Siachilaba

Kunzwana # 1

"KUNZWANA comes from the Shona word nzw(an)a which means
‘listening, hearing and understanding one another’." - Keith Goddard

CONCEPT  

Kunzwana # 1 is both a musical journey and cross-cultural collaboration featuring some outstanding and innovative Austrian musicians with their Zimbabwean counterparts.

As a kind of prelude the Austrian artists will visit the group Simonga in the village of Siachilaba in the Binga area along the Zambezi River.  This encounter aims to recognise the traditional Ngoma Buntibe music as highly appreciated musical art form / Tonkunst of the Tonga people, and highlight it again as a source of inspiration.  From there the Austrian artists will take some more impressions and ideas along on their journey to Harare.

At the Book Café in Harare the quartet from Austria will meet some outstanding and open-minded Zimbabwean musicians for an extensive exchange. They will retreat for an intense rehearsal phase with a focus on Mbira music and its derivative forms such as Chimurenga and Mbira-inspired contemporary music styles.  Such dense and creative interaction will result in the formation of the cross-cultural Kunzwana # 1 ensemble, striking a balance between different styles and cultures and ready to excel in performances at the Book Café and Harare International Festival of the Arts (HIFA) 2014, and other venues in Southern Africa.  Further joint performances at music festivals in Austria in July 2014 are already in the pipeline.

Time's Up for Tales of Resilience - Itinerant Story Telling/Story Building in Southern Africa and Austria in 2014

Often it is an individual experience – wrapped up as a story – which eventually allows the reception of a past, the comprehension of the present and the formulation of a future. Furthermore, or in fact precisely because of and through that - stories enable an insight into „The Other“ - a view of the other life, the other culture, the other approach or mindset.  Apart from “The Other,” stories let us see “The Common”, similar values, familiar desires and kindred visions. Through listening to them and trying to understand them, stories make us more tolerant in our dealing with cultural differences and multiple identities, they bring us closer to each other and place the commonalities above the separations.

Tales of Resilience traces stories from people who travel and have traveled between regions, cultures and continents; people who move and have moved between their origins and other worlds. Tales of Resilience documents and shares their experiences, adventures and perceptions. The project archives what these people left behind them, what they have taken with them, what they collected and what they lost along the way.  Whether forced to move or by their own volition, whether for reasons of family, politics, religion or livelihood, the stories are tales of resilience, the many ways in which people react to their circumstances.

Tales of Resilience is an itinerant Story Telling/Story Building project by a group of Austrian and Zimbabwean artists in April / May 2014. The outcome of this collaboration between Time's Up, Austria-Zimbabwe Friendship Association, Pamberi Trust, local artists and art institutions will be presented in Southern Africa and back in Austria.

Exhibition in Austria: „one man – one note“ - recalling Siachilaba

 
Invitation to an exhibition and two concerts reflecting on the narratives and interplay of

20 years of cultural exchange between Austria and the Tonga people

12th June – 19th July 2015 at Kunsthaus Deutschvilla in Strobl / Wolfgangsee / Austria

 

It is now close to 20 years since our late friend and composer Keith Goddard took some Austrian musicians on a journey to Siachilaba to encounter the amazing Ngoma Buntibe music of the Tonga people. With his notion of „one man – one note“ Keith referred not only to this „most extraordinary texture of sound“ but also to the impressive resilience of Tonga culture struggling against great odds.

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