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Home » Digital Drama: Teaching and Learning Art and Media in Tanzania » Bagamoyo Kamambe Nights

Bagamoyo Kamambe Nights

In 2009, TaSUBa started a program of performances to present a variety of art performances, while generating income for the college. The program was initially called Bagamoyo Summer Nights, later renamed into Bagamoyo Kamambe Nights. Kamambe means mastery or excellence in Kiswahili. In addition to performances by local music and dance groups, the program contains more commercial spectacles like the Vodacom Miss Tanzania beauty pageant and Star Light disco on Fridays. In Digital Drama, the program is analyzed in terms of touristic spectacle and cultural commodification. The program has a website of its own, Bagamoyo Kamambe Nights, indicating yet another aspect of liminality at TaSUBa.

Photo 1: Old theater destroyed in a fire on 31 January 2002.

Photo 2: Truck with sound system for announcements around town

Photo 3: Glossy handouts and t-shirts for Bagamoyo Summer Nights

Photo 4:  Posters distributed around Bagamoyo

Photo 5: Local music group on TaSUBa Theatre back stage

Photo 6: Local dance group on main TaSUBa Theatre stage

Photo 7: Vitali Maembe performing old and new songs

Video 1: Art and Promotion

Photo 8: Mary Chibwana pitching promotional T-shirts

Video 2: Bongo Flava

Photo 9: Bongo Flava (hip hop) evening with stars from Dar es Salaam

Photo 10: Sales booth for tickets for Bongo Flava spectacle

Photo 11: Loud and rowdy male audience

Photo 12: Bongo star Ray C on stage 

Photo 13: Fid Q capturing the audience

Photo 14: Beauty pageant by mobile phone operator

Video 3: Miss Vodacom Tanzania

Photo 15: Cultural commodification 


This material is an accompaniment to Digital Drama: Teaching and Learning Art and Media in Tanzania.