South Africa
BBC Singers, BBCSO, Jeannin, Barbican review - from stormy weather to blue skiesThursday, 03 October 2024“Bold, ambitious, and good for the sector.” So said Charlotte Moore, the BBC chief content officer, who currently earns £468,000, in March last year as she defended plans to close the BBC Singers as part of a package of swingeing musical cuts masked... Read more... |
Gavin Jantjes: To Be Free, Whitechapel Gallery review - a sweet and sour response to horrific circumstancesWednesday, 19 June 2024Born in Cape Town in 1948, Gavin Jantjes grew up under apartheid. He openly criticised the regime in his work and, forced into exile, was granted political asylum in Germany in 1973.Nearly 10 years later he moved to England and his Whitechapel... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Mike Makhalemele & Winston “Mankunku” Ngozi - The Bull And The LionSunday, 14 January 2024The Bull And The Lion was originally released in 1976 by Jo'burg, a South African label which opened-up for business in 1973 with a couple of singles and the first album by black singer Margaret Singana. Her debut LP was titled Lady Africa. The same... Read more... |
Selaocoe, Schimpelsberger, LSO, Ward, Barbican review - force of nature crowns dance jamboreeFriday, 17 November 2023It was good of the EFG London Jazz Festival to support this concert and bring in a different audience from the one the LSO is used to. But how to define it? Jazz only briefly figured in works by Gary Carpenter, Bartók, Barber and Abel Selaocoe. The... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Cry, the Beloved Country (1951)Tuesday, 10 October 2023Movie Blu-rays and DVDs brim with superficially engaging extras that frequently fail to illuminate the main attraction. The opposite is true of Cry, the Beloved Country, which has been restored in 4K and newly released in StudioCanal’s Vintage... Read more... |
Edinburgh Fringe 2023 reviews: Dark Noon / Concerned OthersWednesday, 23 August 2023Dark Noon, Pleasance at EICC ★★★★★If there’s a more ambitious theatre production than Dark Noon at the Fringe this year, I’ve yet to see it. That’s ambitious in terms of its staging: during the course of the show’s 100 minutes (yes, it’s a... Read more... |
The Sacrifice, Dada Masilo, Brighton Dome review - eye-popping dance from South AfricaFriday, 24 February 2023The Soweto-born dancer-choreographer Dada Masilo has made her name telling classic European stories in African dialect. The last piece she toured in the UK was a striking Giselle in which the avenging Wilis were not undead brides but ancestral... Read more... |
William Kentridge, Royal Academy review - from art to theatre, and back againMonday, 24 October 2022South African artist William Kentridge appears on video in his studio, twice. On the right he sits scribbling, waiting for an idea to surface. Meanwhile his alter ego stands impatiently by, trying to peek at his other half’s notes and, desperate for... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Abel SelaocoeFriday, 23 September 2022South-African cellist Abel Selaocoe is about to begin his third major concert in London in under a year. As the support artist for kora player Ballake Sissoko and cellist Vincent Segal at the Roundhouse in January, he received a lengthy ovation for... Read more... |
TUKS Camerata, Voces8 Live from London online review - a diverse choral selectionTuesday, 30 August 2022The Voces8 Live from London, now in its seventh iteration, has progressed from streaming choral chamber music from an empty studio to an 80-strong visiting choir in a packed Christ Church, Spitalfields. In doing this the festival has retained its... Read more... |
Blk Jks, Moth Club review - Johannesburg’s art-rockers are more straightforward live than on albumThursday, 23 June 2022Figuratively, “Tselane” is Blk Jks’s “Stairway to Heaven.” Both songs begin quietly and move through passages of turbulence suggesting an impending tempest. Each has a command of dynamics which pulls the listener in, generating anticipation for what... Read more... |
Album: Wren Hinds - A Child's Chant for a New MillenniumThursday, 02 June 2022Side Two of A Child’s Chant for a New Millennium opens with “Wrenbird,” a consideration of whether it’s possible to have a bird’s freedom of mobility. “Anywhere but here,” sings Wren Hinds. He may not be happy where he is, but the accompanying... Read more... |
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