Lecture by Damascus Kafumbe, Assistant Professor of Music

International and Global Studies Colloquium presentation by Damascus Kafumbe, Assistant Professor of Music. Lunch is free for current Middlebury College students/faculty/staff; suggested $5 donation for others; RSVP by 5/1 to rcga@middlebury.edu.

The Baganda have continuously negotiated a complex, sociopolitical hierarchy that interweaves and balances clan authority with the prerogatives of the king. Through music and dance, the clan-royal Kawuugulu Performance Ensemble brings together various clans explicitly and implicitly unites all clans by representing them before the king. In doing so, they sustain a sociopolitical contract that remains alive as long as the Ensemble performs. Crucial to the Ensemble and their kingdom Buganda is a body of stories that record how and when the Ensemble grew in relation to the kingdom’s changing circumstances, a record of the adaptability of both institutions through time. As I argue in this talk, these narratives help explicate the Ensemble’s theory of performance practice, which is as musical as it is political, as familial as it is social, as palpable as it is invisible in its consequences and importance.