kagablog

This film by Aryan Kaganof was shot in 2005, during the first symposium organised by our fellow citizen Dimitri Voudouris at the University of Witwatersrand, near Johannesburg. Its final editing was completed this year, as the film is really a formal, musical and, above all, stylistic improvisation, which took time to be transferred onto film.

The film opens with the words of the composer Francisco Lopez and continues with those of the theoreticians George Lewis (an American, thanks to whom the film was shown at the latest jazz festival at Columbia University), Christo Doherty and the musicologist James Sey. The scene is set in a way that’s free and advanced, making us look forward to hearing the improvised and naturally modern music, and goes well with the musical content of the film. Kaganof has brought together a large number of images of the festivities and preparations, and we watch musicians of every nationality experimenting and rehearsing with their musical instruments. These experiments are presented as a visual and acoustic symphony. Voudouris adds that the festival will also be a multi-media event.

The images are of an anguished and poetic nature, marked by an inner desire to see and capture on film as much as possible of this artistic event which is proof of a cultural renaissance in the filmmaker’s country. Several of the people talking or participating in this experimental documentary have already got their own columns on KagaBlog, notably Voudouris, James Webb, Doherty, Michael Blake and Joel Assaizky. With them are other musicians who don’t yet have a column, but who are mentioned in relevant articles on our site, such as the saxophonist Zim Ngqawana, and Luc Houtkamp (see our article from 15-07-07 about his clip “How we learned to stop worrying and love Mandela°), who are the most promising young musicians in the country today.
To conclude, we’d like to quote a French journalist in homage to Lucky Dube, the recently assassinated South African reggae musician. He had given a concert in Paris a few months earlier, and Ngqawana had played at the same venue the day before. Although Lucky Dube was not at the Unyazi festival, (a festival very different from his musical world), we’ like to pay homage to him – “Lucky Dube appeared in Paris for the last time in April, invited by the Cité de la Musique, as part of the “Faubourgs d’Afrique du Sud” series. With formidable energy and supported by an incredibly efficient group, the artist, personifying the doubts and disillusions of the “new” South Africa, performed “Respect”, his 21st and ultimate album which came out in 2006” (Patrick Labesse, “Le Monde, 28th October 2007, p.18).

dionysos andronis

translated from the french by lucy lyall grant