Seven days of dance

The year’s Dance Week exposed dancers to a maestro and left some lessons on the direction dance, especially the contemporary, should take in order to remain relevant.

Dance week, which started in 2005, continues to be one of the biggest attractions for art lovers. At the National Theatre where it was held last week, the main auditorium was a full house. The recently popular contemporary dance still presents challenges in interpretation, but I was still keen on the tempo of music, lighting and costumes to lend a guiding clue to the movements.

The week kicked off on April 22, with intensive classes led by seasoned dancers: Jonas Byaruhanga, Kristina Johnstone, Valerie Miguel and Abrahmz Tekya.

Main attraction
This might have been beneficial to the seasoned and aspiring dancers but for the general public, the tutorial was promised in the dancer Cedric Andrieux. He was slated to perform his self-titled piece by dancer and choreographer Jerome Bel. While many of us expected an intense sound track aided performance of hand and leg sweeps in rhythm, this piece was unconventional and even shocking.

It is because Jerome Bel’s format is unconventional. He gets dancers to do autobiographical dance pieces chronicling their lives and experiences. And this is where the public got their lesson: relevant dances were woven with moments where Andrieux talked about his birth in Brest, France; his work with the Cunningham Dance Company: his love life with one of his dancing colleagues or simply just stared at the audience.

These revelations of struggles, pleasures, pain from physical exertion and hard work where meant to serve as caution, as well as inspiration to those who have intentions of pursuing a career in dance. Self –deprecating humour and somber tones were the attributes Andrieux employed and they came in handy when he dipped into his gym bag, revealed dancing tights, complete with a special kind of flimsy undergarment which he called a “belt” and announced , “I will go now and put these on.”

There were shocking gasps when he returned. And this summed up the problem with the show —its cultural disparity and the consequent challenge that contemporary dance should adapt itself to all technical aspects, costumes, music and movement to fit the context of our society.

Learning points
For a form that is often like a quiz, the protrusion of ribs and the outline of the grown while all vivid; seemed to have plunged most of the audience in shock. It is true contemporary means “modern” or “recent of age” but it doesn’t necessarily tally with the selfless adoption of all that is foreign.

Its popularity as an art form will hinge on its being adapted to home. Only then can the audience relate to it and have the audacity to call it theirs.

The show was marred with the absence of soundtracks which was made worse by long silences in which Andrieux simply stared at the audience. These nuances, which no doubt, were added to invoke a certain mood wore my patience thin and had many clutching at phones.

The Friday show wound up with Keiga Dance Company showcasing an eclectic fusion from various regional dances from Uganda. The larakaraka and the amagunju were some of those well represented with well-chosen drum influenced or kora tinged sounds.

For most of this, the audience was at home, its only lag being that the dances seemed to have not been scripted to a particular story and hence had no discernible intellectual end.

Over all, each show complimented the other. We got lessons from a maestro and as well as entertainment from home. It highlighted the direction dance should take: hard work, contextual rooting and conceptual clarity.

Tit bit

Dance Week Uganda has been bringing an exciting dance event to Ugandan audiences every year since 2005.This year’s lineup of dance trainers included Jonas Byaruhanga (Keiga Dance Company), Kristina Johnstone (Underground Dance Theatre, South Africa; Keiga Dance Company), Valérie Miquel (Uganda National Contemporary Ballet) and Abramz Tekya (Break Dance Project, Uganda).

editorial@ug.nationmedia.com