Sonic Alignments 1: A Roof of Sounds – Cape Town Jazz & Kawina

Sonic Alignments 1: A roof of sounds – Cape Town jazz & kawina

From Leonor González Mina and Sathima Bea Benjamin to Ronald Snijders, Toumani Diabaté and Aziza Brahim to Peter Tosh... The idea for Sonic Alignments sparked between self-made playlists, the pages of theater scripts, telephone conversations, memories of concerts and tables with food... many tables with very good food. 

The program series is a collaboration between Wereldmuseum Amsterdam and BPTUnpacks, a Bijlmer Parktheater label. In this series, DJs, musicians and vocalists discuss the sonic works that form the soundtracks to their senses of belonging. During the first edition we’ll listen to the sonic conversations between South African jazz and kawina, traditional music from Suriname. 

The first hour of the program consists of presentations on the histories and similarities between South African jazz and kawina. After a break where we’ll provide iftar and spaces to pray, Dylan Valley and Grant Jurius will host a listening session. During this session we’ll closely listen to the jazz songs discussed in the first part of the program. Wayne Modest will give his reflections on the work. 

With: Denise Jannah, Dylan Valley (Cape Town), Grant Jurius (Cape Town), Marlon 'MrJetFly' Francis and Wayne Modest. 

About the speakers

Denise Jannah - Singer, vocal coach, actor and jazz icon. 

Dylan Valley - Film maker, lecturer at the University of Cape Town and member of the Future Nostalgia collective from Cape Town

Grant Jurius - Visual artist and member of the Future Nostalgia collective from Cape Town.

Marlon ‘MrJetFly’ Francis - Musician, producer and co-founder of both Future Kawina and 4TheCulture. 

Initiators

Wayne Modest - Director of Content of Wereldmuseum, professor of Material Culture and Critical Heritage Studies at the Vrije Universiteit and connoisseur of Afro-Caribbean plays.

Carine Zaayman - Artist, curator, scholar whose work focuses on the afterlives of slavery and colonialism, particularly in the Cape. 

Simone Zeefuik - Writer, cultural programmer and tea critic whose work focuses on Blackity Black imagination and everydayness in film and theatre.