Ugandan rural community planning indigenous cultural institution

The Institute of Indigenous Cultures and Performing Arts in Kasasa, southern Uganda, will work alongside the standard curriculum to provide a platform for community elders, leaders and entrepreneurs to preserve and pass on indigenous knowledge, cultural practices and skills-based training.

Currently, the national curriculum in Uganda is based on a system imposed through colonial rule, which community members believe lacks cultural relevance and practical application in daily life.

This focus on indigenous and cultural knowledge may look like a young student learning dance and other forms of artistic expression from an elder, or an up-and-coming entrepreneur learning carpentry skill or mechanical work.

The cultural and performing arts institution is part of the Tat Sat Community Academy (TaSCA) in Kasasa, Uganda. The project will include a dance house, which will be a place of gathering for important functions and activities. Not only will the space be a location where students can learn and perfect cultural practices and applications of indigenous knowledge important to their heritage, but it will also be accessible by the community at large for social functions and cultural programming.

The community’s vision is to create an institution that serves the larger East African community by concurrently working to archive and preserve cultural practices at threat of being lost, while also engaging young minds in the creation of new forms of expression rooted in respect for the heritage and culture of all involved.

Community elders will be key in this process as they pass down knowledge to those younger than them, preserving longstanding practices and keeping traditions alive.

The school and cultural institution are made possible through a partnership between the community of Kasasa and The InteRoots Initiative, an NPO based in Denver, US. The Tat Sat Community Academy is set to open later this year or in early 2023.

“We are thrilled to see the Institute of Indigenous Cultures and Performing Arts come together,” InteRoots executive director M Scott Frank said. “Members of the Kasasa community want indigenous knowledge and performing arts exchange to be the centrepiece of their vision. This ground-breaking space will facilitate the passage of knowledge and information and help cultivate the next generation of thinkers, doers and performers.”