In case you were too young to attend William Kentridge’s original version of the early nineties puppet play ‘Woyzeck on the Highveld’ (as I was), the South African Handspring Puppet Company gives us a new chance to see it. They’re on tour in the UK these days. Future dates elsewhere will follow (I hope).
The Ticket
August 5, 2010 By 1 Comment
Video of short sketch comedy scene with South African actors from a Dutch TV show. The setting is the 2010 World Cup.
– Sean Jacobs
Everybody Say “Yeah Yeah!”
June 9, 2010 By 2 Comments
Some of us will be a bit preoccupied with, you know, the biggest event in the world this weekend so it’s only natural that this Sunday will come and go without our tuning in to watch the Tony Awards. But then, I’ve never actually watched the Tony Awards.
Of course, as we all know, Fela! is this year’s runaway Broadway hit, garnering 11 Tony nominations, the most of any other show. And just in time to remind those of us—including myself—that haven’t seen it just what we’re missing, comes the release of the official commercial, from creative production company Shilo.
Good luck to cast and crew.
Fela! wins on Broadway
May 5, 2010 By 1 Comment
Bill T Jones’ “Fela!,” the musical interpretation of the life of the Afrobeat king, is up for 11 Tony Awards–the most of any show this year–including Best Musical. I haven’t seen any of the other shows up for contention, but I can attest to the brilliance of the show. From Jones’ direction, to the acting of the leads Sahr Ngauajah and Lilias White, the set, the music and the dancers, and the Well done. (I won’t get drawn into debates again about the show’s premise or omissions, whether ridiculous charges of minstrelsy or revisionism about Fela’s backward sexual politics.)
Well done.
Watch the announcements on The Tony Awards website just to hear actor Jeff Daniels–announcing the nominees–mangling the show’s title: “Feel-laa.”
America? Begging in Nigeria!
May 3, 2010 By 4 Comments
Courtesy of the folks over at This is Africa, I ran across this video of an (presumably) American woman begging in a market in Mushin in Lagos. If this is meant to be satire, it seems to me to fall particularly flat. It doesn’t help that the video was, as far as I can tell, posted without context or information, although according to TIA, it comes from Jelili Atiku, a Nigerian sculptor, performance and video artist (with whom I am unfamiliar). It is unclear whether everyone here is in on the performance, or whether the Nigerian people in the video are merely there to provide (unintended) comic relief. Judging from their reactions, though, most of them think (realize?) it’s a joke. But at whose expense? Perhaps, the woman at 2:19 sums it up best, “America? Begging in Nigeria! No you’ve come to cheat us.“
William Kentridge talks Opera
March 2, 2010 By Leave a Comment
The New York Times has a preview of William Kentridge‘s adaptation of a Shostakovich opera (based on a short story by Gogol), “The Nose,” which opens on Friday at The Metropolitan Opera in New York City. (My 4 year old has been talking about this for months–her dance teacher is performing in the production.)
EVERYBODY WANTS FELA TO SUCCEED (ON BROADWAY)
December 8, 2009 By 1 Comment
The New York mainstream press is all over Bill T Jones’ musical “Fela!,” which recently opened in the city. Everybidy wants the show to succeed in a downmarket. “The New York Times” has done a few pieces– a preview and a review, while “The Village Voice” published a long piece by one of its music writers, Rob Harvilla, who also wondered alout about Fela’s political legacy:
THE PROBLEM WITH OPERA
October 21, 2009 By Leave a Comment
A South African production of the American opera, “Porgy and Bess,” is touring Britain (composer George Gershwin insisted on all black casts and they can’t assemble one in the UK) so the predictable moaning about whether black people care for opera are raised. The Guardian, in an otherwise informative piece today on the backgrounds of some of the cast, has to complain about the South African government’s “… blinkered view, early in the post-apartheid era, that opera was a Eurocentric, whites-only art form that deserved little or no state support.”
