“I think a great conversation to have after the screening or the performance is whether we still insist. And for this particular performance, we still insist and what that particular conversation would be and what we still insist about,” said Zimbabwean artist and activist Chiurai ahead of Thursday’s performance at the Constitution Hill.
FILE: Artwork by Kudzanai Chiurai from We Live in Silence. Picture: Supplied.
JOHANNESBURG – Throughout history, music has been used to send a message to the oppressors and encourage the oppressed to continue fighting against undemocratic systems.
In South Africa, musicians and activists like the late Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela used music as a vehicle to share with the world experiences under apartheid, and to fight against the struggle.
“I would think freedom in this day and age would be of course premised around notions of the economy, but most importantly I think it would be gesturing towards notions of psychological freedom and of course that is an extension of how’s notions around the dictum by Biko in Black Consciousness of the importance of the mind.
“So thinking about freedom in this day and age would be thinking through notions of freedom around the psychosocial sort of like phenomenon,” said Tumi Mogorosi to Eyewitness News.
Group Theory: Black Music is out today.
The idea of group theory is something I take from American poet and scholar Amiri Baraka. He speaks about how new Black music needs to find the self and kill it.https://t.co/4lcQxdl06O pic.twitter.com/5sRfNlVl2oTumi Mogorosi (@mogorosi_tumi) July 8, 2022
Drummer, Mogorosi and the Freedom Now Suite will on Thursday perform at the premiere of We Still Insist – a film adapted by Zimbabwean artist and activist Kudzanai Chiurai, at the Women’s Jail Lawn at Constitution Hill.
The performance will be a readaptation of Max Roach’s We Still Insist – a 1961 jazz album and a vocal-instrumental suite exploring themes related to the Civil Rights Movement, and will be accompanied by an audio-visual installation by Chiurai.
“The album also deals with the notions of emancipation and freedom and I mean thinking of the long history of sort of like independence Africa, I think 2022 marks the year we’re thinking about a lot of things and this album sort of like sits well with the narratives around black freedom and black emancipation,” said Mogorosi.
Roach’s album was considered highly controversial for its support of the civil rights movement and was banned in some countries.
In 2022, the Library of Congress selected the album for preservation in the US National Recording Registry as being “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.”
“I think a great conversation to have after the screening or the performance is whether we still insist. And for this particular performance, we still insist and what that particular conversation would be and what we still insist about,” said Chiurai.
She said with all things happening not only in South Africa, but across the world, art is able to facilitate and be a conduit of necessary conversations.
“I think it directs questions, poses questions, challenges, refuses to forget, and refuses to be bullied. And I think for cultural workers, art also becomes like a binding force that enables further discussions to marinate. So I think the visuals, whether film, literature, or music art, are a great facilitator for so many other questions we need to ask and a great facilitator for so many conversations we need to have about our present, future and past,” said Chiurai.
“This will be a presentation of a visual and audio archive installation that speaks to the history of oppression, resistance and liberation throughout Africa in the latter half of the 20th century…as our present is still shaped by our colonial history. The collaboration also evokes the traditions of resistance, solidarity and collaboration that are synonymous with the album We Insist,” added Chiurai.
The Freedom Now Suite is made up of some of the country’s top jazz artists such as Mogorosi, Gabi Motuba, Dalisu Ndlazi, DJKenzhero, Malcolm Jiyane, Ndabo Zulu, Ofenste Sebula, Gontse Makhene, Robin Fassie and together with Chiurai, multi-disciplinary contemporary artists working in photography, drawings, film, painting, and sculpture, who have created a powerful continuation of the work of Roach.
Kudzanai Chiurai nous prsente The Library of Things We Forgot to Remember. En rassemblant des archives, il ractive les histoires des luttes de libration, panafricaines ou en faveur des droits civiques.
Regardez toute l’interview : https://t.co/b7fATNd5Cm pic.twitter.com/RyFDMWTeWN
Palais de Tokyo (@PalaisdeTokyo) February 4, 2022
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