Cultural and music festivals in the region run the risk of dying off if the organisers do not address the issue of funding.

Recently, Busara Promotions, the organisers of the annual Sauti za Busara music festival held in Zanzibar said that they would not hold East and Central Africa’s premier cultural event next year due to lack of funds.

Prof Martin Mhando, the festival director and chief executive officer of the Zanzibar International Film Festival (ZIFF), suggested that for cultural festivals to survive in Africa, the organisers should seek and rely more on local funding and less on donors from Western countries.

ZIFF has accordingly reduced its dependence on donor support from 100 per cent to 25 per cent today, because enlarging its local sponsorship base is the best guarantee of its survival.

Sauti za Busara aims to be more sustainable with funding from international donors at 35 per cent, commercial sponsors at 40 per cent and self-generated revenue 25 per cent.

In the same vein, the Bayimba Cultural Foundation, the organisers of the annual Bayimba International Festival of the Arts are betting on local sponsors to sustain the cultural festival in the long run.  

This, they hope will address the critical challenge of mobilising funds to hold cultural festivals in Africa.

The just concluded 8th edition of the Bayimba International Festival of the Arts (held on September 18 - 20) was supported by Doen Foundation, Hivos, and the Danish Council for Culture and Development (CKU) as principal partners together with a host of local sponsors. 

“Bayimba is still dependent on foreign donors at 80 per cent and local sponsorship at 20 per cent. At one time, foreign funding stood at 97 per cent and the rest came from gate collections,” said the Bayimba deputy director Alex Aheebwa.

“That is why this year, we engaged Zuku TV, Africell, Club Beer and Rwenzori Mineral Water who branded certain spaces at the festival at about 20 per cent of the total cost of organising the event. We are enticing them to understand the idea of our festival better. If such corporates can increase their allocations to the Bayimba festival we shall be home and dry by reducing donor dependency,” Mr Aheebwa added.

The festival featured productions, performances, presentations and a fashion show by Ugandan, East African and international artistes at the National Theatre in Kampala.

The most memorable live music collaboration was between the Ugandan Afro-folklorist and multi-instrumentalist Joel Sebunjo, Cameroonian Afro-folk queen Kareyce Fosto and Aly Keita, the grand master of the balafon, a marimba-like instrument native to West Africa.

The energetic and entertaining professional trio played Sebunjo’s Nakato, Bulungi, Africa Express, Empale and Yarabi. Sebunjo played the kora and shakers plus vocals.

Strumming her guitar, Kareyce rocked the audience with her pretty melodies as the band played her songs Forced Marriage, Mayole and Messa. She also occasionally playeddrums and danced.

Playing his balafon with a passion, Keita wowed the festival goers with his songs Farafinko and Mikael.

“We only had week of intensive rehearsals with 10 hours each day. We had exchanged our music prior to converging at our residency studio in Kampala,” Sebunjo told The EastAfrican.

The all-female South African dance group First Physical Theatre Company staged their amazing production Caught, choreographed by Nomcebisi Moyikwa. Caught is a physical interplay between two women who are caught in a half room with a light bulb as their only source of light.

It was performed by Moyikwa and Maipelo Gabang — who repeated dance steps to trick the audience to concentate on the dance rather than viewing the female body as a sexual object.

“Caught comes from a personal point of view in which black women are only portrayed as prostitutes, domestic workers or care givers in theatre productions. Women play more roles than just these three. Women can be strong and venerable, sexy and free, to play any role. Caught is my attempt at creating new images for a black female community,” Moyikwa told The EastAfrican.

Among the Ugandan musicians who entertained guests were Ugandan’s reggae star Maddox Ssematimba; BET award nominees Radio and Weasel; Sheebah Karungi; the Kadongo Kamu master Matia Luyima and his wife Florence Namilim; Daniel Okiror; and Naava Grey.
Foreign musicians included: Msafiri Zawose (Tanzania); Paras Dlamini (South Africa) and Bado (Kenya).

In the drama and dance segment, there were shows by the Jericho Breakers, Batalo East, Dream House Uganda, Queens of Comedy, Mambya Dance Company, Megan Yankee (US) and the Uganda National Contemporary Ballet, among others. There were also capoeira and tango lessons, and the crowd’s favourite, “Silent Disco.”