We Are All the Same; It Doesn't Matter Where We Come From

Breakdancing in Uganda

From BPU Facebook Page

​Breakdancing in Uganda is a healing power - a living expression of creativity, community, and the transformative power of embodied movement. It is process philosophy in action.

​Emerging from the streets of Kampala and growing through the Breakdance Project Uganda (BPU), this vibrant culture shows how young people reinvent global traditions through local rhythms, resilience, and relational imagination. Viewed through a process-relational lens, Ugandan breakdancing illuminates Whitehead’s themes of the withness of the body, creative transformation, and the human side of ecological civilization revealing how bodily expression becomes a force for healing, empowerment, and social change. Breakdance functions as both an art and a form of community-building—where the many become one, and are increased by many.

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​The Healing and Transformation
Power of Breakdancing in Uganda

You may be unfamiliar with process philosophy and theology. That is not a problem. The purpose of this page is to introduce and celebrate breakdance culture in Uganda—especially its role as a context for constructive social change. I want to encourage any and all to glimpse its beauty, resilience, and transformative power. The best way to understand this culture is by watching the videos below on Breakdown Project Uganda. Still, for those who are interested, I offer a brief introduction to several features of process philosophy, because this way of thinking can help breakdancers in Uganda and elsewhere appreciate the gift that breakdancing—and its larger hip-hop roots—offers to the world.

As the phrase “process philosophy” suggests, process philosophers see life as a continual process of becoming. Nothing is frozen or fixed; all is alive with creativity and promise.

This creativity can be expressed through many forms of intelligence—kinesthetic, emotional, verbal, mathematical, practical, social, and spiritual. These forms need not be ranked, as if some were inherently more “intelligent” than others. All are good, all are real, and each reveals a different facet of human potential. Moreover, they are not isolated from one another. They often overlap. As we dance we talk, as we hear music with share with others, as we write poetry we hear rhythm. Still, each form has its wisdom. This most certainly includes the kinesthetic intelligence of breakdancing, with its rhythms, risks, bodily insight, and expressive power and, as evident in Uganda, its capacity for community-building.

Many process philosophers are influenced by a philosopher named Alfred North Whitehead, and three of the twenty key ideas in Whitehead’s philosophy are:

• The withness of the body — the idea that we meet the world and express ourselves through bodily experience.
• God as a spirit of creative transformation at work in the world — the lure toward novelty, healing, and new possibilities.
• Ecological civilization as an aspirational ideal — local communities that are creative, compassionate, participatory, humane to animals, and good for the Earth, with no one left behind.

In Uganda, these themes converge in breakdancing as a tool for social change, as made clear in scholarship, the documentary Bouncing Cats, and the work of the Breakdance Project Uganda—all featured on this page.

The phrase ecological civilization can easily—but wrongly—suggest an exclusive focus on healthy human–earth relations while neglecting healthy human–human relations. But this is not what the phrase means in process philosophy. An ecological civilization is deeply concerned with both kinds of relationships. With respect to human–human relations, it envisions societies in which, to repeat what was said above, “no one is left behind”—not the very young, not youth, and not the very old. An ecological civilization is inclusive of all. It centers the dignity of each person, not the fortunes of an elite at the expense of others. It sees a potential for creativity in each person, if given the chance.

And it sees the living body as an essential form of communication—a means by which lived intensity in social relations becomes palpable and alive, a way in which human flourishing is expressed and shared. Indeed, the body—belonging to, and expressive of, human dignity—is a place where earth and heaven come together as a field of action and possibility.

The withness of the body includes—though it is not limited to—how we meet the world through our bodily experience, what Whitehead calls “experience in the mode of causal efficacy.” It also includes how we express ourselves back into the world through embodied action. By means of our bodies we become, in Whitehead’s phrase, superjects for the world: offerings of feeling, energy, and possibility for others to inherit.
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The Breakdance Project Uganda (BPU) is a vivid illustration of how such superjecting, done in community with others, becomes a powerful vehicle for social transformation. Founded in 2006 by Ugandan dancer and community organizer Abramz Tekya, BPU began as a small voluntary initiative offering free breakdance classes to youth in Kampala. Its earliest gatherings took place in community centers, schoolyards, and open public spaces—settings where creativity emerged from scarcity and where young people discovered new forms of expression and belonging. The Project soon expanded, forming partnerships with local and international organizations, creating structured programs in dance, leadership, and life skills, and cultivating weekly sessions that now draw hundreds of participants. Today BPU is not simply an arts organization; it is a movement-building platform—a relational ecology of mentorship, creativity, and mutual support—that channels bodily expression into new forms of hope, identity, and communal becoming.

​Teodora Zareva puts it this way:

“Many of the participating children come from extremely vulnerable social backgrounds and most cannot afford proper schooling. While attending the hip hop and break dance classes, they get to discover and develop a skill to take pride in. In addition, BPU partners with other organizations to give its members other formal and non-formal education opportunities such as life skills workshops, media and skill training, and advocacy training.

Dancing is truly transformational. It brings back the joy in life, heals, and dissolves aggression. We certainly need more creative ways to use it as a tool in education and social change. But it’s not just dancing. As BPU’s guiding principle states: everyone has the capacity to be a positive role model and has something to give to the other members of the community. We can all make a change, no matter what.”¹

​Teodora Zareva’s words ring true, and they inspire all who are nourished by process philosophy. We, too, believe in the transformational power of dance. We, too, believe in the role of creative and performing arts in social change. And we, too, believe that everyone can be a teacher. Indeed, we believe that communities can emerge with just this spirit. A breakdance community is a vivid illustration of what a process community looks like—one in which creativity is shared, leadership is fluid, learning is mutual, and every person is recognized as a bearer of possibility, capable of adding something beautiful to the becoming of the whole.

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1. Teodora Zareva, “Breakdance as a Tool for Social Change,” Big Think, April 19, 2011, https://bigthink.com/guest-thinkers/breakdance-as-a-tool-for-social-change/. Teodora Zareva is an entrepreneur, writer, board games geek and a curious person at large. ​Her professional path has taken her from filmmaking and photography to writing, TEDx organizing, teaching, and social entrepreneurship. She has lived and worked in the U.S. and Bulgaria and is currently doing her MBA at Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford. Her biggest passion lies at the intersection of media and youth development. She is the co-founder of WishBOX Foundation, a Bulgarian NGO that helps high school students with their professional orientation by organizing events, courses, summer camps and developing digital media resources

Indigenization as Creative Transformation
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"In this episode, we speak with Dr. Alfdaniels Mabingo who wrote a fascinating article on breakdance in Uganda for the Journal of African Cultural Studies. Uganda has one of the largest breakdance scenes in the world, and Mabingo examines how the youth have reconfigured, localized, and re-interpreted breakdance aesthetics in that country. He argues that as breakdance spread, and youth innovated the art form, breakdance became part of Ugandan culture. In this sense, breakdance is no longer just a Western import, but Ugandans have evolved a breakdance into a Ugandan art form."

Dr. Msia Kibona Clark, Howard University. She is an Associate Professor in the African Studies Department at Howard University. Her research explores themes such as hip-hop in Africa, African feminism‌ and the influence of social movements on cultural production. Msia has published several articles, book chapters‌ and reviews in academic journals and popular media outlets. Her book, “Hip-Hop in Africa: Prophets of the City and Dustyfoot Philosophers,” has been widely acclaimed and has gained recognition for its groundbreaking analysis of hip-hop in Africa. Her work not only sheds light on rich and diverse African hip-hop communities, but also addresses critical social issues. Her recent book, “African Women in Digital Spaces” explores the use of social media for advocacy by women across Africa and the diaspora. In addition to her academic pursuits, she has curated exhibitions on African culture and photography and is the host of “The Hip Hop African Podcast.”