A high-quality mix of poets and musicians come together for the Poetry Africa tour, which this year travels to Zimbabwe and Malawi as well as South African cities. Performance showcases take place in Blantyre (8th October), Johannesburg (11th), Harare (13th), and Cape Town (15th) before culminating at the main Poetry Africa festival in Durban from17th to 22nd October.
Organised by the Centre for Creative Arts (University of KwaZulu-Natal), and supported by the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund (principal funder), Mimeta, and Hivos, Poetry Africa on Tour is an effort to celebrate the beauty and power of poetry with ever-wider constituencies, cultures and countries.
Poets and Musicians
The line-up includes acclaimed writer of poetry, fiction, nonfiction and plays Kwame Dawes, who was born in Ghana but spent most of his childhood and early adult life in Jamaica. He is also an actor, playwright, producer, an accomplished storyteller, broadcaster, and was the lead singer in Ujamaa, a reggae band. Winner of a Pushcart Prize, Dawes has produced a prolific sixteen collections of poetry. Kwame Dawes is Distinguished Poet in Residence at the University of South Carolina and also the programming director of the Calabash International Literary Festival in Jamaica. In addition to poetry performances, Dawes will also be presenting a Poetry Writing workshop in Johannesburg and his seminal lecture on the Politics and Culture in the Lyrics of Bob Marley in Blantyre and Harare.
Shailja Patel’s US publishing debut, Migritude (2010) - a striking portrait of women's lives and migrant journeys - went to number one on Amazon's bestsellers in Asian Poetry. This Kenyan poet, playwright, political economist and activist has received numerous awards and fellowships and her work has been translated into 15 languages. Named in 2011 as one of Fifty Inspirational African Feminists by the African Women's Development Fund, she is a founding member of Kenyans For Peace, Truth and Justice, which helped pull Kenya back from the brink of war during the 2008 elections. Patel will present a lecture in Johannesburg and Durban on the resulting Kenyan Trials currently unfolding in the International Criminal Court.
Always a popular performer is iconic South African poet, MC, actress, television presenter and producer Lebo Mashile. She was in 2006 awarded the Noma Award for Publishing in Africa for her first poetry collection, and has been involved in innovative cross-media collaborations such as that with choreographer Sylvia Glasser and Moving Into Dance Moiphotong.
From neighbouring Botswana comes poet, writer and voice-over artist Tjawangwa TJ Dema. Chairperson of The Writers Association of Botswana, she is the founding member of the Exoduslivepoetry! collective, who have coordinated Botswana’s sole annual poetry festival since 2004.
Musical dimensions enrich the tightly packaged Poetry Africa programme. Winner of a string of major awards, Senegalese rapper Didier Awadi is the most visible figure of Francophone West African hip-hop, and previously toured in Southern Africa with his legendary outfit Positive Black Soul. Awadi’s hard-hitting lyrics and consciousness-raising protest songs voice the hopes and fears of Africa’s young generation today. Awadi is accompanied by guitarist Tibass Kangu from the DRC.
Defying the tradition that women in Zimbabwe do not play the mbira, Chiwoniso has emerged as one of the defining experts in the art, accompanied by her incredible singing. Chiwoniso was a core member of the multi-country all-women band Womens’ Voice, and has her own acoustic group Chiwoniso and Vibe Culture.
Singer and djembe player Khadijatou Doyneh, who spent the formative years of her life in Guyana, South America and London, previously toured South Africa with the Ngoma Project, working with young people in township schools. She is a co-founder of the Step Afrika! International Cultural Festival.
Then there is the brilliant Chris Abani. Abani’s first novel about a Neo-Nazi takeover of Nigeria, got him arrested, and his play Song of a Broken Flute (1990), resulted in a sentence as a political prisoner. Currently a Professor at the University of California, and the recipient of major PEN awards, Abani’s most recent book of poetry, Sanctificum (2010), is a sequence of linked poems, combining religious ritual, the Igbo language of his Nigerian homeland and reggae rhythms.
Special guest from the Netherlands for the Harare and Cape Town legs of the tour is poet, performer and composer Jaap Blonk, world-renowned for his highly original sound poetry – a whole new language that evokes a new way of listening, and thinking! Blonk was the founder and leader of innovative bands Splinks (modern jazz) and Braaxtaal (avant-rock).
In Johannesburg the Poetry Africa Showcase will include Myesha Jenkins and Oswald Mtshali. Jenkins was part of the Feelah Sistah Collective (which included Lebo Mashile), and will launch her new poetry collection at the Poetry Africa festival in Durban. Oswald Mtshali is a legend of South African literature, whose poetry and stories have enchanted readers since his first book Sounds of a Cowhide Drum came out in 1971.
The tour is joined in Cape Town by Gabeba Baderoon and Sandile Dikeni. Baderoon is author of three well-received collections of poetry, and recipient of the DaimlerChrysler Poetry Award amongst others, while the charismatic Dikeni, also with three poetry collections to his credit, makes a welcome return to the scene following a car accident a few years ago.
Talented Malawian poets Babangoni Kubvala Chisale, Benedicto Wokomaatani Malunga and Qabaniso ‘Q’ participate in the Blantyre Showcase; Zimbabweans Dikson and Xapa will share their skills in Harare.Apart from the performance showcases other activity programmes include panel discussions, seminars, workshops, schools programmes and meetings with local artists.
One of the tour objectives is the development of partnerships and exchange with cultural organisations in the respective centres, and principal partner organisations for this project are African Arts Institute in Cape Town, African Synergy in Johannesburg, Pamberi Trust and Book Café in Harare, and the Blantyre Arts Festival in Blantyre.
Immediately following the tour, a busy week of poetry activities commences at the Poetry Africa festival in Durban, involving a full contingent of twenty poets from a dozen different countries. For more details on Poetry Africa, and the tour, contact the Centre for Creative Arts on +27 31 2602506 or visit www.cca.ukzn.ac.za
For media queries contact:
Sharlene Versfeld
Tel: +27 31-8115628
Fax: 0866827334
Email: sharlene@versfeld.co.za
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