Nyege Nyege
[vc_row][vc_column offset="vc_col-lg-12 vc_col-md-12 vc_col-xs-12"][vc_column_text el_class="section-title-small text-naf-blue-500 mb-12"]NYEGE NYEGE: The irresistible urge to dance[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="8px"][vc_column_text el_class="section-subtitle text-naf-neutral-600"]A view on contemporary African music[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="64px"][vc_row_inner gap="30"][vc_column_inner width="1/2"][vc_single_image image="53819" img_size="full"][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width="1/2"][vc_single_image image="57070" img_size="full" alignment="center" css=".vc_custom_1593806054093{background-color: #000000 !important;}"][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width="3/5" offset="vc_col-lg-3/5 vc_col-md-12 vc_col-xs-12"][vc_empty_space height="64px"][vc_column_text el_class="page-content page-content-smaller"]Nyege Nyege Festival, and its associated labels Nyege Nyege Tapes and Hakuna Kulala, are part of a music incubator based in Kampala that has two main areas of focus: to promote the diversity of music from the continent, especially endogenous micro-scenes and independent/outsider producers, and to level the access to means of production to build a sustainable economy that supports diversity. For this year’s virtual National Arts Festival, we will travel to Mali to meet DJ Diaki, pioneer of the Balani show scene, then head to Dar Es Salaam to discover singeli, the breakneck speed sound directly in conversation with Balani, then to Northern Uganda to discover contemporary electronic music inspired by Acholi traditions. Finally, we’ll look at two more urban sounds, the Gengetone craze which gave East Africa a response to Nigerian pop, and South African east coast Gqom, which is inspired by more contemporary electronic club music. We’ll also proudly present four performances, DIY modular synth builder Afrorack, Kenyan grindcore outfit Duma, East African hiphop diva MC Yallah, and avant-jazz project HHY & the Kampala Unit, who were all set to tour this summer and who will soon be releasing new works.[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="64px"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width="stretch_row" css=".vc_custom_1592835783322{background-color: rgba(182,182,182,0.28) !important;*background-color: rgb(182,182,182) !important;}"][vc_column width="1/2"][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text el_class="section-title-small text-naf-blue-500 mb-12"]LISTENING SESSIONS[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="8px"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/2"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width="stretch_row" css=".vc_custom_1592835783322{background-color: rgba(182,182,182,0.28) !important;*background-color: rgb(182,182,182) !important;}"][vc_column width="1/2"][vc_single_image image="54135" img_size="full"][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text el_class="section-subtitle text-naf-neutral-600"]BALANI[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="8px"][vc_column_text el_class="page-content page-content-smaller"]DIAKI (Mali) – Diaki’s hard-thumping live electro balani show is the quintessential African rave sound, the one that can wake even the dead, drawing comparisons to shangaan, singeli and acholitronix as well as drum n bass and footwork. DJ Diaki’s style of balani show is a live performance on laptop, mic and drum machines. With influences of coupe decale and soukous, Diaki delivers an atomic blend of traditional balani electrified with all the West African candence! Diaki has perfected his craft over the last 30 years, and risen to fame after his Boiler room set at Nyege Nyege festival 2019 where legendary DJ Marcelle called him “The discovery of the Century”. His critically acclaimed debut release on Nyege Tapes (Feb. 2020) was album of the month in the Guardian, and his electrifying sets have earned him the nickname “Le President”, for his magical ability to channel ancestral rhythms and pull a club into a frenzy, from Berlin clubs to small villages on the outskirts of Bamako. DJ Diaki is also the head programmer at Sanankoroba Radio which he helped co-found.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/2"][vc_single_image image="54041" img_size="full"][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text el_class="section-subtitle text-naf-neutral-600"]Singeli[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="8px"][vc_column_text el_class="page-content page-content-smaller"]SISSO (TZ) – Mohamed Hamza Ally aka Sisso is a pioneer within the singeli scene. His studio in Dar-Es-Salaam is the epicentre of the world’s most thrilling, punkish new dance style. Artists such as Bamba Pana, Jay Mitta, and Duke have all created their music in his studio. Sisso’s productions epitomise Singeli’s hyperlocal scenius, distilling the vitality and struggle of life of the fringes of the Swahili-speaking world’s most populous city, into a unique music which seems to reflect the idea of keeping a cool head in frenetic situations. Between his ratchet rhythms and pitched-up melodies there’s a sublime, unresolved tension at play, where the music feels to accelerate so fast that dancers are gliding, sustaining a breathlessly “up” effect that uncannily recalls mid ‘90s UK Happy Hardcore as much as Chicago Footwork, Caribbean Soca and Shangaan electro, yet with a psychotomimetic appeal all of its own. Often accompagnied by Tanzania’s oldest female MC Rehema Tajiri together they represant one of the most unique and energising experiences on the dancefloor. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width="stretch_row" css=".vc_custom_1592835783322{background-color: rgba(182,182,182,0.28) !important;*background-color: rgb(182,182,182) !important;}"][vc_column width="1/2"][vc_single_image image="54058" img_size="full"][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text el_class="section-subtitle text-naf-neutral-600"]Acholitronix[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="8px"][vc_column_text el_class="page-content page-content-smaller"]LEO P-LAYENG AKA DJ PLK (UG) – Leo Palayeng is one of the pioneering architects of electronic Acholi music. Producer and DJ he has been a trailblazer in his community, empowering many young people with music production skills, while also bringing the great vocalist and musician Otim Alpha to the international stage. Leo can turn up the temperature on the dance floor anytime with his fast paced hypnotic dance music acholitronix, 150 bpm and up! CURATOR: OTIM ALPHA (UG) – Otim Never Fails Anyone. That strong yet accurate statement refers to his heartfelt duty spawned from his role as wedding ceremony leader, a duty to involve everybody in the room in his performances, making them wholly spiritual experiences, creating an uncontrollable urge to dance. It's documented that at weddings in traditional Uganda, special Acholi songs are played known as 'Larakaraka’. Over a decade ago, Otim Alpha began collaborating with pioneering producer Leo P-layeng to mix up the style he was known for, into a newer hyper-frenetic electronic version. They toured the style across East Africa, and became known to Nyege Nyege Tapes, who showcased them at their festival and released Otim’s hit collection ‘Gulu City Anthems’ (2017). The tape sold out within days. Since then, Otim and Leo have played on many international stages. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/2"][vc_single_image image="54069" img_size="full"][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text el_class="section-subtitle text-naf-neutral-600"]Gengetone[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="8px"][vc_column_text el_class="page-content page-content-smaller"]MUSAU MUMO MATHEKA (NAIROBI) – Musau is a DJ and promoter of underground culture in Nairobi. Active since the 2010’s, he’s been instrumental in pushing Gengetone and SHRAP to wider audiences. Musau’s self professed life mission is to promote Kenyan music. As co-founder of the SHRAP movement, Musau’s has honed his skill as an A&R and has brought many fresh talents to the spotlight, including AD Family. He’s also the founder of the infamous SHRP night of Nairobi. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width="stretch_row" css=".vc_custom_1592835783322{background-color: rgba(182,182,182,0.28) !important;*background-color: rgb(182,182,182) !important;}"][vc_column width="1/2"][vc_single_image image="54132" img_size="full"][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text el_class="section-subtitle text-naf-neutral-600"]GQOM[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="8px"][vc_column_text el_class="page-content page-content-smaller"]MENZI (SA) – Menzi hails from the Umlazi township of Durban, where he rose to prominence as one half of Gqom pioneers, Infamous Boiz, whose influence is now felt shuddering from speakers in clubs across the world. Aside from producing, Menzi also runs the annual Gqom Bloq party, Festive Road Block Umlazi, and recently has supplied beats for some of South Africa’s biggest acts (Moonchild Sanelly, Mahotella Queens, Zolani Mahola and Zakes Bantwini). Daring to mess with the machinery of Gqom’s sharply defined style, Menzi opens it up with cyperpunk-cinematic sound design and searing synth dynamics to invoke and unleash the sound’s darker side. His debut EP on Hakuna Kulala received critical acclaim. [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/2" offset="vc_hidden-xs"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width="stretch_row" css=".vc_custom_1592835783322{background-color: rgba(182,182,182,0.28) !important;*background-color: rgb(182,182,182) !important;}"][vc_column width="1/2"][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text el_class="section-title-small text-naf-blue-500 mb-12"]PERFORMANCES[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="8px"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/2" offset="vc_hidden-xs"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width="stretch_row" css=".vc_custom_1592835783322{background-color: rgba(182,182,182,0.28) !important;*background-color: rgb(182,182,182) !important;}"][vc_column width="1/2"][vc_single_image image="54140" img_size="full"][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text el_class="section-subtitle text-naf-neutral-600"]Afrorack[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="8px"][vc_column_text el_class="page-content page-content-smaller"]Brian Bamanya is the first person to build diy modular synth setups in Africa, hence his alias Afrorack. The 30-year-old engineering wizard started his music journey playing guitar and creating his own instruments, untill he dove into the world of modular synths. Based on his own experimentations and findings online, Bryan developed an extensive homebuild modular synth set up on which he’s been performing for the last two years during dazzling improvised live-sets mixing techno, abstract electronics and acid. Broadcasted live on Boiler Room, Afrorack’s performance at Nyege Nyege festival last year sparked the curiosity of the audience. He performed at CTM festival in Berlin in February where he also took part in the Hacklab laboratory. In April, stuck in quarantine, Brian invented a way to create a DIY disinfectant.Watch the performance [HERE]
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/2"][vc_single_image image="54048" img_size="full"][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text el_class="section-subtitle text-naf-neutral-600"]Duma[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="8px"][vc_column_text el_class="page-content page-content-smaller"]Martin Khanja (aka Lord Spike Heart) and Sam Karugu have been an integral part of Nairobi's flourishing underground metal scene for the past decade. Both were part of Nairobi based metal bands Lust of a dying Breed and Seeds of Datura. Together they formed Duma in 2019 during a year long residency at Nyege Nyege Studios in Kampala, with Sam abandoning bass for production ad guitars with Lord Spike Heart providing vocals to the project. Pushing the boundaries of grind, metal, electronica and industrial through their own experimentation over nine tracks that bring in elements of techno and trap into the foray as well and represents a new masterful meeting of these genres for the East African metal scene. Their debut European performance at Berghain in February transformed the main hall of the former power station into a massive mosh pit.Watch the performance [HERE]
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width="stretch_row" css=".vc_custom_1592835783322{background-color: rgba(182,182,182,0.28) !important;*background-color: rgb(182,182,182) !important;}"][vc_column width="1/2"][vc_single_image image="54059" img_size="full"][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text el_class="section-subtitle text-naf-neutral-600"]MC Yallah (KE/UG)[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="8px"][vc_column_text el_class="page-content page-content-smaller"]MC Yallah is a Kenyan rapper based in Uganda and an affiliate of Nyege Nyege. MC Yallah is also a veteran of the industry and became involved in hiphop music back in 1999, spreading a message of integrity and self determination. Last September MC Yallah released the LP Kubali with French producer Debmaser on NNT’s sublabel Hakuna Kulala. Their show was rated in the top five of best performances by Resident Advisor at Unsound festival in Poland. They played at the Venice biennal and at CTM festival in Berlin in February and were supposed to be all over Europe this summer.Watch the performance [HERE]
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/2"][vc_single_image image="54123" img_size="full"][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text el_class="section-subtitle text-naf-neutral-600"]HHY & the Kampala Unit[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="8px"][vc_column_text el_class="page-content page-content-smaller"]A trio of synthetic percussion, kingdom-come horns and viral electronics delivering ugandan futuristic music. An ensemble founded by Jonathan Saldanha (from HHY & The Macumbas), joining master percussionist from Congo with trumpet player and ghetto youth activist Florence Lugemwa in a mesmirizing polyrhythmic pressure configuration. Debut album Lithium Blast out 2020 on Nyege Nyege Tapes.Watch the performance [HERE]
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width="stretch_row" css=".vc_custom_1592994861727{margin-bottom: -144px !important;background-color: rgba(182,182,182,0.28) !important;*background-color: rgb(182,182,182) !important;}"][vc_column][vc_empty_space height="64px"][/vc_column][/vc_row]Listening sessions and performances from the Kampala-based music incubator that promotes the continent’s musical diversity, especially endogenous micro-scenes and independent producers.
Sounding the Land
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text el_class="section-title-small text-naf-blue-500 mb-12"]SOUNDING THE LAND[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="8px"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space height="40px"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row gap="35" content_placement="bottom"][vc_column width="3/5" offset="vc_col-xs-12"][vc_column_text el_class="page-content page-content-smaller"]There are two signs at the side of the road leading away from Salem. The first reads: 'Welcome to Frontier Country'. And the second: 'Potholes ahead'. This is a recurring image in Simon Gush’s work and – given our location in Makhanda/Grahamstown, a space and site of collapsing afterlives and infrastructures in stark and particularly disturbing intensities – it suggests that the call for and obligation to think differently is both relevant and necessary for new directions of research and practice in the arts and in the academy. Instead of potholes, chasms have opened up before us: the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdowns, states of disaster, police brutality and mass protests against the racism that that brutality exposes … conflict, contagion, isolation, containment, confinement. How does one find one’s bearings in times like this? Locked down, but pursuing – if warily – lines of flight enabled in this new era of digital technologies, Sounding the Land listens back across the ground of 200 years to find our bearings now, in 2020. This year is a paradox, ominous, threatening and yet full of possibility. We venture here into that space, and encourage you to think, with Walter Benjamin, how the storm called ‘progress’ has propelled us into a future that we had turned our backs to as the pile of debris before us grew skyward across the last two centuries.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space height="64"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row gap="35" content_placement="bottom"][vc_column width="3/5" offset="vc_col-lg-3/5 vc_col-md-3/5 vc_col-xs-12"][vc_column_text el_class="uppercase text-lg md:text-2xl font-title mb-2 text-naf-neutral-600"]A BUTTON WITHOUT A HOLE[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Simon Gush 2019, 30 mins[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="8px"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row gap="35" content_placement="bottom"][vc_column offset="vc_col-lg-12 vc_col-md-12 vc_col-xs-12"][vc_empty_space height="8px"][vc_raw_html]JTNDZGl2JTIwY2xhc3MlM0QlMjJzM2J1YmJsZSUyMiUyMGRhdGEtY29kZSUzRCUyMnFjdXBhbiUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRmRpdiUzRQ==[/vc_raw_html][vc_empty_space height="8px"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row gap="35" content_placement="bottom"][vc_column width="3/5" offset="vc_col-lg-3/5 vc_col-md-3/5 vc_col-xs-12"][vc_column_text el_class="page-content page-content-smaller"]A Button without a Hole looks at dispossession and restitution of land in Salem Eastern Cape. The film details the history of the dispossession by the director’s family in 1820, and the role of this in the production of a system of wage labour. The settler narrative is contrasted to the narrative of Mongezi Madinda, one of the residents on the restituted land. If the image appears out of focus please click on the settings icon in the bottom right of the media player to adjust the resolution to suit your system[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space height="64"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row gap="35" content_placement="bottom"][vc_column offset="vc_col-xs-12"][vc_empty_space height="8px"][vc_row_inner css=".vc_custom_1593447802031{padding-right: 13px !important;padding-left: 13px !important;}"][vc_column_inner width="1/2" css=".vc_custom_1593447745756{padding: 1px !important;}"][vc_column_text el_class="uppercase text-lg md:text-2xl font-title mb-2 text-naf-neutral-600"]PINE AND WILLOW[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text el_class="page-content page-content-smaller"]Healer Oran 2020, 40 mins[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="8px"][vc_single_image image="54318" img_size="full" onclick="custom_link" img_link_target="_blank" link="https://nationalartsfestival.co.za/show/pine-and-willow/"][vc_empty_space height="8px"][vc_column_text el_class="page-content page-content-smaller"]A recorded performance by experimental musician Healer Oran, which comprises improvised reinterpretations of the score for the Land is in the Air films. During the performance, Healer Oran talks about the process of scoring the film and how, through this process, he began to explore his family's dispossession and forced removal from their land in Port Elizabeth in 1970.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width="1/2" css=".vc_custom_1593447758477{padding: 1px !important;}"][vc_column_text el_class="uppercase text-lg md:text-2xl font-title mb-2 text-naf-neutral-600"]CONFINEMENT / CONTAINMENT / CONTAGION[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text el_class="page-content page-content-smaller"]Helena Pohlandt-Mccormick, Craig Paterson and Gary Minkley Slideshow, 20 mins[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="8px"][vc_single_image image="54319" img_size="full" onclick="custom_link" img_link_target="_blank" link="https://nationalartsfestival.co.za/show/confinement-contagion/"][vc_empty_space height="8px"][vc_column_text el_class="page-content page-content-smaller"]A slideshow of images and text reflecting on the history of disease, confinement and control and its resonances with the current situation. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_empty_space height="64"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row gap="35" content_placement="bottom"][vc_column offset="vc_col-xs-12"][vc_empty_space height="8px"][vc_row_inner css=".vc_custom_1593447802031{padding-right: 13px !important;padding-left: 13px !important;}"][vc_column_inner width="1/2" css=".vc_custom_1593447745756{padding: 1px !important;}"][vc_column_text el_class="uppercase text-lg md:text-2xl font-title mb-2 text-naf-neutral-600"]Ubuyile uNxele[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text el_class="page-content page-content-smaller"]Akhona 'Bhodl'ingqaka' Mafani and Landiso 'Hlalutya' Magqaza 2020, 7 mins[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="8px"][vc_single_image image="54320" img_size="full" onclick="custom_link" img_link_target="_blank" link="https://nationalartsfestival.co.za/show/ubuyile-unxele/"][vc_empty_space height="8px"][vc_column_text el_class="page-content page-content-smaller"]A spoken word izibongo dialogue about the life and death of Makhanda Nxele with the sub-themes of contagion, containment, healing and leadership.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width="1/2" css=".vc_custom_1593447758477{padding: 1px !important;}"][vc_column_text el_class="uppercase text-lg md:text-2xl font-title mb-2 text-naf-neutral-600"]COMMEMORATION / CENTENARY[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text el_class="page-content page-content-smaller"]Leslie Witz and Helena Pohlandt-Mccormick 2020, 60 mins[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="8px"][vc_single_image image="54321" img_size="full" onclick="custom_link" img_link_target="_blank" link="https://nationalartsfestival.co.za/show/commemoration-centenary/"][vc_empty_space height="8px"][vc_column_text el_class="page-content page-content-smaller"]A recorded discussion between historians Leslie Witz (UWC) and Helena Pohlandt-McCormick (Rhodes University) around colonial commemorations and centennial celebrations. 'The most political thing to say is that history is not about politics' – Leslie Witz[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_empty_space height="64"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row gap="35" content_placement="bottom"][vc_column offset="vc_col-xs-12"][vc_empty_space height="8px"][vc_row_inner css=".vc_custom_1593447802031{padding-right: 13px !important;padding-left: 13px !important;}"][vc_column_inner width="1/2" css=".vc_custom_1593447745756{padding: 1px !important;}"][vc_column_text el_class="uppercase text-lg md:text-2xl font-title mb-2 text-naf-neutral-600"]SALEM: OF THE LAND ITSELF[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text el_class="page-content page-content-smaller"]Niren Tolsi 2020[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="8px"][vc_single_image image="54353" img_size="full" onclick="custom_link" link="https://nationalartsfestival.co.za/salem-of-the-land-itself/"][vc_empty_space height="8px"][vc_column_text el_class="page-content page-content-smaller"]Just outside Makhanda, in an area the British military cleared of amaXhosa with a 'brutal efficiency'* after the Fourth Frontier War, lies a cricket pitch with claims to being the oldest in the country. It is a wicket watered by the blood of removal and the trauma of forced labour. One rolled with frontier nostalgia and contemporary paranoia. How does it play? [READ ESSAY] * Justice Edwin Cameron, Salem Party Club and Others v Salem Community and Others[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width="1/2" css=".vc_custom_1593447758477{padding: 1px !important;}"][vc_column_text el_class="uppercase text-lg md:text-2xl font-title mb-2 text-naf-neutral-600"]Land, Labour, Life[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text el_class="page-content page-content-smaller"]Prishani Naidoo and Simon Gush 2020, 26 mins[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="8px"][vc_single_image image="54323" img_size="full" onclick="custom_link" img_link_target="_blank" link="https://nationalartsfestival.co.za/show/land-labour-life/"][vc_empty_space height="8px"][vc_column_text el_class="page-content page-content-smaller"]A recorded discussion between Prishani Naidoo (SWOP/Wits) and Simon Gush around questions of land, work and social inclusion. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_empty_space height="64"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row gap="35" content_placement="bottom"][vc_column width="3/5" offset="vc_col-xs-12"][vc_column_text el_class="uppercase text-lg md:text-2xl font-title mb-2 text-naf-neutral-600"]About Sounding the Land[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="8px"][vc_column_text el_class="page-content page-content-smaller"]We are physically distanced and isolated from each other, while new technologies enable us to zoom in to the living rooms of our friends across the world. We are locked away and simultaneously able to see and hear our societies clearer than ever. But clarity remains elusive. The mechanisms we use to ground ourselves are unmoored. For us, this has been an invitation to a process of (publicly) sharing experiences/thoughts/thinking, in a time of individuation, to think with each other towards collective understandings when physically coming together is impossible. To do so, we need to take our bearings. We need to sound the land. The year 2020 has opened up new opportunities for review of the world around us, and how we got here; a world ostensibly “new” – a new period, with its own unique events – but one that looks disturbingly like the world of old. “This is what commemoration does”, problematically, “it aligns past, present and future, it puts them in a straight line together” (Leslie Witz). That old world, which now feels unstable, is bracketed into distinct periods, and periods into events, and events into moments. We review one moment here, from which we might begin to navigate. The Commemoration: 200 Years This year has, even with the planned bicentennial commemorations and celebrations that have since been cancelled, reanimated interest and an opportunity for reappraisal of the year we call “1820.” Two centuries ago, the British colonial government initiated one of the most ambitious plans in South African history to quarantine, contain and control populations. In this project we engage with the bicentennial marker of the “1820 Settler” project, with its stubborn fascination in the present, and ask what parallels and processes continue to force themselves on us now. Sounding the Land is an ongoing project of interdisciplinary multi-media collaboration between the Rhodes University History Department, the SARChI Chair in Social Change (University of Fort Hare), the Cory Library for Historical Research (Rhodes University), the National Arts Festival and the South African Heritage Resources Agency. It draws together a combined team of scholars and artists to reinvigorate and reassess debates on the impact and legacy of the settler colonial project in South Africa’s Eastern Cape through discussions of the historical certainties that define the debates and the meanings and commemorations of settler colonialism over time. In a series of works and engagements that cumulatively do the work of Sounding the Land and ungrounding 1820, this project addresses the complex auditions between subject, land and space, and the work of place, home, belonging, and its dispossessions from the past into the present. Work In the last of Simon Gush’s triptych of films, Land is in the Air, Salem community land claimant, Headman Goduka says the white farmer “worked the land with his mouth, it was us who did the actual labour”. Thinking about this challenge posed to the nature of ‘work’/‘labour’, and thinking (again) also about the question of what work art does at the center of a historical reading provides an important prompt for this project. Both from a disciplinary method and an institutional perspective, we want to rethink a past not adequately worked through, a fractured landscape/ground, and a language of history, of conceptualization, of analysis out of sync and seemingly inadequate to the urgent challenges of the present. To do so we have to listen, again; to sound the land. This is what needs ‘working through’: to think about and to listen to what it means to be human, and to think about and hear anew what is at stake in this work, and in our thinking. Our work is to argue for continuing to radicalise the project of history and for more history, for the enabling practice of history as criticism. Our work seeks to then – institutionally, intellectually and collaboratively – “intensify the work of history by producing more history: histories of concepts, critical histories of historical practices, histories that interrupt the discourse of capitalism and multiculturalism, histories of the formation of objects and subjects, systems of knowledge and the elaboration of discourses” (Lalu). Sound Image, text and voice are, in Land is in the Air, underscored by a composition/score produced by the musician Healer Oran (Andrei van Wyk) that is simultaneously mesmerizing, evocative and jarring. Healer Oran’s ‘music’ will provide the entry point to continue our engagement with John Mowitt’s compelling argument (in Sounds: The Ambient Humanities, 2015) that a ‘set of theoretical habits grounded in the paradigm of visualism’ and the problem posed by the concept and disciplinary deployment of the gaze, has legitimated a ‘systemic foreclosure’ of thinking differently with, and about sound. In particular our work will track the ways that sound – and particularly music and dialogue – can be shown to hold and perhaps enable a certain (new) way of thinking both the political history of South Africa and the politics of South African history. iMpuma Koloni/The Eastern Cape 'A title is always a heading [cap].' (Derrida) This time, this place – the Eastern Cape – lends itself to thinking about another heading, another shore, ‘an other cape’. We ask what it means to privilege the Eastern Cape? To think about how the derivative/referential nature of the term, ‘Eastern Cape’ asks us to consider what and where this Cape is not (not the Cape Colony or the Western Cape), and where and what it is: east; to think about its singularity, both as an example and as a sounding of the universal. Rather than being either dispassionately logical or returning to the monstrous inventions of colonialism, Paul Carter reminds us that names are “tools for travelling” and “space[s] of exploring”. The ‘Eastern Cape’ – in isiXhosa: iMpuma-Koloni – invites us to pause for a moment and to linger longer than is customary around the very word: ‘cape’. If we do so, there are startling/suggestive associative affinities and proximities that cluster around the etymology and meaning of ‘cape.’ When we think of the ‘Eastern Cape’, it is the isiXhosa iMpuma-Koloni that evokes the relation to Imperial power that has so dominated our historical understanding of this region of South Africa, this part of the world. One variant of the word ‘cape’, therefore, is koloni, colony. Cape/~koloni/ikapa/caput/*kaput: if the Eastern Cape is indeed kaput, in the sense of broken, that anticipation is held in the very notion of ‘cape’, or is it? We want to take a bearing that orients itself to the particular formulation of “the heading of the other, but also perhaps to the other of the heading” to plot an intellectual course and to invite historical and conceptual explorations that “no longer obey the form, the sign, or the logic of the heading, nor even of the anti-heading – of beheading, of decapitation”: the logic of the material and discursive/epistemological consequences of the violence of colonialism, racism and apartheid. The ‘Eastern Cape’ is an intriguing problem space, a fault line: a remarkable physical, material, geographical, ecological space with particular characteristics that can also be considered a conceptual space, a political space, a space that looms large in the historical imagination. Here, several lines intersect and clash, become faults, seize time and space: colonialism and conquest; a settler frontier; apartheid/Bantustan social engineering; different climatological and ecological zones; different geological formations (Cape Fold Mountains v. Drakensberg). And so we not only “have a heading” or “headings,” but want also to “change headings”, but with care. The Eastern Cape is a landscape of colonial containment and destruction, of aesthetic beauty and contradiction, of settlement and of discursive possibility. Read differently again, the Eastern Cape – and the vantage point of the Bantustan, the homeland, the margin – returns us to the repetition of the constitutive inside/outside across time and space, and disciplinary reason. It presents us with the possibilities of sounding the limits certainly of anti-colonial hopes and the romantic discourses that have accompanied them, but even, perhaps, of calling into question the limits of a postcolonial approach. The Eastern Cape, we want to propose, enables a way of thinking with and at the limit … to thinking from the limit, from the margin, from the ‘frontier’, but also from the limit that this fault line, this space, this place, this territory posed for apartheid, and for the post-apartheid, the excess it marked and from which one might reconsider the conceits and certainties of History as a discourse and as a discipline. This work also reflects ongoing efforts to collectively rethink the University of Fort Hare and Rhodes University’s historical location in the Eastern Cape as suggestive and inspiring of new research paths. We are intent on exploring what a vantage point from and location in the Eastern Cape might offer in this postapartheid present of political, social and economic rupture and doubt. Instagram @soundingtheland[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="64px"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row gap="35" content_placement="bottom"][vc_column width="3/5" offset="vc_col-xs-12"][vc_column_text el_class="uppercase text-lg md:text-2xl font-title mb-2 text-naf-neutral-600"]List of Contributors[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="8px"][vc_column_text el_class="page-content page-content-smaller"]Helena Pohlandt-McCormick is associate professor of African history at Rhodes University. She completed her Ph. D. in 1999 at the University of Minnesota. Her work focuses on postcolonial and postapartheid history and theory, archival studies and gender/sexuality studies. Simon Gush is an artist and filmmaker living in Johannesburg. His research looks at the relationship between work, subjectivity and land from the perspective of Southern Africa. Gush has a postgraduate certificate in fine art from the Hoger Instituut van Schone Kunsten in Gent, Belgium (2007/8), and a MA (Sociology), University of the Witwatersrand (2019). Gary Minkley currently holds the NRF SARChI Chair in Social Change and is a Professor of History at the University of Fort Hare in East London. He has a PhD from the University of Cape Town. His research interests are in South African history and the dynamics of social change, in public and visual history, public memory and public space. Healer Oran (Andrei van Wyk) is a Johannesburg-based experimental musician and sound artist with a research focus in sound collage, muzak and noise. His practice includes sound installations, performance, and composition for film and dance. Landiso "Hlalutya" Magqaza is a voice-over artist, playwright, actor, musician and imbongi who hails from Nqabarha in Willowvale. He was born in Imizamo Yethu (Mandela Park) in Hout Bay, Cape Town in 1997. He is currently an MA candidate at Rhodes University in the Department of History with a research interest in media histories, sound studies, oral literature / history and rural development in the Eastern Cape. Akhona "Bhodl’ingqaka" Mafani is an imbongi, playwright, dramatist and musician who hails from Vukani community in the east of Makhanda. At the age of 23 he has established a name for himself in the national cultural and music scene as Bhodl’ingqaka, which means "He-Who-Burps-Cream". He has been in the local music industry for almost a decade and has earned an award for one of his passionately performed plays at the National Arts Festival. Niren Tolsi is an award-winning journalist and recipient of the Ruth First Fellowship and the Heinrich Boell Journalism Fellowship. Formerly a senior journalist at the Mail & Guardian and the Times Media Group’s Deputy Legal Editor, he was a co-founding editor of The Con. He tells stories. Leslie Witz is a professor in the Department of History at the University of the Western Cape. He teaches African history and public history and his research focuses on how different histories are created and represented in the public domain. Books include Apartheid’s Festival; Hostels, Homes Museum (with Noëleen Murray); and Unsettled History (with Ciraj Rassool and Gary Minkley). He is presently working on a book on changing histories in South African museums. Prishani Naidoo is director of the Society, Work and Politics Institute (SWOP) at the University of the Witwatersrand, a position she has held since the start of 2019. Since 2008, she has been a member of the sociology department at Wits. Before that she coordinated the collective Research and Education in Development (RED), and worked at the Heinrich Boell Foundation (Southern Africa office) and Khanya College. She also has a long history of activism that began in the student movement in the 1990s. She is currently working on a book with the provisional title of 'The Subject of Poverty. Policy, Protest and Politics in South Africa after 1994'. Craig Paterson is an historian based in the Eastern Cape and a Postdoctoral Fellow with the NRF SARChI Chair in Social Change (University of Fort Hare). His research interests include the everyday life of people in rural areas of southern Africa and the politics of land & property, particularly as it relates to the history of domesticated plants and animals; cultural history, legal culture and prohibitions; and, the development of ideas around the meaning of ‘citizen’, ‘denizen’, ‘civilian’, and ‘subject’.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row gap="35" content_placement="bottom"][vc_column width="3/5" offset="vc_col-xs-12"][vc_column_text el_class="uppercase text-lg md:text-2xl font-title mb-2 text-naf-neutral-600"]Acknowledgements[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="8px"][vc_column_text el_class="page-content page-content-smaller"]Lerato Bereng and Dineo Diphofa from Stevenson, Cape Town and Johannesburg. Zaida Allie and Melven, SAHRA Professor Alan Kirkaldy History Department, Rhodes University Jaine Roberts, Research Office, Rhodes University SARChI Chair in Social Change, University of Fort Hare Tom Jeffery tomjeffery.co.za Facebook @TomJeffereyPhotography Dr Cornelius Thomas, Cory Library[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width="1/2"][vc_empty_space height="64"][vc_single_image image="54371" img_size="full"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/2"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space height="64"][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Locked down, but pursuing – if warily – lines of flight enabled in this new era of digital technologies, Sounding the Land listens back across the ground of 200 years to find our bearings now, in 2020.
