Kampala — THIS theatre piece should have been cast mid-last year, but for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM). Has anybody already forgotten that memorable and spectacular 30-minute dance act at the opening ceremony at the Kampala Serena Hotel?

The Kombat Dancers were part of that act. They were outsourced by Alex Mukulu for the narrative dance about Uganda's troubled political history.

"We had already booked and paid up at the National Theatre for this play, but then again, this was the first CHOGM in Uganda, and perhaps the last in our lifetime. It was worth cancelling the theatre booking. Looking at the bigger picture, this would look good on our resumé. It clearly showed that if we are really well-financed, we can pull off something bigger," says Michael Kasaija, Kombat Dancer's creative director.

This production, Heartless Desire, though, is different from what the group took part in at last year's do. They only share some similarities. Both are dance narratives based on reality. Heartless Desire is a dance production based on happenings in day-to-day life. As Natasha Sinayobye, who acts the lead role of Sindi, puts it: "It's basically turning words into dance - or kind of making dance turn into a conversation."

Heartless Desire revolves around the character of a beautiful young woman, Sindi who, in her quest for emotional fulfilment and acceptance after a lonesome and abused childhood, saunters in and out of three different love relationships. The play is in three parts, each of which represents each of the three different men in Sindi's life. Since this is a dance narrative, the dialogue in the play is conducted purely in dance form. "We decided to be abstract all through this time. The concept, the music, the choreography We employed quite a range of dance styles. For instance, we employed most of the elements of hip hop, like popping, locking, puppet and B-Boy. All these are different elements of the discipline of hip hop. We fused in African contemporary, modern and latino dance."

"With dialogue, you sit and just simply listen. You may even anticipate. With this, you just flow with it. It's more of a journey," adds Natasha.

Michael continues: "We have had this habit of spoonfeeding the audience with dialogued plays. We wanted something that challenges you, that makes you be part of the piece, something that everybody gets to understand in their own way. This is a simple story told another way. It's very realistic and with lots of lessons, a teaching story."

"Sindi," Michael continues, indeed looking at Natasha, and not me, "had a lonesome upbringing. She had lost her parents early in her life, and we get to see how that affects her life in different ways as a grown girl trying to take her life in her own hands. She's looking for self-fulfilment in order to fill in that gap. Actually, in the play, her brother is the only person close to her. In trying to cover that wound, she makes decisions without a care as to how they affect herself and others."

"When we were directing it," says Natasha, "we did not base so much on the men's expectations of Sindi. It is more her expectations of the men she falls in love with. It is trying to say that when you go deep into the lives of people, you will find these things. Everyone has a dirty closet somewhere in their past."

Sindi's three suitors come in the names of Bangu, (Andrew Mawejje) Simba (Michael Kasaija) and Mulongo (Karim Mukwano). All of these have their own distinct identities which, regardless of the fact that the scenes flow into each other, stand in stark uniqueness from one another. Bangu, who is Sindi's first suitor, is a fresh university graduate still trying to find his feet in the world of employment. Bangu, (Michael) on the other hand, is a filthy rich traditionalist African man, who wants to flaunt his wealth at the first opportunity. He is conservative and patriarchal, or as Natasha puts it, "a give-her" kind of man. Mulongo, the last of Sindi's suitors, is more of a ladies' man, a playboy who loves to indulge himself in sensual pleasures.

What is interesting is that all this characterisation is done in a single medium - dance, albeit, of course, in its varied forms. In Bangu's scene, which shows him as a youth, a general hip hop feel is lent to the stage. His swagger, his dress sense, his tastes are all funky. For Simba, the Africanness is enhanced by folk dances from across the continent, including, of course, our very own country. But how then was the "ladies' man", the casanova in Mulongo, to be characterised through a medium like dance? Well, to achieve this, Mulongo and his scene are given a familiar sensual look and feel that can only be Latino "because Latino men have that thing about them," Natasha says.

Being the lead on whom the plot revolves, Sindi, of course, gets to be seen in all three men's parts. Inevitably, she has to blend with all of them and be what they are, and this she does by blending the three different dance genres.

Although there are only four main actors, the production casts a total 30 choreographers, some of whom are drawn from NTV's Hot Steps dance competition. "Connecting the story was the biggest problem since we chose to use only one medium, dance," Michael intimates.

"We have a five-year theatre programme. We are trying to groom younger people who can take this art (dancing) to another level. We are giving them a platform, we are giving them dance classes. We have five years to go with this. As individuals, we may not still be on stage as dancers, but as a company, we could have got the right people to take it to that level."

Michael says he wrote some of the songs in the production where he felt no song could produce a particular feeling he wanted. "We sampled more than 300 songs just to make sure we get the right mood." He describes himself as "a perfectionist" when it comes to music, while his fiancée, Natasha, says he has "a very good ear for music." Micheal says his next stop after choreography is going to be full-time music production, albeit production for film. "The time is now to write original scripts for soundtracks to our movies, other than using Celine Dion's song clips as is the norm currently."