2012: Spring cleaning for the arts

A Luganda proverb says a calm river never lacks a ripple and wave every now and then. In 2012, Uganda’s arts and culture scene has been, like that proverbial river, placid for the most part but with an undertow of disruptions which have far-reaching implications for Uganda’s artistic and social life.

It was mostly business as usual. Like all new things, the novelty that was Silent Disco finally wore off. Bands formed to revolutionise the art of performance typically backslid into talent management problems—Haruna Mubiru’s Kream Productions, and vocalists’ catfights—Maureen Kabasiita and Iryn Namubiru at Fusion Band.

The Kampala Carnival survived the infant mortality imported ideas are prone to. Along came new lexical terms derived from songs—think Bebe Cool’s Ndiisa Buti. But they too will fade into disuse like their predecessors ‘Kyaba too much and swagger.’
But where change has happened, it has been more thorny than rosy.

Gay no play
Given the censorship meted out to artistic endeavors linked to the gay agenda, 2012 is a year Ugandan sympathisers of the gay movement will want to forget.

David Cecil was charged on September 13 with attempting to show British playwright, Beau Hopkin’s The River and the Mountain, a comedy drama about a gay businessman killed by his colleagues. It was to have been performed at the National Theater in August, but the theater refused to stage performances of the play after the Media Council intervened.

Then, on November 8, the National Theatre management stopped mid-show the Talented Ugandan Kuchus’ Lightening the Shadows. The Kuchus blindsided both Media Council restriction and National Theatre’s quality-assurance mechanism by initially showing family-safe scripts and rehearsals.

Brazen attempts, considering that even though the death penalty has since been dropped from 2009’s infamous “kill the gays” anti-gays bill, in January 2011 Uganda gay rights activist David Kato was murdered at his home in Bukusa, Mukono Town, after a tabloid published his photo and asked the public to “hang” him and other known gay sympathisers.

Later that month ex-Ethics and Integrity Minister, Dr James Nsaba Buturo remarked that “homosexuals can forget about human rights.” Most recently, Speaker Rebecca Kadaga’s anti-gays response to Canada’s Foreign Minister John Baird over gay rights at an October meeting of the Inter-Parliamentary Union in Quebec met with majority support in Uganda.
All the above means there is unlikely to be a gay-themed arts performance in Uganda’s foreseeable future.

Playing in Bann Republic
Even “straight” plays encountered censorship this year. Afri-Baka’s State of the Nation; ku Jirikiti was threatened with suspension by the Uganda Media Council. The directors disregarded the suspension missive, and perhaps other artistes can be emboldened by their stance and make even more courageous plays.

Of the three sister arts (music, dance and drama), drama has registered the most trying times this year, courtesy of friction with the Media Council.
Music fared slightly better; Bobi Wine’s Tugambire ku Jennifer relatively unscathed, as was Mathias Walukagga’s Ssentebe W’ekizinga and Bakoowu.

In recent years, state and in-house censorship has affected plays like Diamond Ensemble’s Okufa N’obutanyagwa (evicted from Cooper Theatre in September 2007) and the infamous Vagina Monologues (blocked by Ethics Ministry in February 2005).

Considering this trend, artistes who dare to craft performances with anti-establishment themes and titles might soon be bullied by their own shadows.

The price of art
On September 21, the Diamonds Ensemble set a record when they charged Shs250,000 to the premiere of their play Masiikini ku Lujjuliro. Subsequent shows went for Shs100,000.

Even more wonderful than Kato Lubwama defending the sum on grounds of art being worth its quality, is the fact theatre goers actually turned up. They continued to do so even when he revised the figure downwards to Shs100,000 for subsequent shows.

Before his brave deed, a Shs100,00 entrance fee had been the sole domain of visiting artistes, usually of the charitable-cause variety like Salif Keita at Kampala Serena Hotel on January 27.
But it was a one-off. Their latest offering, Gannemeredde, is going for Shs10,000.

Copyrighting and taxing the art
On February 22, the Uganda Performing Rights Society (UPRS) held a workshop for senior police officers at the National Theatre. The aim was to sensitise them about enforcing the Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Bill when it becomes law.

Previously UPRS had held workshops with artistes, to encourage them to give their copyright management to UPRS’ team of experts. Even todate, performing artistes are still not unanimous in entrusting their fate to the collection agency method UPRS espouses.

As things stand, most people might easier find a three-legged chicken than take the copyright and anti-piracy concept seriously.

A variety of factors are responsible; artistes desperate for their music to receive audience, pirated copies being cheaper and more accessible than originals, a culture of buying knock-offs, online distribution challenges, plus snail-paced enforcement regulations.

Thus for now, despite or because of UPRS efforts in that respect, the campaign to stamp piracy out of Uganda has assumed the characteristics of a nearly-inactive volcano which erupts less frequently than it sleeps.
In a tangential development, musicians were asked to pay tax by the KCCA administration. Musicians’ demand for “no taxation without copyright protection” seemed more like self-preservation tactics than actual willingness to comply with the proposed law.
For once the general public mostly sided with the establishment, saying it was unfair for musicians who mint fortunes from performances and endorsement deals not to remit some of it for the greater public good.

A troubled Eyrie
On April 12, Fred Serugga, a founding member and at the time Band Director, announced his decision to leave the Eagles Band. His reasons for leaving: infighting and the conviction he was being marginalised at Eagles, were similar to the ones Butcherman gave when he left Bobi Wine’s Firebase Crew in January 2011.
The fallout resulted in much negative publicity, as accompanied Butcherman’s war of words with Firebase. Eagles had survived desertions by headlining talent before when Sophia Nantongo and Haruna Mubiru left in 2002 and 2011, respectively.
But Serugga left at a more delicate time when the band’s artistic merit, professionalism and cohesion had become fodder for public speculation. They had also become so disconnected with their audience as to receive taunts instead of adulation at venues—in Lugazi their sound system was once vandalised when some advertised artistes were no-shows.
Thus it was not exactly breaking news when on November 20 the Eagles Band announced they would be regrouping until January 2013. In two days, Uganda will know whether the concert adverts being aired signal the end of the break, or whether it will be the beginning of the end which results in splinter groups like Haruna Mubiru’s Kream Productions.

Humpty dumpty falls
Theatre Factory, pioneer of stand-up comedy shows, equally stopped performing the Thursday comedy shows that had become a cult event of sorts. The PAM Award-winning Percussion Discussion Africa are seemingly also “on break’ from their Tuesday shows, even though the National Theatre monthly programme has listed them for the last two months.
In the meantime, people who took cues from them continue to fly high. It seems the trend is to become famous for something, and then quit while you are ahead.

Death of the artiste
Fatal February it was when Uganda mourned popular comedian Ephraim Kiyingi alias Kadoma (departed February 8), fallen Eagle, Fred Maiso of Ekimuli kya Rosa fame (died Valentine’s Eve), and timeless songstress Whitney Houston (February 20).

As the year came to a close, Livingstone Ibanda alias Don Canta of Afrigo died on December 8. We should celebrate their artistic triumphs as we simultaneously remind ourselves the value of appreciating them while they live, which we could also do for every other person still alive.

Questions and wishes
One sage advised us to worry not for tomorrow will take care of itself. Yet worry, question and wish we must. The alternative scenario where arts and culture practitioners care not what the future holds or how current concerns turn out is simply unfeasible.

For instance, considering it was under threat of demolition this year to make way for the East African Trade Centre, whether the Uganda museum will be another Shimoni is a question worth answering.

Will Uganda’s contemporary dance world ever grow beyond the fraternity that is Dance Week—launched Friday February 2, and Dance Transmissions which ran November 14-16? Will there ever be a real national contemporary to replace or complement Valerie Miguel’s Uganda National Contemporary Ballet (UNCB)?
Will the National Theatre own up to its name in deed now that ex-Director Joseph Walugembe, once so emblematic of the chaos that musician Fred Sebatta on a TV show called it his personal household, was practically deposed?

Is the number of film festivals—Amakula, Japanese, Indian, Manya, Nile Diaspora International Film Festival—reflecting actual growth in the industry and heralding the much-hyped advent of Ugawood, or just rumblings which will do nothing to stem the way Hollywood, Bollywood, and Nollywood have colonised our movie screens?

Did artistes take especial advantage of the platform offered by Uganda@50 celebrations to showcase the best portrayals of Uganda’s arts and culture, or were they as wanting as the official performance by Alex Mukulu’s team on October 9 at Kololo?

Even if laws proposing so are enacted, will concerts ever end early when veteran concert-goers know that shows only take off in earnest when the major artistes, who are always fashionably late, arrive as close to midnight as they can make it?

Happy New Year?



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