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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:'Your experience is your only truth': Elvania Namukwaya Zirimu 1939-1980
Author:Kasule, Sam
Year:2010
Periodical:African Performance Review (ISSN 1753-5964)
Volume:4
Issue:2
Pages:7-22
Language:English
Geographic term:Uganda
Subjects:theatre
drama
women writers
About person:Elvania Namukwaya Zirimu
Abstract:Women in Ugandan theatre are in an exceptional position, because they have to struggle for the control of a space for their voice in an art form dominated by men. Women writers, performers and directors in Ugandan popular theatre often divert from the norms by introducing ethnic and gender themes. Some use performance as a means to rewrite female experiences, while others reinvent narratives and form, for example musical dramas. This paper examines the postindependence theatre aesthetics of Elvania Namukwaya Zirimu (1939-1980). Zirimu redefined the meaning of Ugandan theatre to underline the relationship between male and female performers, female performers and the audience, the director and the performer, and performer and audience. Between 1965 and 1980, Zirimu wrote plays, poetry, short stories, critical essays and theatre reviews, and directed her own plays and many others, both in English and in indigenous languages. Discourses on the interrelationship between cultural values, folklore, indigenous popular performance and women were significant in shaping her performance aesthetics. Bibliogr., notes, sum. [ASC Leiden abstract]
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