Soweto Kinch: Beyond Borders
Commissioned by:
Nu Century Arts and Cathedral Arts Quarter Festival
Event date:
May- July 2012
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About the play: In Search of My Father has been selected as a key part of the activities taking place in 2012 as Birmingham hosts the Jamaican and American Olympic teams and will be central to the city’s calendar for that year. Music and dance are central to the production.
Soweto Kinch says: “The music mirrors the narrative’s journey, taking inspiration from African, Asian folk forms and contemporary Western music. This will be an essential thread: creating a world where 4 continents and characters in the modern world are connected to ancient African cultures. It draws on Caribbean music from masque and Carnival, to connect Marisol and Sambhota to their pasts. It will draw on (‘The Spirit of Ubuntu’ theme) to explore East African music, and the ancient sounds that underpin their journey. It will reconstruct sounds of Onge aboriginal peoples from the Andamanese Islands, and music from the extinct Dravidian cultures of India.”
Soweto’s musical influences are as broad as they are diverse. He particularly admires Sonny Rollins for his innovative style and successful appropriation of West Indian music within the jazz canon. Most recently, Soweto has been influenced by baroque and early classical music due to an interest he has in the 17th and 18th century black population of Britain. He is keen to reconstruct the African and classical influences that this community would have had. As an alto player, Soweto is rapidly developing his own sound which is rich, energetic and dynamic and though he clearly has a strong respect for tradition, he is continually exploring his jazz inheritance. Soweto’s broad musical interest and knowledge coupled with his more recent achievements makes him an ideal choice to work with the themes running through the production in order to make the music an integral part of the narrative and to make the music part of the ritual and the dance.
To find out more about Cathedral Arts Quarter Festival visit: http://www.cqaf.com/
To find out more about Nu Century Arts visit: http://www.nucenturyarts.co.uk/