Uganda is the future of Africa,” Lugaaya maintains, “a great country to live in with lots of culture. The city is full of action, life, good food, good weather, and the art business is growing. There are a few things that may be a problem, but that is everywhere in the world…We have created a space for the young people—we want people to learn, we want people to be part of history in this region.”
It is through hearing Kalundi Serumaga speak on a panel about “hybridity” that I learn just how much the ghost of white colonialism haunts the people I am meeting. “The notion of Uganda is simply a colonial invention,” Serumaga reminds everyone. “I actually passionately support the redemption of all the different countries that the British imprisoned inside ‘Uganda’ when they created it around 1900.”
Serumaga is a radio journalist, filmmaker and cultural activist based in Kampala, and the son of renowned theatremaker Robert Serumaga. He grew up partially in exile and trained as an actor. “I think everybody should study drama—it teaches you how to deal with human behavior. I find the skills helpful in radio,” he notes on his website. “It’s a bit like being onstage—one has to prepare beforehand to make a brilliant performance.”
Serumaga speaks his mind without hesitation and with great force. He challenges the notion of “hybridity” because he has a problem with globalization. He talks about “airport art” or “NGO art” that is made for tourists (by which he means people in power). “Get rid of professional Africanism,” he urges. “Abandon artificiality and return to what is honest.” If you allow your “roots” to go into places where they don’t belong, he believes, you inadvertently cut off those roots. “Art has to be honest. Make the work, and then find the audience, instead of making it for an audience.”
“Things harmonize when frequencies are the same,” Serumaga postulates. “The Industrial Revolution tried to kill everything spiritual, but that will be short-lived.” He offers a practical list for returning to the metaphysical and the spiritual: “1) Practice art and ritual on a daily basis, 2) forget the institutions, 3) build a shrine to someone and make offerings, and 4) teach the children to sing and dance.”
I become aware at Kendu Hearth of how much is being communicated underneath the surface of language. “You never know who is listening,” one new friend informs me. “It’s hard to be invisible in Uganda. People know people, and you can’t do anything stupid. It’s easy to embarrass the family name.”
Acaye shares that in northern Uganda, women communicate through their cooking. Too much flour in the bread means she’s grumpy; too much salt or pepper means you’re not welcome. Food can even convey a political statement.
It is also something of a political declaration that four women of different ethnic backgrounds have organized Kendu Hearth. Everyone in Kampala will know this simply by looking at the names. Along with Mbowa and Acaye, the other two organizers are Mumbi Tindyebwe, a Kenyan-Ugandan-Canadian theatre creator and director; and Deborah Asiimwe, an award-winning playwright and performer who until recently was based in New York City and is now back in Kampala working with Sundance East Africa. The accomplishments of this cadre of women speak volumes about how the young movers and shakers of Uganda are banding together peacefully to create change. In addition to the diversity in their ethnic backgrounds, Acaye asserts, “We all believe differently in our work ethic as well as career visions. To be able to pool all these differences together into a successful conference is a feat of diversity in itself.”
Scholar and writer Moses Serubiri’s perspective, offered in a conference session, is that “the artist does have power—what we do influences the public.” Most people at the conference seem to agree. As I listen to a conversation between Mbowa and Charles Mulekwa (another artist who has recently returned to Uganda after completing his doctoral degrees in the U.S., at Brown), I am blown away by the potential they clearly have to make a difference in their society.
As of press time, Mbowa is considering moving to different countries in Africa, or elsewhere in the world, to pursue her work. With the introduction of these grim new laws, she is most concerned by how the Ugandan general public is starting to “police” the state. She points to examples of artists who are able to be subversive in their work, but being in a safe space means you are preaching to the choir. “There are a few brave people, though,” she notes.
When I ask Acaye about her take on the new anti-gay and anti-pornography bills, she doesn’t hold back: “I think it is an absurd and grotesque caricature of humanity at its most intolerant level.” Based on her theatre pieceDawn of the Pearl, which poetically captures voices of women caught up in violence, I am not surprised: Acaye is as committed an activist in her art as she is in life. She is currently organizing Kendu Hearth 2014 and co-creating a television series called “Counsel,” which she describes as “a legal drama that attempts to ignite conversation about how the various laws that govern us and protect us.” I wonder how (and if) they will be able to use the media to address the controversial bills.
The message Acaye wants me to share is that “Uganda is still the place to have lunch and dinner while having dialogue with art.” She invites us all to participate in Kendu Hearth 2014 (there’s information at www.kenduhearth.com) the first week of September. This year’s theme will be “Harmony and Children in International Storytelling.” For me, the allusions in that phrase are not only rich with cultural history but, in a way, fearsome in their implications: Harmony, my sojourn in Africa suggests, will be a prize hard fought for and by no means easily won. The struggle in Uganda continues.
On my way back to the Kampala airport in the company of Canadian actor Gord Rand, we ask someone we figure will be a dependable source—our taxi driver—to articulate his take on things: What does he predict will happen in the near future in Uganda? The driver speculates that frustrations will bubble to the surface by the time the next election occurs in 2016. The people need change, he says, and he just hopes it can happen peacefully. I hope so, too.
Sarah Cameron Sunde is a theatre director and translator based in New York City.
