Dance collaboration to honour gay rights activist David Kato
AUCKLAND PARK – FATC showcased a new thought provoking dance collaboration as a way of bringing awareness of gay rights in Africa.
Forgotten Angle Theatre Collaborative (FATC) performed a dance collaboration to honour Ugandan gay rights activist at the University of Johannesburg’s (UJ) Bunting Road Campus on 30 October.
FATC collaborated with the talents of choreographer Mcintosh Jerahuni, Melissa Eveleigh and the FATC dance cast, namely Thulani Chauke, Nosiphiwo Samente, Nicholas Aphane, Thabo Kobeli and Charlston van Rooyen, to bring a striking new piece of social commentary through dance, to the stage.
The collaborative piece titled H28 – Love in a time of hammers, forms part of the UJ’s That’s so Gay Festival 2014.
Executive Dean of the Faculty of Art, Design and Achitecture at UJ Professor Federico Freschi said, “One does not have to dig too deep beneath the surface of our constitutionally enriched right to ‘difference’ to find a cold, vicious core of homophobia; its dark pathology lurks in ‘corrective’ rape, in the continued incidences of gay bashing; in the rising tide of fundamentalism throughout the world; whose sanctimonious embrace of religious or ostensible ‘family values’ is often little more than thinly-veiled prejudice and intolerance.”
PJ Sabbagha, FATC founding member, choreographer and director said, “The H28 project sees a new collaboration being born across borders and disciplines, which truly excites FATC and speaks to the vision of the company’s past and future,”.
“The work is deeply moving and a provocative statement on the issues of gay rights in Africa, combining thought-provoking statements with exceptional dance and choreography,” he added.
David Kato’s ultimate dream was to turn his mother’s cassava farm into a gay village, while his society wished him dead. Tragically, this wish became a sad reality in 2011 when the Kill the Gays bill was being tabled. Kato had sued the local Ugandan newspaper, Rolling Stone, for publishing photographs of people it labelled as gay with the headline Hang them. Just after his success in court, he was gruesomely bludgeoned to death with a hammer and, while the police found no connection, many still believe his death was the result of vigilante gay-bashing.
In February Uganda passed a tougher bill that includes a death penalty.
“Homosexuality is just bad behaviour that should not be allowed in our society,” David Bahati, the MP who introduced the bill in Uganda was quoted as saying.
