African Stars: Studies in Black South African Performance (Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology)

ISBN: 0226217248

Author: Erlmann, Veit

Condition: New

In recent years black South African music and dance havebecome ever more popular in the West, where they are nowwidely celebrated as expressions of opposition todiscrimination and repression. Less well known is therich history of these arts, which were shaped by severalgenerations of black artists and performers whosestruggles, visions, and aspirations did not differ fundamentallyfrom those of their present-day counterparts.In five detailed case studies Veit Erlmann digs deep to expose the roots of the most important of these performance traditions. He relates the early history of isicathamiya, the a cappella vocal style made famous by Ladysmith Black Mambazo.In two chapters on Durban between the World Wars he charts the evolution of Zulu music and dance, studying in depth the transformation of ingoma, a dance form popular among migrant workers since the 1930s. He goes on torecord the colorful life and influential work of Reuben T. Caluza,South Africa's first black ragtime composer. And Erlmann's reconstruction of the 1890s concert tours of an Afro-American vocal group, Orpheus M. McAdoo and the Virginia Jubilee Singers, documents the earliest link between the African and American performance traditions.Numerous eyewitness reports, musicians' personal testimonies, and song texts enrich Erlmann's narratives and demonstrate that black performance evolved in response to the growing economic and racial segmentation of South Africansociety. Early ragtime, ingoma, and isicathamiya enabled the black urban population to comment on their precarious social position and to symbolically construct a secure space within a rapidly changing political world.Today, South African workers, artists, and youth continue to build upon this performance tradition in their struggle for freedom and democracy. The early performers portrayed by Erlmann were guiding lights-African stars-by which the present and future course of South Africa is being determined.