“Explorations and Boundaries”, the theme for the 2011 Dance Transmissions Festival, sounded more than just a workshop coinage on Day 2. Tabu-Flo Dance Company’s Gavin Atuhaire and Rosemary Atim stepped out of their mostly Hip-Hop boundary (or comfort zone if you like) to explore the vast (and at times intimidating) world of contemporary dance. There was nothing shaky about The Roller Coaster the duo’s dance commentary on the tumultuous ride that love can be. Their choreography was as formulaic as baby formula, the plot very linear. Man cheats on wife with secretary, man returns home for nookie with wifey but the odd piece of red lingerie gets in the way. Man begs wife for forgiveness and as spouses are wont to be he takes her back.

The dance love triangle was done in 10 minutes but those two are budding [contemporary dance] talent waiting to be plucked.

Nigeria’s Ogunrinola J. Olabayo brought a much-needed dance aesthetic in his Port of No Return. It was inspired by a visit to Senegal’s Goree Island, the last outpost on the West African slave trade route before captured human merchandise was sea-bound. Python movements, wing flaps and occasional yelps peppered Olabayo’s deep choreography. Even his undress into loincloth was done with amazing precision. The soundtrack had thunder and African drums, he made little use of the row of water bottles and putting his head into a bucket was lost on me.

Rwanda’s Amizero Dance Kompagnie brought their A-game in a dance trio titled Les Larmes Noire/ Black Tears. “Three bodies expressing the hunger for freedom, taking you towards their story of pain and tears” the programme notes read. The signature traditional Rwanda wave-like hand movements plus accompanying head twisting made the piece authentic. Sadly for the spirited choreography, the soundtrack- spoken vernacular over a haunting flamenco guitar- eclipsed the imaginative choreography.

Anna Konjetzky opened the night with Abdrucke Folgen 2011, a multimedia solo that saw the audience leave their auditorium seats to encircle the petite dancer on stage. Hers were mostly Pilates-like routines mimicking the dance of silence. The only sound came from her heavy breathing amplified by the wiry microphone pasted onto her face.

South Africa’s Siya-Funeka Dance Company’s solo was movement to a beautifully harmonised anti-apartheid chant. The solo dancer was stretching out his arm as if to shake our hands thrice to which no one in the audience responded. Kenya’s Tuchangamke Productions capped Day 2 with a very contemporary piece. It explored rural urban relations in a duet titled Orudo Na Jua Kali. The female dancer explores the journey at a superficial and societal level while the male dancer explores permeations of urban reality at a personal level with deeper resonance of his environment.

It was too many things happening all at once; the male dancer oscillating between tube-fiddle playing and the female raising audience testosterone levels with a skimpy yellow frock. Eating a hard-boiled egg would have been easier to digest than this piece.

Day 1 of the 2nd annual Dance Transmissions Festival had six servings of under-20-minute dance performances at Kampala’s National Theatre. Cathy Nakawesa of Beautiful Feet Dance Company opened the showcase with a solo that showed off her dance athleticism. Her stint at Senegal’s Ecole des Sables sure stood her in good stead as she executed Influence, a self-choreographed piece in which she asks; “am I the things that influence me, whether in submission to or revolt against them?” Her principal prop is a piece of cloth she desperately wants to wiggle out of. Nakawesa has the beautiful feet every dancer worth his/her salt should aspire to possess. She seamlessly weaved traditional hip-shaking Bakisimba routines from Buganda and Zulu kicks into one dance sentence, a testimony to her ability to fuse contemporary dance with traditional African movement despite her preference for a Eurocentric classical piano soundtrack.

Youngster Phillip Roy Buyi had the other memorable solo of the night. His piece Imagination had him swinging one arm and leg like a pendulum then progress to gliding on his head and later body-jerking free-styling to a Kwaito beat. He did not have to struggle to prove he was not a one-trick [Hip-hop] dance pony. He was pretty much in control showing off the musicality of his nimble dance body, one that can move to any musical genre thrown at him.
It is not time to write off industry veteran Rogers Masaba either. Insight had him dance around three props, a desk on which he stretched his legs upwards, his hands holding his torso in space, a bench he lifted off the ground with his posterior and a stool he leapt over a couple of times. For the most part, it was paced strides across the stage down to the first row of the auditorium and then back. This was a stage sage telling us through dance motion to stick to the things in life we can perform competently to the soundtrack of raspy jazzy sounds that were not always easy on the ear.

Truth be told, Clay Dance Company had cluttered feet of clay. Tribulation came off as doomsday prophecy dance that bordered on religious fundamentalism! Black black-clad males dragging a bony topless Jesus who is later roped onto a cross. Surrounded by white-clad angels, the now resurrected tunic-clad Jesus triumphs over the black-clad agents of bondage to rescue the wretched beings they had caged. Despite the out-of-sync choreography and dancers crashing into each other half the time, this was dance putty whose enthusiasm should be the joy of any patient choreographer.

The promise of resurrection may be the Biblical quid-pro-quo for believing in Jesus but the sobering reminder in Desire Kenneth Tereka’s Death is Calling was that we had to die first with the [white cross] coffin as our last accessory, one whose colour we do not have the prerogative to choose. Everyone has a dance with death if the group choreography in which the hesitant protagonist and the quartet from Hades that the grim reaper’s bidding was anything to go by. The fact though is we all have to succumb to our mortality at some point if only we could thank the pall bearers that hoist our remains into our final resting place six feet under.

There was not much to take from the weak tea choreography in Ngwanzu, the duet by DR Congo’s Busara Dance Company. It mattered little that the stern teacher and distracted student were identical twins momentarily gyrating to signature Soukouss music. There was contemporary relevance to the subject matter of their piece. Like the heart, smartphones are not so smart after all and are a metaphor for the dissatisfaction that riddles the better part of our lives. DTF II continues at the National Theatre on Saturday (October 22) and Sunday (October 23) at 7pm. Tickets: UGX 10K.

MOSES SERUGO