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Zambia Calling
In 2003, Kulture
Consult, an organisation promoting live music and cultural events
across Zambia, staged Oliver Mtukudzi and the Black Spirits HIV/Aids
awareness concert “My Friends with Aids is still my Friend” and Les
Banquets Nomades from
Belgium. In 2004
it was Magic System and Mahube and earlier this year, Ismael Lo in
collaboration with UNICEF and Alliance Francaise.
On Friday 9
December,Angelique Kidjo and band and Tumbuku Dance Company from
Zimbabwe will be in Lusaka to participate in the Z@mbia C@lling
Festival . This festival will also feature a wide variety of local
and other international artists.
Z@mbia C@lling
wants to create a forum for NGO's & aid workers to expose, to the
Zambian and international public, what good work is done in
Zambia and by raising awareness. It is a powerful advocacy campaign
designed to create sustained awareness and engage multiple audiences
and constituencies in fighting poverty and the spread HIV/AIDS .
They believe that musicians are seen as role models and leaders and
therefore through this channel they can deliver their messages.
Details of
performances are:
Angelique Kidjo
and Maureen Lilanda on Friday 9 December at the International
School Of Lusaka at 8 pm. Tickets at K75,000, available from Sounds
Arcades and Manda Hill
Mathias Julius
from Tumbuka Contemporary Dance Company on Wednesday 6 December at
Alliance Francaise at 7 pm.
Kulture Consult
are giving away five free tickets to this concert. Email them
(kultureconsult@yahoo.com) the name of the town where Angelique
Kidjo was born and senders of the first five correct emails will
receive complimentary tickets.
A Guide To Angelique Kidjo
As the best known
African female singer of her generation, Angelique's made a series
of seven spunky, genre busting albums that have explored the
relationships between diverse musical cultures. In recent year she
has also been an energetic goodwill ambassador for UNICEF.
Angelique Kidjo
is a forward and creative thinker, with a passionate belief in the
cause of African unity. Lobbying and speaking out uncompromisingly
on behalf of Africa on a range of issue from the role of women to
the fight against HIV/ AIDS, her music has become truly
international. Influenced by Jimi Hendrix, Santana, James Brown and
Aretha Franklin and Miriam Makeba, she has resolutely refused to
conform to the stereotype of an African singer that some have sought
to impose upon her. “I am proud to be an African artist because I
come from Africa and African music has been the biggest influence on
me. But I am also a world musician in the true sense of the term.”
Born in 1960, she
grew up in Ouidah, a costal city in Benin noted as the country's
voodoo capital, and was acting and singing in her mother's
theatrical troupe by the age of six. Influenced by Western rock and
soul as well as local roots music, by her late teens, she had become
a professional singer and in 1980 recorded her debut album, the
Africa only release Pretty.
In 1983 she moved
to Paris, touring with Dutch fusionists, Pili Pili, and singing on
several of their albums, before recording her solo international
debut with 1989's Parakou. It established the blueprint for what
would become her trademark style; an eclectic mix of Western African
rhythms with elements of zouk, soul and reggae sung in her mother
language, Fon, and in a powerful voice.
Two years later
she recorded Logozo (tortoise in Fon) for Chris Blackwells Mango
label. The album included her haunting version of Malaika, a song
made famous by Miriam Makeba, and the spectacular Batonga, which
became a dance floor hit and established her as a dramatic new force
on the world music scene. This was followed in 1994 with recordings
at Princes Paisley Park in Minneapolis. The locations suggested the
direction in which she was moving and the result was a hybrid of
Western and African styles and included such irresistible tracks as
Agolo, a song about the environment with a driving dance rhythm.
In 1996, she
recorded Fifa, produced by her husband, Jean Hebrail, and this found
her returning to Benin to record for the first time. The title track
featured in the Hollywood comedy, Ace Ventura. This was followed
with an even bolder march into the mainstream with Oremi in 1998.
Sophisticated and funky, it found her covering Jimi Hendrix Voodoo
Child (slight return) and featured American singers Cassandra Wilson
and Kelly Price. After a four year delay and a change of label to
Columbia, it was followed by 2002's Black Ivory soul, which
exploited the musical and cultural kinship between Africa and
Brazil, more specifically, Benin and Bahia. Part three came in 2004
with Oyaya!, which celebrated the African roots of Latin and
Caribbean music.
Tumbuka Dance Company
Modern Dance is a
relatively new discipline in Zimbabwe, introduced only in the last
fifteen years. Contemporary dance in Zimbabwe has largely become an
effective vehicle for communication through movement and music. As
an art form, it is particularly appropriate as it can be pursued by
people with diverse cultural social and racial backgrounds, because
it unites people.
The only
Zimbabwean professional 'Tumbuka Dance Company' (Tumbuka, shona word
for 'to blossom, to bloom') has since its formation in 1992, danced
to several international audiences and has participated in several
International dance Festivals like 'Avignon', France 2001,
'Africalia', Belgium, 2003 and 'The Dance Umbrella Festival', South
Africa, on a yearly basis since 1992. This is where Tumbuka Dance
Company received its first standing ovation.
The touring of
the Company has resulted in their being recognised as part of the
international dance circuit. It certainly has been one of Zimbabwe's
most successful arts projects.
In this project
Zimbabwean professional dancers visit Lusaka for a three day
workshop for upcoming talent and two theatre dance shows, in
combination with Angelique Kidjo. |
November
2005