Tuesday, 19 Mar 2024
Tag: Bayimba Regional Festival of Arts

The Agali Awamu Troupe at Bayimba Regional Festival in Jinja 2013. Photo by Gilbert Bwette Daniel.

Bayimba Jinja: Crowd-pullers wanted

There was that general feeling that the Bayimba Festival in Jinja had not been advertised enough, hence the slow attendance of people. Festivals are supposed to give you that sense of excitement and belonging. It’s hard to get that with a scanty number of people. That aside, the sound of music of its own is bound to bring you numbers since the event was in a public space and considering that shs 1000 is not a lot to pay. On this occasion, there was something missing in the music acts that performed. This festival needed at least one or two big names that are certain crowd-pullers to uplift the mood of the festival.

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Artwork by Ronex. Exhibited at Fasfas Art Cafe, Kampala, January 2013. Image modified by Thomas Bjørnskau, startjournal.org.

The many faces of ART

There are many new ways for Ugandans to be exposed to the arts. Startjournal wanted to find out if all the art that is permeating the air had actually seeped through the skins of the people. We posed the following question to working class Ugandans: Please tell us — what is ART to you?

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Young performers at Bayimba Festival, Jinja 2012.

10 Lessons learned from a well-organized Bayimba

With the exception of the Laba! Arts festival, there are not so many festivals on the Ugandan calendar. So Bayimba gave us a feel of what a festival should be like. In the words of its Director Faisal Kiwewa, “Celebrating the feeling of belonging and experiencing the freedom of culturality.” And while at it, celebrate culture in all its diversity, so it seemed. Elizabeth Namakula reviews the Bayimba.

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Fun factory: Cracking a rib

Fun Factory visited the Bayimba Festival for the first time, and their debut was one of the most anticipated shows. The group performed to thunderous laughter and applause. To celebrate Uganda’s Golden Jubilee, Fun Factory will also stage 50 skits across two nights called “50 years of madness”. Elizabeth Namakula reviews.

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Faisal Kiwewa, the Director of Bayimba, at the DOADOA, Jinja May 2012.

DOADOA: Taking African music to the global scene

“Africa produces the best music in the world, but getting the music to the global level is still a big problem.” This viewpoint was given by Ruth Daniel, a co-founder of the global grassroots and creative community Un-Convention, at a press conference in Jinja. The press conference was organized by the Bayimba Cultural Foundation; launching the annual Bayimba Festival and DOADOA, the East African performing arts market at the Bax Conference Center.

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Participants at the East African Art Summit 2011.

East African Art Summit 2011: The coming together of creative minds

“The time has finally arrived that Africa begin to look to Africa for answers. We are starting to think about making East Africa our market place. But we can not go far without drastically improving the quality of our products. For too long we have made inefficient production schedules and products. On the other hand, a myriad of questions are raised to which answers cannot be immediately found. Still, these questions must be asked and answered if our art is to grow into the cultural void in which we find ourselves.” Ugandan visual artist SANE reflects on the East African Art Summit.

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Patronage, finesse and passion

Could the above be the ingredients that can be injected into Kampala’s visual arts scene to spice it up? It cannot be denied that the art industry has grown over the past ten years, but where should it go from here? Startjournal.org caught up with a few renowned artists to discover what they believed were the elements necessary for Kampala’s visual arts scene to be the best it can be.

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Bayimba 2011: A celebration of music, dance, art and culture

This years Bayimba Festival of the Arts outshone previous editions. Performers in the fields of music, dance and theatre were brought in from such locations as Europe, America and all over Africa. Artists and photographers exhibited their wares and a silent disco provided sufficient entertainment for dancehall music lovers. All in all, the Bayimba Festival tried to ensure that as many aspects of the arts were covered as possible.

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(c) Photo by Canon Rumanzi 2011.

The bright tones of Katanga

Photography in Uganda has for many years been shrouded in darkness. It is an aspect of visual arts rarely talked about and largely thought to be a preserve for journalists. Even then, photo journalists are never celebrated as such because they are often accused of treating their subject matter as objects; often doctoring the images to suit their taste and ambitions. To reverse this trend, Arthur Kisitu started the Mu Katanga project which among other things was to show the right picture of Katanga; with no distortions whatsoever.

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Rosette Ntyefas, Bayimba

Bayimba Festival: Champion of the Arts

Between the 16th and the 18th September, the National Theater and Dewington Road next to it will be a riotous blaze of sound, colour, fashion and the spoken word: The Bayimba Festival is coming to town. But the Bayimba Cultural Foundation is so much more than an annual festival. In this article, Bayimba explains why they host cultural workshops, fund artists, and initiate industry discussions.

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From the Street theatre performance in Jinja, March 2011.

Street theatre is taking the floor in Uganda

What is “Street theatre” really all about? This writer grossed in wonder when hearing the phrase Street theatre performance. Is it like an acrobats show, or a magician act? Or a kind of voodoo done in public? How wrong one can be! The performance is an artistic potpourri that evokes important issues in our society. The first Street theatre performance was held on March 26th 2011, at the Bayimba Regional Festival of the Arts in Jinja. From April till September; there will be shows in Arua, Gulu, Mbarara, Mbale and Kampala.

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