My Journey
Robert Ssempijja that’s me and for sure there is special about me, I just think of myself as a flexible human being,
Now allow me to tell you about a recent journey I’ve been on. It all started with a phone call in 2017 from the director of a dance company called Keiga. I was in Kampala, Uganda at the time since there is where I’m born and raised. When I picked up the phone and the director asked if I wanted to be part of the “Transatlantic” project which had been planned since I was only 14 years I admit I became a bit shocked. When I was 14 years I had no idea that I would end up traveling the world with my dance art as I have been doing now for four years, yet I’m only 24 so I reckon I have been fortunate.
I remember the start of this project very clearly. I was nervous to meet the others I was to be working with. This was going to be my first time working with other dancers because usually, I work as a solo performer. I am my own dictator and I am in control all the way from start to finish. That is my comfort zone.
The first meeting we had was held in Kampala. I meet the boys from Keiga Dance Company, who I knew at least a little bit and I meet the girls from Red Clay Company, who had come from the USA to work with us. As we had done the introductions in a small meeting we started off exploring movements together in the studio and my nervousness went away seeing that I had the possibility to contribute to the topic of the project. During two weeks in the studio, we explored our childhood memories and the movement within. My memories were scattered. I grew up with a single mum and later on in charity organizations. I had been separated and disconnected from my biological family and forced to seek for another one in the people I had to rely on after the separation. It was memories I don’t often visit together with someone else. To do all this in a foreign language also played a role in making the process complex. Usually, I want to work and think in my mother tongue Luganda so that I can really feel and relate to all parts of the process. This time that was not a possibility and as a result I often wondered what was going on when I wasn’t feeling it inside me. This first residency was a struggle to me but by the end of it, I could appreciate the way of working differently than I usually do.
The second time I meet the others to work with the project we were in the USA. After some struggles with the embassy’s and immigration, my stay was cut short since I received my visa late. So together with the director from Keiga, I spent five days in the USA instead of ten. However, everyone started to get to know each other and we talked about our lives, social issues, politics, and position of being white versus black in Uganda, in the USA and worldwide. I had a lot of questions about being black in the USA as I could see the segregation very clearly. It is so different from how it is back home and it puts a mental strain on me that I don’t experience in the same way.
The third time we meet we were back in Kampala and I started to like working together with people who had very different stories to tell that I do. We were all black, but we had very different perspectives on in and cultures that had formed us. I felt like we could start being free with each other and forming relationships beyond the dance.
Back in the USA for the last time, I was taught to know my position in the group which was a dancer. I was not the director and it was not my place to change what I didn’t like. During the whole process, it had been strange for me to work with a group of dancers. However, with the men from Keiga, which is an all-men company, it wasn’t too strange, since I was familiar with them before and in Uganda, most dancers are actually men. The Red Clay Company is as you might know an all-female company. Thus dancing with so many females was for me was strange. I had not done it since school and yet in the USA, I learned that most dancers were females. After a time I realized it is not about the difference between the genders, they are just dancers. Moving bodies. We were able to form a working collaboration without forgetting where we come from and let it enrich the process of creating. We finished our stay in the USA with the premiere of our piece and it was exciting after all the time we had worked on it.