Tabu-Flo Brings ‘Night Dancers’ to Kampala

The Observer (Kampala)

Gaaki Kigambo

22 June 2011

For being the arts, culture and fashion capitals of the world, the cities London, Paris and New York will, often, appear banded together.

So, when an artiste or designer gloats over showcasing their work in any one of them, they deserve to be cut some flak. Speaking as if he had already done it, upcoming rapper BB, who features in Tamba’s eclectic single Kampala, a near understudy of our national anthem, let everyone who cared to listen at the World Music Day Fest held at Alliance Francaise on Saturday how he was headed to Paris to represent his country.

In ways similar, Tabu-Flo, Kampala’s latest dance tour de force, couldn’t stop talking about their recent gig in April at London’s Sadler’s Wells Theatre when The Observer dropped in on their preparations for their maiden show dubbed Myth of the Night Dancers at the National Theatre from tomorrow, Friday, through to Sunday.

See, as a headlining group at the world-renowned Breakin’ Convention 2011, they were the first East African and only the second African hip-hop group to perform at the Breakin’ Convention in its eight-year history.

What’s more, for everyone who never saw them themselves, The Guardian, Britain’s most respected newspaper, said their performance “was most interesting for its seamless blend of hip hop with African dance, and for physical wit – stiff dancing, for example, to portray an animated corpse.”

For a group that has constructed its identity around pushing the envelope in terms of what, thematically, the subjects they choose to explore through dance, and, choreographically, what they demand their bodies to do, it’s fairly easy to understand why when one of their avid supporters, Emile Dinneen, challenged them to explore the phenomenon of night dancers, which is present all across Uganda, they jumped at it as moth to light.

Their performance weaves a story around the nocturnal activities of these social misfits who were rumoured to eat corpses. Are “night dancers” another tall tale told by grandparents to dissuade their grandchildren from travelling at night and talking to strangers or do they exist in real life?

This is what Tabu-Flo attempts to tackle through a high-quality theatrical experience. Started five years ago as an offshoot of the Breakdance Project Uganda, Tabu-Flo Dance Company boasts of accomplished dancers and choreographers and is now arguably Uganda’s top urban dance crew.

After winning a string of local competitions, this nine-member outfit is now poised to promote their mission of creating, performing and inspiring a new standard of dance in Uganda and abroad.

AllAfrica – All the Time