Want To Match My Kundli Online

AFRICAN RENAISSANCE Stefano Anselmo

"Festival International des Artes Negres, 10 to 31 December 2010, Dakar.

I spent the month of December in Senegal. I had planned to spend the holidays in the African country resting and doing some ethnographic research. All very calmly, but ... Arrived in Dakar on 7 morning I discover that there would be three days after the inauguration of FESMAN, the "Black World Festival," third "Festival International des artes Negres" I had to wait 20-25 years to see him so I could not leave escape. In fact, the first ever in Dakar in 1966 - which the RAI passed a series of historical documentaries by Folco Quilici “Malimba”-, poi vi fu quello del ’77 a Lagos in Nigeria e l’ultimo nuovamente senegalese. Dakar è di per sé una città cosmopolita, ma in quei giorni poi, per le stade si incontrava il mondo. Ciò mi rattristò parecchio perché venni a sapere dagli stranieri incontrati che nei loro paesi (paesi europei, asiatici, nord e sud americani, ecc), i media avevano dato il giusto rilievo a un festival così importante. Io invece mi trovavo a Dakar per caso perchè nella nostra povera Italietta, obnubilata dal velinismo e dai grandifratelli invece, su questa notizia, regnò il silenzio più assoluto.


Brevemente, il programma del FESMAN comprendeva: Architettura, Ancient Art, Modern Art, Craft, Urban-culture, Design, Cinema, Theater, Dance, Literature, Music and Fashion. All the World by prevenient strictly black and African Diaspora: African Americans, U.S. and South America, and Afro-Caribbean artists and professionals of African descent who live elsewhere. In other words, the best of world art with famous names in each sector.
The events were held in 4 different localtà: Ziguinchor, Kaolakh, Saint Louis, ovviamnte in the capital Dakar, with the largest number of events. At the cinema was mostly a huge tent at a circus where projected films continuously. Exhibitions, local museums or other buildings specifically adapted. Throughout the month, the mornings were devoted to panel discussions, lectures, meetings with journalists, then in the early afternoon, began the workshop of the various disciplines: lessons to learn to play some of the many traditional African musical instruments, the art of weaving of Batik, dell'intessere with straw or other fibers, glass painting, wood sculpture, dance, and so on. From 19.00 instead began concerts that ended late at night. The program was almost always very rich: they frequently end up with more than 10 concerts a day located in various parts of the city: the sophisticated performance of African-jezzistiche Ray Lema, Richard Bona o Omar Sosa avvenivano in luoghi allestiti come veri teatri come il contestatissimo “Monument de la Renaissance”, o la Maison de la Culture dedicata al multiforme genio Duta Seck dove, circondato da una rigogliosissima verzura, ho assistito a concerti e danze. Gli spettagoli più popolari, invece, venivano tenuti in palace de l’Obelisque, dove immersi in un oceano di persone (ogni sera l’affluenza era di 12-15.000 persone), tra venditrici e venditori di panini ripieni, frittelle dolci, bibite, arachidi zuccherate o salate, the, caffè, cafè Touba (addizionato a una spezia che chiamato giàr dal piccante aroma, tra i chiodi di garofano e la noce moscata), si rimaneva in piedi, lasciandosi trascinare by "waves" of the public. Or you went to Sorano, theater calssic par excellence where the bourgeoisie wore fancy clothes.

The inauguration took place Dec. 10 at the Leopold Sedar Senghor Stadium in a ceremony sumptuous and exciting.

Tens of thousands of people chanting to the characters that alternated with dances and music, on a background screen at least 300 meters long, some details of the show, or elements of the set. I have no words to explain the beauty of the images that have succeeded, but I can few proporvene a pity that there are still newspapers where you can insert movies.

Among the many exhibitions I visited the Arts Exhibition at the Musee D'Afrique Theodore Monod, example of modern architecture style in sub-Saharan (like the famous Mosque of Djenne , Mali, where I found myself face to face with Lucy (the 'austrolopitecus afarensis found in Ethiopia in 1973) in all, I think, we read the story: a skeleton with nothing!, only then I remembered that at first Anthropologists, because of its tiny size, supposed to have found the remains of a child. In this little body and skull of Tuma, displayed nearby, contained all the history. All of us, of every color, nationality, religion or politics become brothers, and all distant relatives of Lucy, our grandmother! Mdo
I then had to appreciate the modern art of a young artist Togo Afer that exposes the island of Gore; I and my friend we bought a couple of his works.

Cubism: a sculpture by Brancusi left and right mask Fang (Gabon)

A pavilion of the exhibition showed some of the inspiring elements from which the artists drew 900 the key to decoding a new visual lingiaggio cheering her long, Cubism: history is full of moments that have shaken the foundations of our "truth." Just think about what happened in the early nineteenth century with the study of African sculpture, until then regarded as the mere product of savages wholly trivial and incapable of producing anything useful for the European world: it started the quest for decomposition of forms that culminated in 1907 with the birth of Cubism, as attested by the execution of Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. Cubism, developed the process of disintegration of perspective. The freedom that is, to sacrifice to the idea natural proportions and the infinite possibilities of deformation (of the human face), how well do they know the sculptors of some African cultures. It was the most amazing artistic revolution of the twentieth century with respect to a criterion of aesthetic character. We joined others as large as, Modigliani, Matisse, Braque, Ernst then, Brancusi, Laurens, Moore and Giacometti. An anecdote told by the writer Francis Carco: looking at a cafe in Bougival an African sculpture, Maurice de Vlaminck, said "It 's almost beautiful as the Venus de Milo." It' s just as beautiful, "says André Derain. 'Most beautiful "Picasso ended, displacing both.
This allowed European man to discover the synthesis of form, a whole new dimension of fitness, as he later discovered the concept of swing and the 'go-beat ", the foundation of jazz, a great mother of all contemporary music.
Among the many concerts I particularly enjoyed the African-m jezzista Richard Bona I knew only on CD, Richard entertained us with a cocktail of priceless virtuosimi and games ... Music humor, so to speak. Then the huge Toumani Diabaté who manages to put together the sound of the Kora with jazz harmonies. For the uninitiated the Kora is a type of harp strings, traditional Mandinka ethnicity, operated in large part of West Africa. The sound box consists of a half-emptied pumpkin covered with animal skin. The case is a frame from which handle 21 strings that are inserted in two parallel rows, respectively, 10 and 11 strings, using the bridge perpendicular to the soundboard. Some modern kora strings have some additional (up to four) dedicated to low. There are also variations of kora up to a maximum of 28 cords. This includes four different tunings, whose type depends on the song you want to perform.
Yes, these Africans know much about music. Just think that most of "our" tools have an ancestor in Africa: the balafon is a kind of xylophone, the Rites is a violin from a rope to play with the bow, then there are all kinds of stringed instruments, guitars, harps, lyres with an endless variety of names, model numbers and strings. And the wind instruments like flutes and trumpets, and finally, as evenly as is well known, the unparalleled variety of drums. This is because Africa had a history of great culture, nobility and wealth. Just remember Mansa Musa, King of Melli (located roughly in the present Mali) that a pilgrim to Mecca in 1324, he distributed gifts in gold so generous as to devalue the precious metal markets for almost 10 years. In fact, in the Atlas Universal Catalano (paper geographical nel1375 drawn), the emperor of Mali, Mansa Musa, is represented enthroned in the center of West Africa, holding a gold nugget, and a Berber merchant, his face veiled, comes close to the back of a camel.
Moreover, there was a time when we knew what they were rich in the African Kingdoms (just look at the antique jewels set in Dakar: the Continent provided the basis for the gold standard in medieval Europe during the dynasty almoravide. L ' inflow of gold from Africa, was decisive for the economic development of Europe, which gave the green light to the glories of the Renaissance. In those centuries Africa was exporting between 4 and 5 tons di oro all’anno: nel 1252 Firenze coniò il primo fiorino d’oro seguita da altri stati come Spagna e Portogallo e più avanti, anche l’Inghilterra coniò l’oro africano come testimonia l’elefante presente su una “ghinea”del XVII secolo.
Vi furono anche regni che svilupparono culture tanto complesse da diventare centri di studio. Non ultima la famigerata Tombuctù che nel XVI secolo contava molte moschee, tre università e numerose scuole coraniche. Era un centro di insegnamento famoso per il suo sapere che richiamava studiosi da tutto il mondo arabo (a cui la Scuola di Salerno attinse a piene mani) e meno frequentemente (perché eravamo arretrati) anche dal Sud dell’Europa. Books and manuscripts in the city were valued more than any other commodity.
no coincidence, in fact, our history is populated by great men, scholars, saints and thinkers from Africa: St. Augustine of Tagaste (Algeria), the African lion, also known as al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan al- phases was a geographer and explorer of the '500 Arabic, the black bishop San Zeno (Mauretania, 300 to 317 AD), cultured and erudite person, shaped by the African school of rhetoric, whose leading exponents were Madaura of Apuleius, Tertullian, Cyprian and Lactantius , the Veronese dedicated to the saint of the same name and the famous Basilica, a masterpiece of the eleventh century. But the list is much longer: Philip Demetrius, Calogero, et cetera.
Amazed? You are surprised because this part of history simply do not know it because it is not present in school textbooks. Why? Who knows!, Maybe it's too large an issue and, as it omits the ancient history of Asia, Africa that is omitted. Or maybe you believe (wrongly) dropped by our historical context. Or more simply, it is ignored in worship of the process of cultural annihilation which Africa has been subjected to a few hundred years and that colonialism, in the apotheosis of the Nazis gave the final blow with the celebration of the inferiority of breeds.
Would you like to learn more true? Follow me: I will reveal some "secrets" just taking advantage of some works on display in Dakar during the festival.
begin with one of the logos of the festival, taken from a bronze sculpture of Ife civilization, which flourished between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries in the current Nigeria ....
Yoruba civilization of this nothing is known except for some in terracotta and bronze sculptures depicting the rulers of the ancient kingdom dressed in gaudy jewelry and ornaments that suggest a civilization between the richest and most refined. The heads of the king, an absolute beauty, are modeled with an excellent sensitivity, to draw the idea of \u200b\u200ban "African Hellenism."

sculpture from Ife

With Ife sculpture is touched, perhaps, the highest level of the whole continent, to approach the most beautiful creations of Egypt Classic of classical Greece and Renaissance Europe. In 1910, Leo Frobenius brought forth the first sculptures of Ife astounding for their "classic". But the artistic level contrasted with the 'idea of \u200b\u200bsavage and uncivilized continent, so, again, were made the most fantastic theories on their origin so as not to admit that most reasonably realistic: the indigenous.
Before 1600 ended all this splendor. Why? The reasons are manifold but often with a matrix as the economic causes of the collapse of the powerful kingdom of Benin in 1500 that controlled all the trade routes known (of 1486 is the first contact with European navigators). Rich: it was the largest producer of gold before the discovery of America. Advanced: structured in complex ways, not unlike the Renaissance courts of Europe. The capital of Benin prided itself as the largest city in the era of the sixteenth century Dutch travelers and effectively remains a marvel for many miles-long promenade and wider than the largest avenue in Amsterdam.
"There dove ero alloggiato, scrive l’olandese Dierich Ruiters verso la fine del ‘500, ci trovavamo ad almeno un quarto d’ora dalla porta della città eppure non riuscivo a vedere la fine della strada dall’altra parte”; (...) Una volta all’interno vide: “molte grandi strade a destra e a sinistra. Ma non riuscivo a vederne la fine per la lunghezza.” “Le case di questa città sono in buono stato, ordinate, strette e allineate le une alle altre come in Olanda. Quelle che appartengono a gente di un certo livello sociale, hanno due o tre scalini sull’ingresso e davanti a ciascuna di esse c’è una specie di galleria dove si può sedere al riparo dalle intemperie.” (…) “il palazzo del re è molto grande perchè ha al suo interno molti cortili quadrati con colonnato tutt’attorno dove sono sempre collocate le sentinelle. Io attraversai quattro cortili e dovunque voltassi lo sguardo vidi porte dopo porte che facevano da ingresso ad altri palazzi.”
I viaggiatori rimasero favorevolmente colpiti anche dalla disciplina sociale e dall’ordine civile di Benin e anche da un senso di equilibrio e fiducia in se stessi che evidentemente non si aspettavano di trovare “gente che dispone di buone leggi e di una polizia bene organizzata, persone che vivono in buon accordo con gli Olandesi e con altri stranieri che vengono per commerciare in mezzo a loro, un popolo che manifesta mille segni di amicizia.” Shocked however, that the unmarried girls walked naked down the street, the oba (king) enjoyed a "harem" of 1000 women and that the kingdom of Benin was protected by an army of notorious "invincible" Amazon (let's not forget that Africa was for the most ancient matriarchal), composed of the last soldier general, only young women carrying the breast wrapped, flattened by a bonded fabric very tight. Through which the Benin control the trade of most African countries.
Then at the end of the nineteenth century, a dramatic event precipitated things: the British troops destroyed the city-state of Benin in 1897 and the huge booty consisting of thousands of sculptures and artefacts in bronze, ivory, clay and wood, was brought to Europe and scattered among museums and private collections. The British justified their acts of blood nell'espugnazione of Benin City, with gruesome stories of human sacrifice that occurred annually in the city. Benin City became known worldwide as a "city of blood" and the king denounced as "abominable savage" and "demon in human form." All released by the sensationalist British press often uses images retouched biased in order to devalue the culture and society of Benin. With the dissemination of works of art raided, however, it is increasingly difficult to maintain the image of "degenerate race which showed no sign of civilization", with the pretext that the country had been destroyed. So it was proposed a new "model" able to dissolve the contradiction between the great local art and the alleged barbarism in use: it was widely thought of a degenerate society and was told that works of art belonged to a civilization apogee many centuries ago and then lapsed in the wild, where only the "civilized West" could have ended.
It came to the belief "scientifically recognized" that no inhabitant the realm of time was able to produce that kind of art and then art became "the remains of an earlier and greater civilization." This will spread racist stereotypes in Europe, which protected the commercial interests, military and downplayed crimes legitimated colonial plunder. Because of facts like this, the image of Africa uncivilized, then the current remained essentially unchanged until our time.

The discrediting of the formula put in place to justify otherwise immoral actions and attitudes, was repeated several times by applying it whenever he had the opportunity or the need: the African wild incolti e incapaci di produrre arte e civiltà, andavano educati e per contro era giusto compensare economicamente lo sforzo attingendo alle risorse umane e naturali, così abbondanti in Africa.

In ordine a questo modo di agire si tese a negare l’origine autoctona delle opere pregevoli con la “certezza” che gli Africani non fossero capaci di fabbricarle, ricercandone la paternità in altri popoli bianchi come i Fenici o addirittura i Greci.
Ciò era in linea perfetta con gli interessi del conquistatore Rhodes (da cui Rhodesia) non incline ad accettare l'idea che gli Africani potessero aver dato luogo a una civiltà così importante da costruire il Grande Zimbabwe con grandi mura costruite con una great technique for conception, which has no parallel in the rest of Africa or in other continents (V-VI century). To build the forts were used one-ton stone blocks, arranged in order to create a complex decorative effect. Then science with carbon-14 and other techniques of investigation, put things right, but the books were printed spreading misinformation for many decades and the head of the inferiority of Africans became a fact.
Before concluding, even to the A note on Watussi (Wa tutzi). Belgian colonialists were to hierarchically organize the country in two races. They began to highlight the groups developing the concept of race (biologicamente insostenibile), stabilendo un criterio fisiognomico privo di fondamentio scientifico basato sulla misurazione del cranio. I Belgi videro nella bellezza dei Tutsi una razza superiore (agli Hutu) e non riuscivano ad accettare che fossero realmente africani fino a pensarli provenienti da altri luoghi (non africani) o sopravvissuti del continente perduto di Atlantide. Per questo motivo riservarono loro trattamenti di favore. Nel ‘59 la gerarchia sociale stabilita dai Belgi fu capovolta e gli Hutu il gruppo più elevato, dominò la società. Questo aumentò l'oppressione dei Tutsi da parte degli Hutu e portò a esplosivi conflitti tra culture, tra cui lo spaventoso genocidio dei Tutsi nel 1994.
Queste antiche culture were so advanced that they have established business relations with the Far East, it seems, from the late ninth century. Witness the ruins of Zimbabwe, of Lamu in Kenya and Tanzania in Kilwa, a town was destroyed by the men of the Portuguese Vasco da Gama in the second half of 1400. These ruins show today included Chinese ceramics in the mortar as architectural decoration. Other ceramics have emerged from excavations. In addition, China has kept a drawing of a giraffe brought by travelers Zheng He, donated by the King of Malindi to the Chinese emperor, we are a little less than a century of the discovery of MRP! Among the ruins of Zimbabwe and its environs, were also found Chinese coins the years between 713 and 742, and then some dell'845 as much money in use in China from 1068 to 1086, others between 1131 and 1163. We know that shortly before 1480 (period of the great journeys of the Portuguese explorers), a Chinese fleet visited Mogadishu, which passes through part of the exports of the Kingdom of Monomotapa.
conclude this brief journey through the fragmented and largely unknown part of the history of the Black Continent, with a hopeful note, with what seems to witness a golden age, we all totally unknown, a world in which (perhaps ) men were a little 'better and we should aspire to everyone.

The writer Ibn Battuta of Tangier, visited Mali in 1352 and wrote down his impressions of the region. Itinerant scholar, at the time he visited Mali, had already traveled a great deal to come into contact with Chinese culture was able to set many benchmarks. As a good conservative North Africa, what was, Ibn Battuta was negatively affected by the freedom enjoyed by women in West Africa. In general, however, was happily impressed with what he saw and the people of Mali wrote: "One of the positives is the absence of repression with them. They are among the people who appear more distant and their sultan (king) does not allow anyone to practice it. Another positive aspect is the sense of security that spread throughout the country so that neither the passenger nor the resident has anything to fear from thieves and usurpers. "


thank Stefano Anselmo for text and photographs