ABOUT ME
The Word is your Script. Act it out!
Aganza Kisaka is an award winning actress and poet. Her work intersects acting, producing, writing and directing for stage and film. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre from New York University with a concentration in Psychology and went on to a complete a Master in education with Unicaf University where her research focused on the availability and adequacy of performing arts policies for tertiary education in Uganda.
In 2011 her poem “A Hand Swing of Disguised Depravity” won first prize of the Babishai Niwe Poetry Award under the theme of ‘Hope’ and was later published in “A Thousand Voices Rising Anthology”. In 2017 she won Best Actress at Pearl International Film Festival (PIFF) for playing the lead role of “Sanyu” in the feature film Faithful by Richard Nondo. In 2019 she won Best Supporting Actress at Uganda Film Festival (UFF) for the supporting role, “Rehema” in the feature film N.S.I.W.E by Roja Matelja.
Kisaka has produced and published some of her own work. Black, is a 10-minute play on race, blackness and identity that showcased at Kampala International Theatre Festival 2016 and served as her debut as a playwright. Operation: Mother’s Bruises, is a short story about depression published in “The Different Shades of the feminine Mind” (2017) as part of the Afriwowri Literary Project. Autopoeisis, Entropy or Redundancy and Other Terms (2018), is a book that she co-curated and co-wrote with participants of the School of Anxiety that showcased at the 10th Berlin Biennale. Killing Time (2020) is a satirical play that has featured at the Lagos Theatre Festival (2021), Kenya International Theatre Festival (2021) and The Kampala International Theatre Festival (2021), Goethe Zentrum Kampala and others. In 2021, she produced a short film on the stigma that parents of children with mental disabilities experience and then in 2023 her commissioned co-written feature film, When You Become Me, was nominated for best screenplay at Uganda film festival. Her latest work is as lead director for the spell-binding, glamorous and impeccable musical production of My Fair Lady in Uganda where she also starred in the leading role as Eliza Doolittle.
She is the founder of Yenze Theatre Conservatoire that trains performing artists in acting, movement and voice for the stage and film while providing actor management. Kisaka is also a proud fellow with George-town University Lab for global politics and performance. With a strong belief in the power for performance to mirror and transform real life through authenticity, Kisaka hopes that her work will serve a greater purpose to transform lives for the better by reflecting and revealing or unveiling life truths.
