Performing artiste Linda Nabasa. PHOTO/FILE/COURTESY
It is all systems go as Uganda braces to experience its first cabaret show from June 13-14 at White Palati in the Kampala upscale suburb of Bugolobi.
Cabaret is an embracive term which orbits about burlesque, circus, comedy, music, drag, magic, performance art, dance, theatre, as well as almost any form of performance in which an intimate and direct relationship is fostered between performer and audience, regardless of how big or small that audience may.
The show is the brainchild of Linda Nabasa, a performing artist, a TV series writer, short story writer, playwright, actress and theatre producer.
“The genre of cabaret is something I got to know online and I was just immersed into the world. It just looked so beautiful and I was like, if I was in New York, I would want to do Broadway or Off-Broadway. So it was something I wanted to do for a very long time,” Nabasa told Monitor.
She added: “The reason I have decided to bring it to Kampala is because it is personal to me. It is like a passion project that I want to fulfil to say at least the things I saw on TV, I was able to do. Will Ugandans like it? I think Kampala people are receptive and open-minded, and they will receive whatever they believe is artistic and one has put energy into it. So yes, it is really a particular niche for the middle class and upper and expats because the kind of music we will do and the topics we want to talk about are not for people 18 and below. We are targeting a much older audience because it has Jersey numbers. The audience will be a part of the production.”
Nabasa believes this production can be parlayed into a TV show. According to her, cabaret, the 1972 American musical period drama film, starring Liza Minnelli, Michael York, Helmut Griem, Marisa Berenson, and Joel Grey whet her appetite for this production.
French roots
The cabaret is thought to have originated in France in the 1880s as a small club in which the audience was grouped around a platform. The musical show cabaret (1966) and a film version (1972) portrayed the 1930s German cabaret, as inspired by Anglo-American writer Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin Stories.
Nabasa has always had a taste for the small and big screens. She has been a staff writer on the Kojja series and was head writer for Damalie series on Pearl Magic Prime, DStv. She also wrote a short film in 2018 titled We Are, basing on modern day slavery, the hustle of getting a visa abroad. In 2019, she wrote a sketch show, So Naive. She is currently working on two films—Sekela, a feature film based on mythic and African futurism, Ancient African Kingdoms and The Revenge, about secrets in family that bring about revenge.
In 2015, Nabasa co-founded Afroman Spice, a theatre company that encourages women to use theatre to engage communities in issues that affect them and their children: politically, socially and economically. “The shows produced under Afroman Spice were poetic musicals that I would call long poems that were partly recited, acted and then sung. We choose to go to Afroman Spice in order to do our own work, dictate our own stage time, and to empower and elevate the African woman spirit and position in society, self-representation, self-love, and empathy,” Nabasa told Sunday Monitor. Nabasa is also a writer of Miss Tiny Chef and Luuka and Ttesa.
This is a children’s rights book series funded by the European Union in Kampala. She has performed in Germany, Croatia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Rwanda and Tanzania. In 2017, she started Blac Anthem, a theatre collaborative initiative for regional and international artists to collaborate. The first show “A night of theatre solo performances”premiered on April 1, 2017. It was a collaboration between Uganda, Burundi and Rwandan theatre artists.
Cabaret
The cabaret is thought to have originated in France in the 1880s as a small club in which the audience was grouped around a platform. The musical show cabaret (1966) and a film version (1972) portrayed the 1930s German cabaret, as inspired by Anglo-American writer Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin Stories.
*Written by Phillip Matogo
