WHITE HOUSE HOSTING CONCERT FOR INT'L JAZZ DAY

The fifth annual International Jazz Day will be celebrated around the world on April 30, with U.S. President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama hosting the main event – an All-Star Global Concert – at the White House on April 29, a day ahead of time.

The official 2016 Jazz Day poster.

According to the United Nations’ cultural agency UNESCO, which first designated the day in 2012, the concert will be broadcast as a one-hour prime-time television special on April 30 evening, and streamed on the websites of the UN, UNESCO, U.S. State Department and the White House.

The concert will feature a range of artists from around the world, paying tribute to what the organisers call the “truly American art form of jazz”.

Participating performers include acclaimed musicians Herbie Hancock, Aretha Franklin, Chick Corea, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Sting, Terri Lyne Carrington, Al Jarreau, Marcus Miller, Hugh Masekela and a host of other stars. Pianist, arranger and composer John Beasley will serve as the evening’s musical director.

“We’ll probably be reaching more people this year than ever,” Beasley said in an interview.  He told SWAN that the concert will see some interesting artistic link-ups that will bring musicians together “across musical genres and geography”. For instance, R&B legend Franklin will be performing with Hancock, and English singer and bassist Sting with vocalist Jarreau and other artists.

In response to a question about the main issue of directing such a concert, Beasley said the key challenge was “dreaming up scenarios” for people to play collectively.

“I try to be creative and think of people that haven’t normally played together – something that takes them out of their comfort zone – and also adding the international element, to put people from all over the world together,” he said. “That’s the beauty of jazz; it’s a conversation. We can talk without words and find commonality.”

John Beasley (photo by Eric Wolfinger)

Last year’s concert at UNESCO’s headquarters in Paris – one of 80 events in the French capital – saw Scottish singer Annie Lennox, more known for rock music, belting out jazz standards from a recent album, accompanied by Hancock on piano. It also placed the talented young bassist Ben Williams alongside veteran saxophonist Wayne Shorter, for one of the high points of a concert that had audience members dancing at the end.

According to Beasley, the event can “exemplify global kinship without borders, regardless of race, ethnicity, socio-economic background, or political affiliations.”

Since the first Jazz Day, the international audience has grown to 2 billion people participating in many varieties of jazz-themed events, Beasley told IDN.

Presented by UNESCO in partnership with the US-based Thelonious Monk Institute, International Jazz Day was conceived by Hancock and launched at UNESCO headquarters in Paris as well as at venues in New Orleans and New York in 2012. The aim was to highlight the power of jazz as a force for freedom and creativity, and to use the music to promote intercultural dialogue and respect.

Tom Carter, president of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, told IDN that the 2016 edition was shaping up to be most successful one so far. “Our country is the birthplace of jazz, from its origins in New Orleans … and we’re proud that it has been embraced in all corners of the globe,” he said.

Herbie Hancock

The first International Jazz Day comprised events in 80 countries and has now grown to 195 countries – “all the UN and UNESCO member states”, Carter added.

As part of the celebration, the Thelonious Monk Institute launched “Math, Science & Music” on April 26, an education platform with free curricula, games, apps and other online elements “that use music as a tool to teach maths and science to students”.

The platform will address the growing need for students to gain skills and knowledge in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects and learn to think creatively, the Institute said

In a statement, Hancock – who also serves as a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador – said: “We are thrilled that President Obama and Michelle Obama are hosting the International Jazz Day All-Star Global Concert at the White House, and are truly grateful for their commitment to jazz and its role in building bridges and uniting people around the world.” 

The Day will also see musicians and educators participating in a series of free jazz performances, master classes, improvisational workshops, and other events, he said. Additional key activities will include community outreach initiatives at schools, embassies, arts centres, hospitals, and other venues. These will be taking place all over the world, but with a focus on Washington, D.C. Meanwhile in Paris, where the Day started, singers including Denise King will be giving concerts and participating in various arts activities.

Follow SWAN on Twitter: @mckenzie_ale

PEN WORLD VOICES FEST FOCUSES ON MEXICO, RIGHTS

The 12th annual PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature, taking place April 25 to May 1 in New York, puts Mexico in the spotlight this year, with authors from the country being featured alongside an international roster of more than 150 writers and thinkers.

The decision to showcase Mexican literature was taken long before U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump made his infamous remark about Mexicans and touted his desire to build a wall between the United States and its southern neighbour.

Festival director Jakab Orsos.
(Photo by Beowulf Sheehan)

But Trump’s comment, stereotyping immigrants as “criminals”, has given impetus to the scheduled cross-cultural discussions at the festival, the only one of its kind with a human rights focus, said the festival’s director László Jakab Orsós.

“When I selected Mexico, I felt this thing in the air – it’s the gypsy in me,” said Orsós, who is from Hungary. “Then that whole narrative made it clear that this ridiculous negativity was there. After I heard it, I thought: oh yeah, now we’re going to be talking.”

Orsós said that from its start, in 2005, the festival hasn’t shied away from difficult or uncomfortable issues – whether that involved political, social or philosophical topics, and he said the public seemed to appreciate this.

“Literature can be a communal activity: after you spend time reading or writing, you come out from that room and exchange information and ideas, and that’s what we try to do with the festival … which is really a festival of ideas incorporating different genres,” he added.

Entitled “Renegotiating the Narratives”, the event will explore Mexico’s “rich culture and burning social issues through a series of events that invite audiences to rethink widely accepted narratives on topics such as national identity, the border, migration, as well as systematic corruption and free expression in today’s Mexico,” PEN said in a release.

Some of Mexico’s leading thinkers and authors will provide insights, including Carmen Boullosa, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Lydia Cacho, Yuri Herrera, Elena Poniatowska and Sabina Berman. The latter, a playwright and essayist, will be co-curator of the Mexican program alongside Orsós.

“This year’s focus on Mexico allows us to present new perspectives on some of the urgent sociopolitical issues of our time - perspectives that are often absent from mainstream cultural forums,” said Orsós.

He told SWAN that politics relegating Mexico to a “dark corner” were “hypocritical” especially when one considers that Mexican culture and history are so “amazing”.

Yudai Kamisato 

The festival will open with a reading of new and original works written for the occasion by several writers, and events will also comprise an exploration of the breadth and beauty of Mexican landscapes with literary artists; a conversation about the uncompromising role women writers play within the Mexican cultural ecology; and a “multimedia crash course” on contemporary Mexican poetry.

In addition to the Mexican focus, audiences will be treated to a "globally inspired array of conversations, readings, performances and workshops" by leading and emerging authors from around the world, according to the organizers. The line-up includes Caribbean-born novelist Jamaica Kincaid and the Peruvian-born Japanese playwright Yudai Kamisato - whose work explores the problems that immigrants face.

Overall, however, the main theme of the festival will be freedom of expression, Orsós said, as PEN is an organization that works to protect the rights of writers and artists to freely express themselves.

“The most important core value is to promote and advocate for freedom of expression,” he said. “This is why I came on board [as director six years ago] because of my background, growing up in Eastern Europe and being a former journalist.

“We all believe that without freedom, without the essential idea and concept to be able to express yourself freely … then everything becomes corrupt and twisted,” he added. “In order to straighten things up and live a fuller life, you have to have that basic right.” - A.M. / SWAN

Follow SWAN on Twitter @mckenzie_ale

SINGER SHOLA ADISA-FARRAR: DRAWING ON HER ROOTS

It’s been a long time in the making, but Lost Myself, the debut jazz album by Shola Adisa-Farrar, is well worth the wait. The young Jamaican-American singer is launching the CD on April 15 from her base in Paris, and some fans got a preview when she gave a “listening party” this week at a hotel in the popular Pigalle area of the French city, famed for the Moulin Rouge cabaret. In an area rich with history, these lucky spectators got to see and hear how Adisa-Farrar incorporates her multi-cultural heritage into her music - giving a new flavour to jazz, reggae and calypso.

The cover of Shola Adisa-Farrar's debut album

Born in Oakland, California, to a Jamaican mother (writer Opal Palmer Adisa) and an African-American father, Adisa-Farrar has also lived in New York, where she earned a degree in music. She has called Paris home for a number of years now, even as she travels to perform.

For the album, she worked with the Florian Pellissier quintet, led by an accomplished Parisian pianist and composer known for the up-tempo inflections he brings to jazz.  With the 10 tracks on the album - including the joyful bonus tune “Fall in Love”, the two aimed to “blend New-York’s hard-bop aesthetics and reggae-inspired elements with modern jazz, for a fresh spin on classics and original compositions”, according to the album notes. Adisa-Farrar (Shola) tells SWAN more about this musical voyage in the interview below.

SWAN: How long did you work on the album?

SHOLA: This project has been in the making for two years. We began our collaboration June 2013 and we finished the last recording June 2015.

SWAN: Are there particular stories, personal history, behind the songs?

SHOLA: Being that this album was created over a span of two years, my inspiration and my awareness of myself as an artist evolved. From the original compositions "Flow" is the song that is probably the most meaningful to me as I wrote it as an affirmation to myself. 2014 was a very transitional year for me and so this song was/is a reminder to let go of what is not meant for me, so what is, can flow more easily into my life. 

The singer in Paris

"Evolution" and "Spirit" are mostly lyrical free styles where I sang and spoke whatever words and sounds came to mind at the moment of recording. "Evolution" speaks to my being in France, how I got here, who I have become and what I want my next passage to be.

"I Have A Dream" is really about the seasons of change and being patiently optimistic that positive change can and will occur in your life, in society, elsewhere.

The inspiration for "Blue Chords" came about as I was in the studio composing with Florian and noticed blue cable chords on his piano. Somehow this made me think of the connections between people, places and origins. This song talks about my identity as an American and as a Jamaican, using the colors of the flag to describe the country and some of the ways I feel these cultures/ identities are perceived.

"Going Nowhere" talks about the beginning of a previous relationship - the unknowingness of where it was going but ultimately feeling good in that unknown space and making the decision to go wherever it (the relationship) took me without constraints.

Adisa-Farrar with Florian Pelessier (right)

"What a Night" came about after listening to a lot of Monty Alexander, of whom I am a fan. I've long had this desire to incorporate reggae into my music and a song that my mom taught me among others when I was a child was "Linstead Market". So I thought what if I were to use the "what a night" lyric of this Jamaican folk song and flipped the meaning on its head. The original intention of that lyric was something bad: the woman didn't sell much, if any, of her products at the market and so it was a bad-money-earning night for her. But we often use "What a..." to describe something really great too; like "what a voice she has... what a meal... ", etc., so I wanted to make this song about something positive. I imagined the feeling of finally getting out of the funk of a failed relationship, deciding to go out, get dolled up and actually being attracted to someone once out and feeling confident enough to do something about it.

SWAN: How important is your background - Jamaican mom - to your music?

SHOLA: It's funny: my older cousins who recently came to visit me in Paris and who grew up in Jamaica, in Spanish Town, told me of one of their first memories of meeting me when I was a young girl in Jamaica. They said when I talked to them about what foods I liked to eat at the time, ackee n salt fish, stewed peas and rice and dumpling...they thought "ey ey aye ah who dis Yankee girl talkin bout stew peas n dumpling." It was at this moment they realized that even though I was born in California that my Jamaica-ness was very much present and evident. This is obviously due to my mother who is a griot, really, and who makes it her business to collect our family history and to infuse her children with as much family culture and Jamaican traditions as she knows and practices. So this is a part of my identity that I like to celebrate and of course music is so important to Jamaica and Jamaicans that if I can use some of the mento/ reggae/ soca / dancehall elements in my music it's a great pleasure for me to do so.

SWAN: As you perform a range of styles, how would you define yourself as a singer?

SHOLA: This album is considered a jazz album, but I say as an artist that I like to mix jazz, soul music and reggae to create music that feels good, is poetic and is honest in describing aspects of human emotion and situations: conflict and struggle, joy and angst, curiosity and discovery.

SWAN: You've travelled to several African countries and taken part in various festivals and workshops. Has this had an impact on your art?

SHOLA: Absolutely. Since October 2014 I have travelled to four different African countries because of music, and each of these countries has a distinct musical tradition and sound. Having the unique opportunity to work closely with various artists from these communities and bringing home instruments from some of these places has informed how I think about music and what and how it is communicated to various audiences. I would love to create a project with an artist from each of these places where we mix our musical traditions and put together sounds that might not so often be associated.

SWAN: You also give special tours of Paris and teach English. How do you manage to combine all this?

SHOLA: It has been quite a juggling act and sometimes a scheduling nightmare, but I managed it the best I could for 2 plus years. However, I have recently made the decision to make pursuing my artistic career as my only professional activity for the time being. Being an artist and creating art takes time and freedom from too many mental and psychological constraints, so I am taking a real chance on myself now - jumping without a net, trusting that now is the right time to go for it!

SWAN:  What are your music plans for the coming months?

SHOLA: I would like to tour within France and abroad with this album project. Simultaneously, I am beginning collaborations with different artists and producers to continue developing my sound and creating new music. © SWAN

Follow SWAN on Twitter: @mckenzie_ale

DOGS TAKE THE CAKE AT BRAZILIAN FILM FEST IN PARIS

The gripping Brazilian drama Mundo Cão (Dog’s World) has won the Public’s Prize at the18th annual Brazilian Film Festival in Paris, which took place April 5 - 12.

Two of the films' canine stars. 

Each year, audiences vote for what they consider the best film, and this year they choose the unlikely tale of a dogcatcher versus a sociopathic ex-cop.

Directed by Marcos Jorge, the film is set in São Paulo and tells the story of upright and amiable family man Santana, who works for the city, picking up stray animals.

But all goes desperately awry the day that he catches a huge dog and then has to contend with the wrath of the dog’s owner - a violent ex-cop - who has been informed that his "pet" has been put to sleep.

Viewers evidently felt a connection with some of the less-than-cuddly beasts shown in the flic, whose animal stars were just as compelling as the human ones (actors Lázaro Ramos, Babu Santana and Adriana Esteves). They all pulled viewers into a believable underground canine world.

Mundo Cão was one of 20 films shown at the festival, which since its start in 1998 has now screened more than 450 movies and attracted some 70,000 spectators in the French capital.

According to founder Katia Adler, the organizers this year wanted to increase the meetings between filmmakers and the public, and as a result, about 30 special guests – directors, actors and producers – were present. They introduced their films, took part in debates and helped to highlight co-productions between Brazil and France.

The festival closed with the inspiring Tudo que aprendemos juntos, Sérgio Machado’s story of a failed violinist who gives music lessons to disadvantaged children in the favela and discovers an exceptionally talented boy, whose life he manages to change.

There was, of course, live music as well, as the festival ended on a high note with the outstanding Teresa Cristina performing songs by one of Brazil’s best known samba composers, the late Cartola.

 Singer Teresa Cristina performed at the festival.

(Watch this space for full reviews of some of the films shown during the festival.)

PARIS BOOK FAIR BOOSTS WRITERS AND LIT, AMID FEARS

Despite the unprecedented security measures and the talk of doom and gloom in the publishing industry, the 2016 Paris Book Fair attracted thousands of readers of all ages who attended a bonanza of events featuring some 3,000 writers from around the world.

Korean writers discuss their work.

More than 40 countries were represented at the four-day event (March 17-20), with about 1,200 publishers displaying a huge variety of books, on subjects ranging from historical fiction to cuisine. The guest of honour this year was South Korea, as France and the Asian country celebrate 130 years of diplomatic relations.

Rebranded Livre Paris (from the former Salon du Livre), the fair welcomed 30 Korean writers who included novelists, poets, essayists and manga creators – presenting their work and discussing current literary themes in their region.

Livre Paris equally highlighted the literature and authors of two Congolese cities, Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire, and turned the spotlight as well on the northern Algerian town Constantine, which has long been a symbol of culture and the base of many writers, according to the fair’s organisers.

Words and music at Livre Paris.

One of the most “animated” pavilions during the four days was that of the Congo Basin, where African music was an integral feature of the various literary events that saw authors launching new works and debating issues such as the relationship between art and literature. 

The 22 participating writers there included the outspoken Alain Mabanckou, a French-Congolese author who often writes about the African Diaspora in France and was a finalist for the 2015 Man Booker International Prize. In a public lecture that coincided with the opening of the fair, he said that writers of his generation were determined to reject efforts to "compartmentalize" them.

Entertainers also linked music to words at the French Overseas Territory pavilion, where the promotion of children’s books and young authors was a notable aspect among the various activities.

Writer Alexandre Tellim

Alexandre Tellim, a Paris-based writer from Martinique, said the fair strengthened his belief that books do have a viable future, in spite of statistics showing that fewer people are reading.

“When you see so many parents bringing their children and giving them a love of books, it makes you feel encouraged,” he told SWAN. “The children are attentive and interested in what writers have to say, and they take something away from the fair which they’ll carry with them for a long time.”

Author of the Trempage Kréyol trilogy set in Martinique, Tellim added that through literature readers can “travel around the world without getting on a plane”.

Such feelings of optimism contrasted with some of the expressions of concern, however, as publishers pondered the future of the book in Europe and criticised what they reffered to as Amazon's "monopoly".

"They want to control everything, not leaving anything for anyone else," a French publisher charged, speaking of the U.S. giant.

The fact that visitors had to run a gamut of security measures to enter the fair (as Paris is still on high alert following the deadly November 13 attacks) could have dampened the mood, but it seemed not to affect book-lovers’ enthusiasm, as people overcame fears to express support for writers, literature, free expression and culture. 

“I’ve been coming to the fair every year for a long time now,” said Marie, a Parisian who had just bought several books. “C’est un moment magnifique pour moi (it’s a great event for me), and I plan to keep attending and discovering new writers.”

AMERICAN WRITER TONI MORRISON WINS PEN AWARD

The American writer and Nobel laureate Toni Morrison has won the $25,000 PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction.

Toni Morrison
(photo: T. Greenfield-Sanders)

The prize, awarded by PEN America, was announced on March 1 as part of the organization’s 2016 Literary Awards, which span fiction, drama, sports writing, biography, translation, poetry, and other genres, and amount to more than $200,000.

“The works of Chloe Anthony Wofford, better known as Toni Morrison, have changed the landscape of American fiction,” said the judges in their citation. “Revelatory, intelligent, bold, her fiction is invested in the black experience, in black lives, and in black consciousness, material from which she has forged a singular American aesthetic. Toni Morrison not only opened doors to others when she began to publish, she has also stayed grounded in the issues of her time.”

Morrison, 85 years old, is the author of internationally acclaimed books such The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon and Beloved.

Meanwhile, Lisa Ko won the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, an award founded by writer Barbara Kingsolver and worth $25,000 as well. This prize is given to an author of an unpublished novel that addresses issues of social justice, and it includes a publishing contract with Algonquin Books.

One of Morrison's books.

PEN America said that all award recipients will be honored at the 2016 PEN Literary Awards Ceremony which will be held April 11 at The New School in New York City.

Besides the awards for literary translation, sports writing, drama and poetry - also announced today - other prizes include the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction, PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay, PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award, PEN Open Book Award, and the PEN/FUSION Emerging Writers Prize, the organization said.

PEN works to advance literature and to defend free expression. For more information,see: http://www.pen.org.

COLD WAR GAMES AND THAT PAN-AFRICAN ARTS FEST

Its goal was to bring together leading intellectuals and artists from Africa and the diaspora, and, 50 years ago, the first Festival Mondial des Arts Nègres (World Festival of Negro Arts, or FESMAN) did exactly that.

Leopold Senghor, centre, at the start of the festival.
(Photo: from Jean Mazel. Collection PANAFEST archive)

Played out against the backdrop of the Cold War, with the United States and the former Soviet Union jockeying for influence in Africa, the three-week-long festival took place in Dakar, Senegal, in April 1966, initiated by then President Léopold Sédar Senghor.

It included some world-renowned headliners: writers Wole Soyinka, Aimé Césaire and Langston Hughes; musician Duke Ellington; dancers from the Alvin Ailey troupe; iconic singer and activist Josephine Baker; calypso star Mighty Sparrow – and many others, representing some 45 countries.

The festival showed the world the wealth of African art and culture, and people got a clear taste of the rivalry between the superpowers of the era, as Russia sent a steamship to Dakar with about 750 passengers who participated in a festival that was attended by a large American delegation, underwritten by the U.S. State Department.

That back story, and the history and impact of the festival are now being highlighted in an exhibition that runs until May 15, 2016, at the Quai Branly Museum in Paris. The show, titled "Dakar 66: Chronicles of a Pan-African Festival", presents film archives, posters, magazine articles and photographs, and it captures the ambience of the event and the times.

Dominique Malaquais (photo: McKenzie)

“We didn’t want to do simply a restaging of the festival,” says Dominique Malaquais, who co-curated the show with other historians Cédric Vincent and Sarah Frioux-Salgas. “How could you stage something that had all this extraordinary dance, music, poetry and colloquia? We didn’t want to do something static, we wanted to present something with movement and flux and people.”

The three experts had worked respectively on projects dealing with four of the major pan-African festivals to date, and on the role of Présence Africaine, the famed journal that began in 1947 in Paris and whose publishers helped to organize the Dakar festival. So they came up with the idea to focus on film, interviews and publications, with “specific entry points”, Malaquais said.

The exhibition begins with the official representations of the festival – such as the striking poster created by Senegalese artist Ibou Diouf, which later caused controversy because it was seen as an emblem of the Negritude movement – and it moves to videos of the speeches given by Senghor, Césaire and also André Malraux, the celebrated French writer and France’s first Minister of Cultural Affairs.

An article about the festival, in a U.S. magazine.

Visitors can watch these speeches in their entirety on screens installed at the exhibition, and they can view two full-length films about the festival, one in black and white made by African-American pioneering director William Greaves, and the other in colour produced by Soviet filmmaker Leonid Makhnach and titled Rhythms of Africa.

“What happened was that USIA, the United States Information Agency – one of the diplomatic arms of the US government – in a very specific Cold-War bid to present abroad a positive image of the United States that would counter Soviet propaganda, commissioned this [Greaves' film],” Malaquais told SWAN.

“These films were never shown in the United States, they were only shown abroad, and this film was made to do something very particular from the USIA’s point of view, not Greaves’ point of view,” she continued. “The idea was to show a picture of the United States as open to the voices of the African American minority, which of course in 1966 – no comment, right?

A journalist watches the Greaves film.

“What happens, however, is that Greaves is asked to make a 10-minute film, and he just runs with it, and he makes a feature-length documentary, and it’s all centred on the African-American delegation that comes to the festival. Later on, he’s going to come back and say: you know, this was my one and only chance because I’d never received funding before to make a film from a black point of view – I’m quoting him there. And so he took and completely turned on its head what USIA felt it was doing,” Malaquais said.

Each film has its own ideological perspective as Russia was keen to highlight the United States’ history of slavery and its continued oppression of its black population, according to the curators. Carefully sub-titled in French, the Soviet film is being shown for the first time in France, and viewers can watch both presentations and draw their own conclusions.

A shot from the Soviet-made film.

The exhibition examines, as well, the significant world events taking place around the time of the festival: notably the coup d’état in Ghana against Kwame Nkrumah, one of the founders of pan-African politics; student demonstrations in Dakar; the birth of the Black Panther movement in the United States; and Cuba's hosting of the 1966 Tri-continental Conference of African, Asian and Latin American Peoples, a meeting of mainly leftist leaders and thinkers. 

“You can see the ways in which the festival was implicated in larger global and Cold-War issues,” said Malaquais. “People tend to think of these great pan-African festivals as something localised, and they weren’t. They were worldwide events with international repercussions. And that’s what we wanted to express with this exhibition.”

Museum-goers can see illustrations, too, of the huge colloquium held at Senegal’s parliament house, on the “Function and Significance of Black Arts in the Lives of the People and for the People”. This attracted hundreds of observers and international experts from the worlds of literature, art, film, music and other fields, under the auspices of UNESCO.

Malaquais and Marie Laure Croiziers de Lacvivier,
Senghor's niece, with two visitors at the exhibition.
(Photo: McKenzie)

While some would prefer to consider the festival as a purely artistic initiative, the exhibition equally looks at the commercial aspects, which included the promotion of Senegal as a tourist destination, and the distinct merchandising of products such as postcards, souvenirs and other objects. Members of the public donated some of the 50-year-old items, while the curators bought others on e-bay or obtained them from friends and supporters.

“It’s a real mix,” Malaquais said. “We have an example of a medal that was given out at the festival, and there are key-chains that were publicity items, for instance. And there are advertising brochures for Air France and for the Russian steamship.”

One of the highlights of the exhibition is the slideshow of blown-up photographs, made available to the curators by a private collector named Jean Mazel and by a photographer who travelled to the festival as a young man. These pictures bring home the fierce motivation of the leading characters of the festival, many of whom today remain larger than life. –  A.M. Copyright SWAN. Follow us on Twitter: @mckenzie_ale

SCHOLARS TO EXPLORE STUART HALL’S CURRENT IMPACT

Two years after the death of influential theorist Stuart Hall, scholars will meet at a university in Dortmund, Germany, to examine his legacy, in a world where the cultural and media landscape has changed tremendously over the past decade.

Stuart Hall (photo: E. McCabe)

The conference, titled “Wrestling with the Angels: Exploring Stuart Hall’s Theoretical Legacy”, is being hosted by the Technische Universität (TU) from Feb. 25 to 27.

Participants  will “engage with, examine, use, question, criticise, develop and transform Hall's many concepts and ideas”, according to the organizers - professors Gerold Sedlmayr, Florian Cord, and Marie Hologa.

Hall was one of the founding thinkers of “cultural studies”, an inter-disciplinary field that focuses on the political dynamics of contemporary culture, and on how power-relations play out between producers and consumers.

Scholars generally focus on analyzing the social and political contexts of culture, and, in this, Hall was primarily concerned with the impact on both individuals and communities, vis-à-vis society’s structure. But some current theorists are moving away from the “power and political” aspects, Prof. Cord said.

Prof. Florian Cord

“We still feel a belief in the relevance of Hall’s work, but has the field nowadays become too de-politicized? That’s something we’d like to examine,” he told SWAN.

As a long-time director of the University of Birmingham’s Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, Hall wielded major influence both within academic circles and in wider public discussions of politics, race and media.

Born into a so called middle-class family in Jamaica in 1932, he went to England as a Rhodes Scholar in 1951 to study at Oxford University. He continued on a PhD route (which he later abandoned), became a central figure of the British New Left, and co-founded the journal New Left Review.

For Hall, “intellectual practice was politics, and questions of culture were political questions,” say the meeting’s conveners. The conference’s title is in fact inspired by Hall’s own stated view that theoretical work meant “wrestling with the angels” and that the only theory worth having was one for which you had to fight and with which you had to struggle.

Author Caryl Phillips (photo: Daria Tunca)

British-Caribbean author Caryl Phillips has described Hall as a “sociologist, writer, film critic and political activist” and said that the theorist’s achievements were an extension of the work of a man Hall greatly admired, the Trinidadian intellectual, C.L.R. James.

Outside of the academic world, Hall developed into “Britain’s most insightful media critic on matters as wide-ranging as film, literature, race migration and class”, Phillips wrote in an article.

He considered Hall to be unique in his ability to “move between the worlds of the academy and the popular media with both elegance and authority”, he added.

“One day he is on television interviewing Spike Lee, or presenting a documentary about Derek Walcott, the next day he is delivering a guest lecture on [Italian theoretician Antonio] Gramsci’s political thoughts to a university audience, and the day after that writing a paper on the role of the modern black photographer in British society to be read at a gallery opening,” Phillips wrote in 1997, in the introduction to an interview with Hall.

It is this multi-faceted nature that makes Hall’s work so engrossing, according to professors Cord and Sedlmayr.  But his achievements and personality could be overshadowing his ideas.

Prof. Gerold Sedlmayr

“Hall is still very relevant - he is mentioned in almost every paper about cultural studies,” Sedlmayr told SWAN. “But there’s often no deeper engagement. He seems to be canonized, yet no one deals with his ideas anymore.”

The conference will not only address this anomaly, but some participants will offer theories on how Hall would have viewed the rampant development of social media, or the current political language in Europe, where governments are struggling to develop a coherent and humane response to the refugee crisis.

One scholar - Nina Power of London’s Roehampton University - will look particularly at “why the 21^st century needs Stuart Hall”.  - A.M.

For more information, see: www.stuarthall-dortmund.de.You can follow SWAN on Twitter @mckenzie_ale

'THE MAN WHO MENDS WOMEN': HEALING THE SURVIVORS

By Dimitri Keramitas

The title of Thierry Michel’s documentary, L’Homme Qui Répare Les Femmes, about Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege, is something of an understatement: The surgeon is a monumental figure on the African continent, up there with Nelson Mandela, Wole Soyinka, Kofi Annan.

Dr. Denis Mukwege, with some of his patients.

He does much more than treat broken women. But humility is part of his greatness, so he probably wouldn’t be put off by the film’s title. It is an accurate description of his job, though people may mistakenly think it refers to genital cutting. In fact, the women in question are victims of an even grimmer fate, if that’s possible.

The people depicted in the documentary live in the Eastern Congo, which has been wracked by non-stop war for decades. Aside from internecine struggles, the region has been impacted by the nations on its borders, Rwanda and Burundi. In a grotesque irony, when refugees flooded Eastern Congo in the aftermath of the genocidal civil war in Rwanda, they were welcomed by the Congolese who were then victimized when many of these same refugees regrouped as militias.

While women have always suffered as “collateral damage” in wars, in this conflict the combatants perfected the technique of specifically targeting women, not as spoils of war, but as a way to destroy the fabric of their communities. They have been raped, impregnated, forced to have sex with family members, and mutilated. Many have been killed outright. The endurance of these women is as astonishing as the superhuman efforts of the good doctor.

The doctor at his clinic.

In fact, the film adopts a parallel structure. First, we follow Dr. Mukwege to the clinics where he operates, as well as to Brussels, New York and Washington where he collects awards (such as the Sakharov Prize) or speaks out about the ordeal of the Congolese population.

We also hear him speak about his origins, how he became a doctor and especially this particular kind of doctor. Then we get the testimony of the victims, and see how they recover on a personal level, and also organize themselves within community organizations. Dr. Mukwege is also involved in these groups and workshops.

The doctor doesn’t exactly have it easy. Because of threats, and an armed attack that took the life of a staffer and friend, he lives under armed guard. When he goes to his clinic in Panzi it’s in a convoy of Blue Helmets’ jeeps. Aside from the obvious privation and courage is the fact that Dr. Mukwege willingly chose this path. At one point in his life he’d immigrated to Europe, where he had a good career and comfortable life, and safety for his family. But he decided that for a Congolese doctor to practice in Europe while his people were suffering would be to contribute to the injustice, and so he returned to the Eastern Congo.

Filmmaker Thierry Michel (photo: A. McKenzie)

When Belgian director Michel films the doctor and the women as they go about their lives, the documentary works powerfully and movingly. But certain filmmaking choices mar the film. The most distasteful is the use of over-the-top classical music to accompany several scenes of carnage. Perhaps Michel thought these sequences were too horrible, or that the audience couldn’t bear them. For many viewers, the music might come across as moralistic varnish or worse, a sort of cultural imperialism, as if human suffering has to be dignified by European high culture to qualify as authentically tragic.

Michel told SWAN in a post-screening interview, however, that this music was a “personal” choice, and that the Congolese are themselves fond of liturgical music, as it’s often played in religious gatherings.

But he also over-indulges in spectacular shots of Congolese scenery. It’s not difficult: as the director Boris Lojkine once remarked that the Congo is the most cinematographic place on Earth. These shots do serve a purpose, as the locals have a special bond with the land, and the natural resources are the stakes of the various conflicts there. But Michel sometimes veers towards excess, so that at times the film resembles a National Geographic travelogue. [He told SWAN that the setting acts as another character in the film.]

Dr. Denis Mukwege, at an international meeting.

Throughout the documentary, we see footage of the doctor being honored in Western countries. He certainly deserves the accolades, and we’re content that he seems content. At the same time, when the privileged audiences applaud the doctor we sense a degree of their own self-congratulation. Does anyone really think that a medical professional who has saved countless lives needs to be dignified by ceremonial retainers in medieval costumes? This takes place in Brussels, and we can suppose that the pomp derives from the Belgian royal tradition. Yet there’s no irony evoked about the roots of the DRC’s problems in King Leopold’s Congo Free State.

Likewise, the director makes references to past dictators Mobutu Sese Seko and his short-lived successor Laurent Kabila, but doesn’t mention their sponsors, particularly the United States. The film seems to portray the current DRC government as legitimate (if a tad inefficient and corrupt); no mention is even made of Joseph Kabila. But when the audience sees militia members on the dock, finally getting a taste of justice, we have the uneasy feeling their military judges aren’t all that different.

The film opens in France in February.

The film is much better off when the subjects speak for themselves. At one point Dr. Mukwege addresses a church parish about their struggles, and his own ascent from “the dust” of Panzi to international meetings with presidents. The son of a pastor, Mukwege powerfully expresses his faith in ringing terms, and he and the congregation revel in their spiritual bond. The scene shows us the source of the people’s strength under dire conditions, though secular-minded viewers in some countries may well be disconcerted.

Paradoxically, the film’s most searing scene is on the opposite end of the moral spectrum. It isn’t a scene of violence. Rather it shows the rebels coming out of the bush and giving up their arms after a decisive push by Congolese soldiers and international peace-keepers. Thuggish militia leaders give speeches, pretending to be conciliatory political leaders. A suspiciously paltry quantity of weapons is arranged in piles.

Then we see the guerrillas marching in formation and falling into ranks. They seem convincingly disciplined. As the camera focuses on these men we study their faces: they are stone-hard, unrepentant, filled with fury, unbowed in their humiliation. It makes us think about where these men have been, what they have done, what had been done to them and theirs. It reminds us that human evil is a mystery, not just a component in a Manichean equation.

Whatever the film’s flaws, Thierry Michel is to be commended for bringing to world attention a tragedy that has shamefully been off the media radar. (Consider that more people have died in the conflicts in East Congo than in Syria, Libya, Ukraine, and Iraq combined.) That he succeeds in evoking the resilience of the victims and the determination of those who’ve come to their aid is an achievement.  - © SWAN

Co-production: Les Films de la Passerelle / Riva Production / RTBF Sector Documentaries / Public Senat / Lichtpunt / Wallonie Image Production. Distribution: JHR Films. The documentary is supported by Amnesty International. Photos are courtesy of the filmmaker, except when noted otherwise.

Dimitri Keramitas is a Paris-based writer and legal expert.