Nyege Nyege day one: calm before the storm
The festival’s critics may have been disappointed with an opening day that was largely laid-back, with only intermittent moments that promised the excess drinking, excess in fashion and all that wild dancing.
One of the activities on stage was a traditional music troupe from the Busoga region. (Credit: Emmanuel Balukusa)
NewVision Reporter
@NewVision
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The virtue of the Nyege Nyege Festival is that it is a spectacle of excess. Here we find the grandiloquence which is characteristic of those foreign to art forms and even the philistine. The best thing about the festival is that it never presents itself as a demonstration of excellence, but rather the excess.
So, the opening day (Thursday) of this year’s edition at the Jinja Golf Course took a turn for the unexpected. Where was the excess past editions promised?
The festival’s critics may have been disappointed with an opening day that was largely laid-back, with only intermittent moments that promised the excess drinking, excess in fashion and all that wild dancing.
Salvador the comedian in attendance at Nyege Nyege. (Credit: Emmanuel Balukusa)
On stage, among the opening acts was a traditional music troupe from the Busoga region, which was really home. That sound of the xylophone was key, moving from moments of exhilaration to the eerie. To write about stage performances at Nyege Nyege is itself eerie and odd, for what happens elsewhere is what is more captivating. It was the joy of the opening day, festivalgoers witnessed art in a calmer environment.
What is an event in Jinja without a rolex. (Credit: Emmanuel Balukusa)
However, as night followed day, a little madness crept in, with the parade of alcohol on tables, as the soft drinks were replaced by the hard ones, especially the discounted Uganda Waragi, which gave the foreigners an enigma of arrival. The sparks of excitement that appeared at dawn later grew into full bolts.
(Credit: Emmanuel Balukusa)
If today (Friday) begins from where Friday ended, this is going to be one exciting weekend of excess at the usually quiet Jinja Golf Course. That point at which the festival will abandon itself to its primary virtue of the spectacle is when all phones will come out to take that “picture to remember”. Yesterday was the calm before the storm. Literally speaking, there is no Nyege Nyege without rain (the storm).