Africa
Interview: 10 Questions for Spoek MathamboWednesday, 16 May 2012
Spoek Mathambo is one the year's brightest new hopes. From Johannesburg but based in Sweden, Spoek (real name Nthato Mokgata) plays with genres like few others. He makes radical, sometimes disjointed music, some of which - like his new single “Let... Read more... |
Half of a Yellow Sun to be filmedMonday, 14 May 2012The award-winning novel Half of a Yellow Son by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is to be turned into a film. Shooting has just begun in Nigeria, where the director is Nigerian theatre director, playwright and novelist Biyi Bandele, who has also adapted the... Read more... |
Globe to Globe: The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Shakespeare's GlobeSaturday, 12 May 2012
The concept sounds like something dreamed up towards the bottom of a bottle in a Harare shebeen: Two Gentlemen of Verona performed by two gentlemen in Shona. But if any of the plays can withstand the stripped-down treatment, it’s the likeable but... Read more... |
Globe to Globe: Cymbeline, Shakespeare's GlobeFriday, 04 May 2012
This retelling of the Cymbeline story opened – or at least appeared to open – with the entire cast contributing their tuppenceworth on the issue of what the story of Cymbeline actually was. And fair dos. A “late” and abnormally tortuous... Read more... |
The Arts Desk Radio Show 2Thursday, 03 May 2012
Welcome to our second show, brought to you again from the Red Bull Studio in London where it was recorded by Brendon Harding.This time, Peter and Joe are joined live in the studio by two guests: friend of theartsdesk and musical polymath Mara... Read more... |
Globe to Globe: The Merry Wives of Windsor, Shakespeare's GlobeFriday, 27 April 2012
Of all Shakespeare’s plays, his reprise of Falstaffian humour to please Queen Bess is surely the most specific in its prosaic gallimaufry of earthy English vocabulary. Yet it’s also the most universal in its target-practice at the lecherous,... Read more... |
Songlines award winners announcedWednesday, 25 April 2012With the BBC Radio 3 World Music Awards now axed, Songlines Magazine has become the most prestigious World Music Award going. The winners have just been announced. The winners, selected by the Songlines editorial team and listed below, are published... Read more... |
Globe to Globe: Venus and Adonis, Shakespeare's GlobeSaturday, 21 April 2012
"Shakespeare’s Coming Home," boasts the strapline of a highly ambitious strand of London 2012’s Cultural Olympiad. Between now and 9 June, 37 productions of the complete canon by Shakespeare (with apologies to Two Noble Kinsmen fans) will be seen at... Read more... |
Town of RunnersThursday, 19 April 2012
Footage of wiry East African men and women breaking the tape in marathons and distance track-events is now more or less synonymous with the highest achievements in top-level sport, and it won’t come as a surprise to those who’ve lived through more... Read more... |
theartsdesk at the Busara Festival: Africa's long song of defianceSaturday, 14 April 2012
The 18th-century Omani fort in Zanzibar is silhouetted against a clear African night. Nneka, a bird-like Nigerian female artist in shabby leggings, is hammering out “Vagabonds in Power” on an open-air stage inside the fort, just metres from a sea of... Read more... |
CD: Amadou & Mariam - FolilaTuesday, 03 April 2012
With the subject of the legitimacy of the label “world music” having just had another airing in The Guardian, it seems fitting that Mali’s favourite musical couple should be releasing their least “world music” album to date. For essentially, ... Read more... |
Opinion: We need to save languages as well as speciesMonday, 02 April 2012
In the past few decades we've all learnt to pay at least lip service to ecological matters, and millions of people in this country are members of environmental organisations. But perhaps we should also focus our attention on an issue that could be... Read more... |
