Browsing by Subject "African Music Performance"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open Access
    Tatei Watu (Our Father): A Tribute to Venâncio Mbande
    (2022) Zango, Matchume; Herbst, Theo
    TATEI WATU (Our Father): Tribute to Venâncio Mbande is a creative project that culminated in the production of a CD Album in which thirteen musicians participated in the recording of musical arrangements inspired by the music of Mozambican composer Venâncio Mbande, a master of the traditional Chopi timbila xylophone style known as ngodo, who passed away in 2015. The CD album consists of eight musical tracks based on original material usually played in open outdoor spaces in the context of community celebrations and in an environment that is very different from the one in which we generally enjoy music today. The aim of my project was to bring this music to a modern audience that prefers listening to music on audio devices by means of new arrangements that rework the old ngodo pieces of Venâncio Mbande in a format and style that is within the reach of younger generations of listeners. This musical end result of the project is presented along with a short documentary on its creation, a folder of pre-mastering phase audio-samples and a dissertation that provides background, both on the CD's production and on the music's historical context. Through the prism of my own personal experience as a Chopi timbila performer, the creative project argues for a renewed relationship with older musical traditions of Africa and demonstrates by example that it is possible to engage with vanishing musics through the creation of musical works that are rooted in the traditional, yet contemporary in outlook.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    Open Access
    The Legacy of Vanalombo: Exploring links between Vanalombo and Jako Malabar from the perspective of a Makonde musician and dancer
    (2023) Nafassi, Vintani; Deja, Richard
    For this project and dissertation, I examine the performance traditions of Jako musician-dancers from Réunion Island and Vanalombo performers from the Mueda Plateau in Mozambique from a personal perspective as a Makonde musician and dancer versed in these styles. In the process, I explore possible connections between these two performance traditions that can be explained as the result of the slave trade in the Indian Ocean and its impact on the customs and culture of the inhabitants of the Bourbon Islands. The study culminates in the production of a documentary in which Vanalombo masters of initiation rites and Makonde drum players and dancers participated in demonstrations, recordings, and interviews in Makonde settlements around Maputo City in Mozambique. This fieldwork footage is presented in a documentary that, along with the written component of the dissertation, traces my practice-oriented research journey and its culmination in a community presentation of Jako and Vanalombo styles. The dissertation overviews secondary sources on the subject in the fields of ethnomusicology, musicology, and anthropology, as well as archival and museum documentation from Réunion Island, and assembles interviews and conversations with musicians, dancers and elders still actively involved in Jako and Vanalombo performances. As initiated insider and practitioner of Mapiko dance, I have been able to rely on insights drawing on personal experience as a performer and have made auto-ethnographic reflection a central tenet of my approach. From a personal point of view, researching these connections stemmed from an ambition to better understand the historical events that have shaped and are shaping Makonde society in urban contexts and to seek out ways to respond to the challenges of cultural continuity in a fastchanging world.