Depicting real Pearl of Africa
Members of the production during a rehearsal in Kampala recently. courtesy photo.
“Culture is the biggest asset Uganda has! I don’t know any other country that has the opportunity to have 54 different interpretations of life,” said Emma Kirisa during a choreographing dance routines for the musical, Pearl In Africa. He is positive culture, through avenues such as music and dance, is the one thing that we should export to other people and make them come to us.
This musical is a clever merger of dance, drama, visual art with sound and state-of-the-art lighting. The production promises a well-researched piece on a number of tribes, whose story shall be told by a narrator, taking the audience through a journey across all regions of the country. The narrator is the link between the several facets of acting, dance and music.
There will be splits about boda bodas in Kampala, life in the city vis-à-vis numerous ethnic rural tales. It is an affix of a contemporary Uganda, yet stays true to the traditional beauty that makes Uganda whole. Kirisa argues that given this contemporary generation, new definitions of dance and life, say current views of what Buganda is right now, might reflect in the production. He promises the dances shall respect the roots from which they were formed.
The production is a one and a half-hour musical due next Friday, at Sheraton Hotel Kampala.
According to organisers, Denis Kemi and Unia Kiima, “Little has been known about Uganda, despite the fact that it is called the Pearl of Africa”. This, therefore, is aimed at portraying Uganda as a hidden gem, to shift the perspective of what the rest of the world thinks about her.
And judging from the rehearsals, it promises to be an organic treatise of Uganda, with traditional roots in music. The dances travel north with Bwola, central with Magunju and Bakisimba, then East with Kadodi, yet they are experimenting on how to merge different cultures with a bit of West African, South African but keeping them as foils to Ugandan culture.
The goal
“It is meant to change the former ideologies of Uganda as an eroded country but rather portray the nature of Uganda as one with beautiful scenery ranging from its culture, food, people, business, and geographic landscape,” discloses Kemi. It shall clear the ignorant mindset of Africa being a backward people, and present the beauty that makes us differently unique.
There is room to make Ugandans appreciate their colour and origin. Instead of feeling trapped in our homeland, we ought to be proud to be Ugandan, read their press release. And Kirisa was of the view that “We would love an older generation person in the congregation to watch and feel like we did our culture justice, to be proud of something presented by younger guys.”
