kagablog

photo: joel assaizky

Lewis graduated from Yale University with a degree in philosophy. He has served as a professor at Columbia University in New York City since 2004, having previously taught at the University of California, San Diego.

In 2002 Lewis received a MacArthur Fellowship.

Lewis has long been active in creating and performing with interactive computer systems, most notably his software called Voyager, which “listens to” and reacts to live performers. Lewis gave an invited keynote lecture and performance at NIME-06, the sixth international conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, which was held at IRCAM, Paris, in June 2006.

Lewis is featured extensively in Unyazi of the Bushveld (2005), a documentary about the first symposium of electronic music held in Africa, directed by Aryan Kaganof.

In 2008 Lewis published a book-length history of the AACM titled A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music (University of Chicago Press).

more info here

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

Embracing dissonance

At the Independent Armchair Theatre on December 9

Don’t be fooled by its ironic billing. Pop Shield: An Evening of Improvised Experimental Music and Film by Some Umlungus is not just another underground sales pitch selling improvisation as an excuse for a self-indulgent jam session. Not if the umlungus in question happen to be an all-star cast of collaborators, including electronica poster boy Felix Laband, legendary dub surgeon Kalahari Surfer Warrick Sony, the Buckfever Underground’s abstract guitar adventurer Righard Kapp and prolific author, filmmaker and cultural provocateur Aryan Kaganof — that’s for sure.

felix laband

The evening begins with the Cape Town premiere of Aryan Kaganof’s experimental 45-minute documentary Unyazi of the Bushveld (2007), which documents Africa’s first international festival of electronic music held in Jo’burg in 2005. Thereafter Kapp sculpts an improvised soundtrack for Kaganof’s set of accompanying spoken-word poetry based on feedback sourced from electric and acoustic guitar and a no-input mixing desk, as well as other peripheral guitar sounds. Finally, the pick of the Pop Shield pack teams Kapp with Sony and Laband for what the press release describes as “a loosely structured, improvised sonic tableau, involving esoteric, mostly locally derived samples, fractured, dubby moodscapes and prepared song forms attempting to convey a sense of the hardwired dread and cognitive dissonances embedded in the contemporary South African psyche”.

righard kapp

Hang on. How are you supposed to dance to such dissonance? Well, that’s precisely the point of staging such an event. Rather than serve up an easily digestible “pop” entertainment package of “phat” electro beat sedatives or colour-by-number indie-rock sales pitches for punters to passively party to, Pop Shield prompts audiences to engage with actively and make sense of the experimental improvisations emanating from the stage. “Improvisation is about broadening my musical vocabulary, acknowledging the beauty in contingency and accident — and by implication foregrounding the physical and textural over the cerebral, that which the mind has mulled over,” explains Kapp. “[But] I hesitate to call myself an improviser, as I cultivate playing habits. I prefer to say I compose with elements beyond my control.” The gig starts at 8pm. Admission is R40. — Miles Keylock

this article first appeared here

don’t miss it
independent armchair theatre
lower main road, observatory
cape town
starts 8pm

“Kaganof’s film successfully unearths the efforts and diverse motivations of a subversive group of musicians who, as local muso Warrick Sony suggests, refuse to censor their expression to comply with the musical tastes of the masses.”
- Mary Corrigall, Sunday Independent, 8 July 2007.

An improvised performance of poetry set to music by Kaganof and Righard Kapp will follow. Thereafter Felix Laband and Warrick Sony will perform together for the first time ever.

DJ Chairman Miao (Cherry Bomb/Rose Lombard) will end the evening with a mix of vintage African rock ‘n’ roll.

The event grew organically out of filmmaker Aryan Kaganof’s request to Rosemary Lombard to organise a Cape Town screening for “Unyazi of the Bushveld” (45 min, 2007), his experimental documentary of Unyazi 2005, Africa’s first international electronic music symposium, an event which was conceived and organised by Dimitri Voudouris, and held at Wits University, Johannesburg in September 2005. Rosemary saw the Cape Town premiere of Unyazi of the Bushveld as an opportunity to facilitate a live collaborative performance by some of this city’s established electronic sound innovators, in context with the spirit of experimentation and exchange espoused at the original symposium.

After the unyazi film screening at 8.30, the live performance will commence with abstract guitarist Righard Kapp, possibly most familiar to audiences from his work with the Buckfever Underground, accompanying spoken word poetry by Kaganof. Thereafter, Kapp will be joined by prolific music producer and sound collector Warrick Sony (aka Kalahari Surfers) and electronica superstar Felix Laband for a loosely structured, improvised sonic tableau, involving esoteric, mostly locally-derived samples, fractured dubby moodscapes and prepared songforms attempting to convey a sense of the hardwired dread and cognitive dissonances embedded in the contemporary South African psyche.

unyazi of the bushveld features performances by zim ngqawana, pops mohamed, michael blake, pauline oliveros, james webb, george lewis and many others. sound design is by joel assaizky and the film was produced by the african noise foundation.

A series of concerts and festival around the POW Ensemble

POW Ensemble plays its two major programmes: a loud speaker performance “Speaking of the Speaker”, and the new programme with songs “Homage to Hazard”. More special projects are led by DNA, Guy Harries and Tom Tlalim. A musical meeting, in collaboration with STEIM, will take place between three virtuoso trombone players who make use of live electronics, each in very different ways. The series is closed by an extraordinary confrontation between Jacob van Eyck’s 17th century music and modern electric guitar.

The festival weekend (24-25 Nov) is marked by extraordinary performances, concerts, films and lectures, highlighting specific aspects of 21st century music. Short lectures/demonstrations are given by grand masters like graphic designer/video artist Jaap Drupsteen, musician/theater maker Peter Zegveld, Circuit Bender Gijs Gieskes and sound artist Horst Rickels.

A special version of John Cage’s Cartridge Music is performed, being the result of a series of workshops at the Koorenhuis by students under direction of DNA. And a rarely shown documentary by Aryan Kaganof, about the very first festival on electronic music in Africa: Unyazi of the Bushveld (2007).

Dates: November 24/25 (weekend festival),

Unyazi of the Bushveld

In september 2005 vond in Johannesburg voor de allereerste keer een festival voor elektronische muziek plaats. Belangrijke musici en componisten als Pauline Oliveros, Lukas Ligeti, George Lewis, Yannis Keriakides en Francisco Lopez traden op, naast Afrikanen als Zim Ngqwana, Louis Moholo, The Kalahari Surfer en de legendarische Egyptische componist Halim El-Dabh. Ook het POW Ensemble was van de partij met een speciale SA edition.

Filmer Aryan Kaganof, in Nederland bekender onder de naam Ian Kerkhof (Naar de Klote!) maakte een zeer originele documentaire over het Unyazi Festival, waarin beelden en de muziek van verschillende optredens worden gemixt tot een nieuw geheel.

this announcement first appeared on the website of donemus

Ce film de Aryan Kaganof a été tourné en 2005, lors du premier symposium éponyme organisé par notre concitoyen Dimitri Voudouris à l’Université de Witwatersrand, près de Johannesburg. Le montage final a été achevé cette année, puisque ce film est vraiment une improvisation formelle, musicale et, avant tout, stylistique et ainsi cette improvisation a pris du temps pour être transférée en film.

Le film commence avec les mots du compositeur Francisco Lopez et continue avec ceux des théoriciens George Lewis (qui est américain et grâce à qui ce film a été projeté au dernier festival jazz de l’Université Columbia), Christo Doherty et le musicologue James Sey. La mise en scène est libre et avancée et elle nous laisse dans l’impatience de connaître ces musiques improvisées et modernes par leur nature. Elle est en accord avec le contenu musical du film. Kaganof a rassemblé un grand nombre d’images sur les festivités et leurs préparations. Ainsi on voit les musiciens de toutes les nationalités en train de faire des essais et des répétitions avec leurs instruments de musique. Ces essais sont présentés comme une symphonie visuelle et acoustique. Le directeur Voudouris ajoute que ce festival serait aussi un événement multi-média.

La nature des images est angoissée et poétique, marquée par une volonté intérieure de visiter et d’imprimer sur pellicule le maximum de cette organisation artistique qui fait preuve d’une renaissance culturelle au pays du cinéaste. Plusieurs personnalités qui parlent ou qui participent à ce documentaire expérimental ont déjà leur rubrique personnelle au KagaBlog. Je vous parle surtout de Voudouris, de James Webb, de Doherty, de Michael Blake et de Joel Assaizky. Avec ceux-ci il y a les autres musiciens qui n’ont pas encore de rubrique mais dont des articles relatifs de notre site en parlent. Par exemple le saxophoniste Zim Ngqawana et Luc Houtkamp (voir notre article du 15-07-07 sur son clip « Comment nous avons arrêté de nous inquiéter et aimé Mandela ») sont des jeunes musiciens les plus prometteurs du pays aujourd’hui.

Pour terminer nous allons utiliser les mots d’un journaliste français comme hommage à Lucky Dube, le musicien reggae sud-africain assassiné récemment. Ce dernier avait donné un concert à Paris quelques mois avant. Ngqawana était sur le même concert un jour avant lui. Même si Lucky Dube n’était pas au festival Unyazi, un festival très différent de son univers musical, un petit hommage s’impose par nous : « Lucky Dube s’est produit à Paris, pour la dernière fois, en avril, invité par la Cité de la Musique, dans le cadre du cycle «Faubourgs d’Afrique du Sud ». Formidable d’énergie, entouré d’un groupe à l’efficacité épatante, l’artiste, qui incarne les doutes et les désillusions de la «nouvelle » Afrique du Sud, y présentait Respect, sorti en 2006, son ultime et vingt et unième album », écrit par Patrick Labesse in «Le Monde » du 28 octobre 2007, p.18.

dionysos andronis

September 5th, 2007

Editorista remembers seeing Zim Ngqawana playing jazz in the Netherlands at a festival, it was a moment of such pride tempered with intense home sickness for home sweet Africa as Zim’s music washed over the room, captivating the audience. Any African’s or anyone interested in African Jazz and our stories in general in and around New York City, catch Zim live as he sets the tone for the SA jazz doccie entitled “Unyazi of the Bushveld” that’s showing at the ”Columbia Harlem Festival of Global Jazz Documentary Film” festival:

African Noise Foundation is proud to announce the selection of a South African documentary production for screening in the prestigious Columbia University Columbia Harlem Festival of Global Jazz Documentary Film.

The 29 september screening will be preceded by a concert of the Zim Ngqawana Quartet on 28 september.

“Unyazi of the Bushveld” (2007). Aryan Kaganof, director (South Africa). 45 min.

The Zulu word “unyazi” can be translated into English as “lightning,” an apposite double image of rupture and new beginnings for UNYAZI 2005, Africa’s first festival of electronic music, the brainchild of new music composer Dimitri Voudouris. Aryan Kaganof’s documentary on this singular historical event is suitably non-linear in structure, as it explores the complex relationship, both assumed and actual, among technology, the African and Afrodiasporic worlds, and the multiculturalism that mediates them. We are presented with a vision freed from the romantically anti-technological stances of the early Nègritude movement (and that of 1960s American black cultural nationalisms), and the concomitant assumptions that nothing of a technological nature can emerge from a black-ruled world. But we are never far from South Africa’s recent history. Until this festival, jazz drummer Louis Moholo, exiled since the early 1960s, had never been on the campus of Johannesburg’s University of the Witwatersrand–or rather, as he commented drily, “We came, but they chased us off with dogs. That was 1962.”

this article originally appeared on represent.co.za

Wed, 05 Sep 2007

African Noise Foundation has announced the selection of the South African documentary Unyazi of the Bushveld for screening in the prestigious Columbia University Columbia Harlem Festival of Global Jazz Documentary Film. The 45 minute documentary is directed by Aryan Kaganof.

The Zulu word “unyazi” can be translated into English as “lightning,” an apposite double image of rupture and new beginnings for UNYAZI 2005, Africa’s first festival of electronic music, the brainchild of new music composer Dimitri Voudouris. Kaganof’s documentary on this singular historical event is suitably non-linear in structure, as it explores the complex relationship, both assumed and actual, among technology, the African and Afrodiasporic worlds, and the multiculturalism that mediates them.

Professor George Lewis explains the essence of the documentary thus: “We are presented with a vision freed from the romantically anti-technological stances of the early N’gritude movement (and that of 1960s American black cultural nationalisms), and the concomitant assumptions that nothing of a technological nature can emerge from a black-ruled world. But we are never far from South Africa’s recent history. Until 2005, jazz drummer Louis Moholo, exiled since the early 1960s, had never been on the campus of Johannesburg’s University of the Witwatersrand — or rather, as he commented drily, ‘We came, but they chased us off with dogs. That was 1962’.”

this article first appeared on screenafrica.com

UNYAZI OF THE BUSHVELD
South Africa - 2007
Direction: Aryan Kaganof
Camera: Thembeka Laduma
Editing: C. R. Mandala
Sound design: Joel Assaizky
sound recordist: JA Assagai
Music: Zim Ngqawana, Luc Houtkamp, Lukas Ligeti, Matthew Ostrowski etc
Cast: George Lewis, Pauline Oliveros, Halim El-Dabh, Francisco Lopez etc
Format: Video
Time: 45 min.
Original Version: Inglese
Production: African Noise Foundation
Sales: kaganof@mweb.co.za

Unyazi of the Bushveld, 42 DOC Aryan Kaganof 2006 (SOUTH AFRICA)
Documentary on experimental music event in Johannesburg. MON 30 july 12:00

7th international bunker film festival
near ventimiglia
if you would like to visit the festival and stay at the nearby campsite contact bunkercamping@xs4all.nl
full programme on the website

watch unyazi of the bushveld right now on the web for free! courtesy of de witte doos online gallery. click here

POW Ensemble at the Unyazi festival. The first festival for electronic music in Africa. Johannesburg September 2005

This is a collage of two pieces, made by Kaganof.

Line up:

Luc Houtkamp, Matthew Ostrowski (computers), Burkhard Stangl (guitar), Marc Duby (bass), students from Wits Jazz department

Director: Aryan Kaganof (edited because of youtubes 10 minutes maximum)

FRANCISCO LOPEZ

I don’t expect people to see nothing or to have no visual. Most people have visual things, fantasies or whatever, and that is the natural thing to happen, so there’s nothing wrong with that. But I like that fact that if I don’t put any specific images attached to what I’m doing then I’m giving the freedom, and this is what I believe, for different people to have their own creations. Actually I think that music is created by a process that involves a person working with the sound and a person listening. If you don’t have a listening experience you don’t have music, that’s what I think. So music for me is not complete until there is a listener that considers, that receives and considers that that thing is music.

NATHANIEL STERN

Unyazi is a Zulu term for lightning. With quite spiritual connotations, you know there is no Zulu or Southern African phrase that’s non-English for electricity or electronic so when he wanted to say something in an indigenous language having to do with electronic music unyazi was the best he could come up with.

DIMITRI VOUDOURIS

What we presented at the Unyazi 2005 festival would be a broad spectrum approach on what could be done with electronics in music. Where electronics would address from interactive processing in live performance, lap top performance, automation, where instrumewnts would work by themselves, signal processing and also as far as multi-media theatre.

CHRISTO DOHERTY

I think one of the worst stigmas of computer music is the lap-top with the solitary lap-top operator just occasionaly moving a mouse.

MATTHEW OSTROWSKI

I was raised learning to improvise with acoustic musicians so I had to keep up. And I was using a big giant analogue synth at the time, in a big suitcase. But I was trained in a world of fast response. A lot of people who started doing computer stuff, especially younger people, have never played with acoustic musicians, have possibly never played with anybody else and also don’t necessarily have a lot of experience in music or thinking about music and computers and stuff like that, so they sit in their living rooms and they stack 14 out of synch loops on top of each other and go like, this is so cool. And think that therefore that must be interesting. And so I think that there’s a lot of people not really being musicians in this business. And I’ve actually talked to a lot of people who say “No, I’m not a musician.” And I kind of think sorry, you’re on stage, you’re producing sound I’m supposed to listen to, you’re a musician.

george lewis and zim ngqawana, unyazi, johannesburg 2005, photo aryan kaganof

GEORGE LEWIS

I’ve been doing computer music now, the first piece was in 1979, so it’s been a long road and it’s always connected with this idea of breathing life into things and mainly about empathy. So the music proceeds from computer programs that exist and operate in an empathetic space that we create as musicians.

WARRICK SONY

It’s a virtual collaboration between Karlheinz Stockhausen and Ladysmith Black Mambazo. It happened on the lap top. I set myself the project with the records I have, the vinyl, to digitize and then merge to see how they work together and then I suddenly thought instead of digitizing my vinyl I’ll see what I can steal on the internet, knowing that weird music is hard to find, and I found quite a lot actually.

Thanks Aryan, and thanks again for the dvd you sent. I loved seeing it, and have watched it twice so far. Once back to back with your Tekno. It really captures the mood of the festival and of the time. I think you are very good at getting that in your films. And also allowing us to see these things through your own eyes/ particular lens.

That said, I don’t think the film is right for the 2nd Unyazi, (I wonder if we will even have a filmic component), as it is such a striking portrait of the last one, and the last one is precisely what I am trying to get away from to a greater or lesser degree.

Love,

James