University junior Sarah Bwabye’s presentation Wednesday about music and dance in her native Uganda was no song and dance routine.
“I don’t sing and I don’t dance,” she said.
Bwabye, who has also lived in South Africa, came to the U.S. three years ago to study in the University’s Department of Biology. Through the University’s International Cultural Service Program, she gives presentations about Uganda regularly – about 80 hours worth a year, she estimated.
“I chose to specifically discuss dance and music because I am very familiar with it and have things to show and tell,” explained Bwabye.
Bwabye said that Uganda is composed of 50 different cultural tribes, including her own, the Baganda. But the tribal lines are blurring.
“Uganda’s national language is English. Many children are not learning their native tongues. You want to retain it but you also want to move on,” Bwabye said.
“I am sad for myself and for my children one day because I don’t know if they will learn it,” she said.
In Uganda, dance and music give tribes their own identity, but also unite them. Dance and music unite the youth, but also tie them to their parents and grandparents generations.
“In our schools we have music and dance classes. It’s something we grow up with. There are competitions. Through this, music and dance traditions are carried on,” Bwabye said.
Western influence, she said, has transformed traditional Ugandan music and dance. The music her grandmother and parents once listened to now has reggae and rap flavors that includes English lyrics. Bwabye demonstrated the gradual transformation of music with recordings from three different eras, playing the music of Ugandan performers such as Jose Chameleone, Afrigo, and Nandujja.
“I like my parents’ musical era because it’s relaxing and good music,” she said. “I, of course, like my era because it is what’s played on the radio.”
During her presentation, Bwabye passed around Ugandan instruments including a tube fiddle called an endingiding, a bow harp, a shaker, a thumb piano, and several drums.
Bwabye explained that Ugandan music is often a form of storytelling, especially in traditional songs. Traditional music uses lead singers with choruses that reply in unison and incorporates different life issues and stories that tell morals at the end.
Both singing and dancing performers wear brightly-colored costumes decorated with beads and bark cloths and tribes wear headgear differing in appearance and meaning.
“Ugandan dancing is energetic,” Bwabye said. “We have nothing similar to the ballroom dance and our dances are always celebratory; even if they are war dances.”
As part of her presentation, Bwabye showed a video of Ugandan dance.
“I brought some people to demonstrate for me the dancing,” she said.
“Some of it reminds me of Hawaiian dance, with the rigorous movement and the way the whole body is involved,” community member Sigrid Rasmussen said.