ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT - The African Mirror

May

07

2023

Pretty Yende wows King Charles and Queen Camilla

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

FROM a small rural town of eMkhonto, in Mpumalanga, South Africa to Westminister Abbey, singing at the coronation of an English, an event beamed to millions around the world. This is the incredible and inspirational story of Pretty Yende, the supremely talented South African opera singer who made history by becoming the first soloist to perform at the coronation of an English monarch. Yende, dressed in a stunning yellow Stéphane Rolland gown and Graff jewellery, wowed the global A-listers who made it to the front row to witness the coronation of King Charles III. Yende sang "Sacred Fire," a piece…

May

09

2023

By JANE DRAYCOTT

Queen Cleopatra: experts save this poorly scripted Netflix docuseries

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

THE trailer for Netflix’s new four-part documentary series, Queen Cleopatra, was deliberately provocative. Promoting the show as executive produced by actress Jada Pinkett-Smith, it prominently featured historian Professor Shelley Haley declaring that: “Cleopatra was black.” https://www.youtube.com/embed/IktHcPyNlv4 The controversy-inciting trailer for Netflix’s Queen Cleopatra. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the trailer is pure clickbait. The show itself is a much more complex piece of work. There are two ways to watch Queen Cleopatra. The first – and easiest – is by paying more attention to the dramatisation of Cleopatra’s life and times than to the academic talking heads. The second is to do the…

May

02

2023

By The African Mirror

Ethiopians savour first night of annual ‘Addis Jazz Festival’

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

YOUNG Ethiopians packed into the compound of the Swedish embassy in Addis Ababa to savour an "Ethio Jazz" performance, an annual festival that celebrates Ethiopia's love for the musical genre. On a neon-lit stage in the country's capital, artists played various Ethiopian jazz music pieces as hundreds of revellers danced, mimed and quaffed beer to celebrate the second edition of the so-called Addis Jazz Festival (AJF). AJF debuted in 2019 and was conceived as a platform to promote Ethiopian jazz as well as to bring international jazz to Ethiopia. The event is the brainchild of Muzikawi, an Ethiopian music and…

Apr

30

2023

By SETH ONYANGO, BIRD STORY AGENCY

Billionaire collectors set their sights on Africa’s art

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

AFRICA'S fine art market is emerging from obscurity, fueled by a surge of demand from international and, increasingly, local collectors. According to the Africa Wealth Report 2023, published by Henley & Partners with New World Wealth, the continent's fine art market is valued at just over US$1.8 billion as of December 2022. The figure indicates the annual combined value of artworks traded at auction, highlighting art as a symbol of social status and luxury and a promising investment opportunity. Works by African artists such as Irma Stern, El Anatsui and Ben Enwonwu are especially popular among art collectors worldwide. "Irma…

Apr

29

2023

By The African Mirror

South Africa’s hidden jazz history is being restored album by album

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

IT'S fitting that Johannesburg is among 12 cities featured in the 2023 Unesco International Jazz Day, themed “jazz journey around the world”. The day, established in 2011 to celebrate the role of jazz in “uniting peoples across the globe”, is now marked annually on 30 April in close to 200 nations. It would have been hosted by Cape Town in 2020 had COVID-19 not intervened. Author GWEN ANSELL, Associate of the Gordon Institute for Business Science, University of Pretoria Even so, many jazz lovers elsewhere may be aware of the long history and uniqueness of South Africa’s jazz legacy through…

Apr

27

2023

By The African Mirror

Nollywood could see a major boost from Nigeria’s new copyright law – an expert explains why

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

NIGERIA has finally updated its 2004 copyright law, bringing it into the digital era – where the entertainment industry has been for decades already. Before the late 1990s, it was difficult even to get telephone services in Nigeria. And it was very expensive for private enterprises to make films. Since then, digital technology has unleashed a multitude of ways to receive information and entertainment. Author SAMUEL SAMIAI ANDREWS, Professor, University of Gondar With the arrival of digital technology, all a filmmaker needed was a simple video recorder and a group of talented creatives. Thus modern Nollywood – the Nigerian film…

Apr

27

2023

By The African Mirror

Tender Photo: the newsletter that’s creating a new conversation about African photography

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

NIGERIA'S Emmanuel Iduma is many things: writer, editor, publisher, critic and photographer. In 2022 he combined these skills to introduce a newsletter, Tender Photo, sent to subscribers twice a week. It has since become an important platform for African photographers, writers, critics and curators. Published on Substack, it has become so widely popular that it was a featured publication on the online newsletter support site. Author TINASHE MUSHAKAVANHU, Junior Research Fellow, University of Oxford Iduma is the author of three books: I Am Still With You, a memoir on the Nigerian Civil War; A Stranger’s Pose, a travelogue; and The…

Apr

27

2023

By The African Mirror

Moffat Takadiwa’s landmark exhibition uses found materials to comment on Zimbabwe’s colonial hangover

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

MOFFAT Takadiwa is a Zimbabwean artist famous for creating work from found materials. His exhibition Vestiges of Colonialism, curated by Fadzai Muchemwa, opened at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe on 16 March. This is the 40-year-old Takadiwa’s first solo show in Zimbabwe in a decade. Having exhibited around the globe, he’s best known for his sculptures made from consumer waste and urban residues such as toothbrushes, computer keyboards and cheap perfume bottles. Author LIFANG ZHANG, PhD candidate in Art History, Rhodes University As an art historian focusing on contemporary Zimbabwean art, I have been researching the artist’s work for the…

Apr

27

2023

By DORCAS BELLO AND SETH ONYANGO, BIRD STORY AGENCY

From notebooks to Netflix: Azzez Korede, the Nigerian filmmaker reimagining African folktales

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

"I started writing fiction stories at the age of ten. And even though I didn't continue, it was enough to help me understand I loved storytelling," says Azzez Korede, whose evocative short film, "Halima's Choice," launched on Netflix in March, after earning her a well-deserved place among the six victorious filmmakers of the groundbreaking 'African Folktales, Reimagined' competition. Despite thwarted ambitions to study theatre arts at university and a subsequent career in mass communication, Korede never gave up on her early storytelling ambitions, which began with stories penned in a personal notebook. And her subsequent career, it turned out, provided…

Apr

22

2023

By The African Mirror

Ghetto Kids: what’s behind the moves of the Ugandan dance troupe that stormed the world

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

A group of young dancers from Uganda, Triplets Ghetto Kids, went viral across the world when they earned the “golden buzzer” mid-performance on the TV show Britain’s Got Talent. The golden buzzer sends a shower of gold confetti onto the stage – sending the contestants straight through to the show’s final rounds – and it had never been pressed in the middle of a performance before. Author FRANCESCA NEGRO, Associate research scientist, Universidade de Lisboa In fact, the dance group have been an internet sensation for some years already. They dance with contagious positive energy to hit songs with steps…