By John Owoo

(On the hills of Dodowa – Ghana)

A dance piece titled “Idioms of Distress, Wellbeing and Resilience” recently enchanted a cheering audience at the Noyam African Dance Institute, which is located on the hills of Dodowa, near Accra.

Directed by Prof. Alison Phipps / Gameli Tordzro and devised by Cynthia Onoma / Akwei Addotey, the young Noyam dancers showcased extraordinary movements that transmitted images of anguish, comfort and resilience among diverse communities.

With references to Akan idioms of expression and funeral rites of the Dangbe District of the Greater Accra region, the artists explored formal dance practises and expressive theatricality as diverse languages including Ga, Adangbe, Twi, Ewe, Shona (Zimbabwe), Lusoga (Uganda), English, French and Arabic flowed from the stage.

Interspersed with imaginative projections of poetry from team members who could not make the trip due to visa difficulties – a situation, which equally befell the dancers on a recent trip to Europe – the artists appeared to perform with blunt, raw and quite engaging honesty.

“I hope that this project continues to inspire these young artists to create, feel empowered and explore their own artistic voice, while highlighting a sense of community and voicing out issues through their agile and talented bodies”, said Joe Attim, a journalist in Accra.

With academic inputs from Professors Kofi Anyidoho / Kofi Agyekum, Ross White, Bella Hoogeveen, Giovanna Fassetta, Nii Tete Yartey and others during the research stage, the piece equally employed the use of Adangbe proverbs, folk tales from the Buganda traditions in Uganda as well as a variety of sounds, which added to the diversity and beauty of the performance.

Alongside refreshing music composed by Gameli Tordzro with inflections of tradition Ugandan music by Roscoe Kasujja / Obed Kasule and costume design by Naa Dansua Tordzro, the piece, which is laced with brilliant multilingual monologues, is an issues driven production that is deeply intensive and focused.

Refreshing solos by Addotey with huge calabashes together with communicative duets and movements in unison turned the performance into a visually stimulating one – indeed, one that would compel those who hate dance to take a new approach.

Undeniably, “Idioms of Distress, Wellbeing and Resilience” is proof that by coming together, we can create our own reality – undeniably, we can build a community wherever we are.

By John Owoo

(National Theatre – Accra)

A classic dance piece titled “MUSU – The Saga of the Slaves”, last week recounted horrid experiences by African slaves at the hands of white slave dealers and their African collaborators in a fast moving, passionate and highly inventive performance.

Co-choreographed by late Prof F. Nii Yartey (Ghana) / Monty Thompson (US Virgin Islands) and performed by the National Dance Company, the piece opens with gestural phrases alongside facial expressions that exude fear, uncertainty, frustration, sorrow and anger.

Directed by Nii Tete Yartey, the performance took the audience deep into history including the Danish involvement, less discussed issues relating to the slave trade debacle and local chiefs in full regalia accepting gifts (bribes) from white raiders in exchange for slaves.

Organized by the National Theatre of Ghana as part of activities marking PANAFEST 2017, the irony of the situation of Africans fighting Africans for slave trophies is vividly revealed through fantastically designed costumes and suggestive movements that interchange in unison with various weapons.

“This is a pure historical production that takes us back in time – we need more of such creations in Ghana. Indeed, our musicians, film makers, choreographers, theatre directors and poets must work with historians in this direction”, said Atta Yaw, a designer in Accra.

Interspersed with music from the Pan African Youth Orchestra, the dancers created emotional conditions within strict forms that are movingly perceptible. In the process, the brutalities, murders and gross inhuman treatment of our forefathers and mothers were relived on stage.

Attempted escapes end in executions while successful escapees commit suicide when recapturing is imminent – indeed, scenes of this nature simply left some members of the audience clutching the sides of their seats while imagining the agony suffered by their ancestors.

With an impressive stage design that comprise a giant stylized baobab tree by David Amoo, the piece, which is laced with traditional Ghanaian movements included clashes that led to frantic and frenetic movements which climaxed the evening in a melodramatic manner.

Earlier the National Drama Company performed an equally traumatizing piece on how the slaves were treated by white slave dealers and their local African accomplices during the long period of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.

By John Owoo

(In Accra – Ghana)

Ivorian guitarist / composer Constant Boty last week delighted a cheering audience at the Alliance Française in Accra during a magnetic concert that marked 60 years of relations between Ghana and France.

With components of jazz idioms and European classical music alongside rock and diverse African rhythms, Boty thrilled the audience with a succinct style that transcended the usual blend of jazz and world music, which is currently in vogue in many parts of the world.

Undeniably, Boty and his group went into their own world and dished out a brilliant mix of Afro pop and jazz that transmitted a deep cultural dialogue besides a meticulous arrangement, crispy sounds and a cool sonic clarity.

Joined by Ghanaian singer / composer Yasmeen Helwani (The Golden Voice), the group exhibited high energy on stage while stretching its diverse explorations into Afro Pop, Jazz, Classical and traditional African rhythms.

“Boty is an amazing and indeed highly influential songwriter – his background as a classical guitarist has heavily influenced his work – it was a wonderful evening of infectious sounds, rhythms and lovely voices”, said Kofi Mensah, a music enthusiast in Accra.

Earlier, Local Dimension Band led by Aaron Babe surprised the audience with a performance that revealed the beauty, power and diversity of neo traditional Ghanaian and African music with refreshing tunes.

With instruments such as Mbira (Zimbabwe) as well as seperewa, xylophone, prempremsiwa, kpanlogo drums among others, they equally entertained the audience with northern Ghanaian Dagari fusions, Palmwine Highlife, Afro Beat as well as compositions based on Adowa and Kpanlogo rhythms.

Hip Hop / Soul fusion artist K Steez (Coco Stone) opened the concert with issues driven lyrics including “galamsey” (illegal mining) as well as experiences he gathered while living in France, Switzerland, England the United States and other parts of the world.

By John Owoo

(In Accra – Ghana)

An educative play titled “Ten Blocks on the Camino Real” recently enchanted and challenged audiences in various locations in Accra through magnetic performances by the National Drama Company (Abibigromma).

Directed by the American theatre maestro David Kaplan, the production – which is an outdoor one – delighted audiences on street corners, markets and community centres with its message of people taking full charge of their lives and making taking right decisions while planning for their old age.

Originally written in the 1940s by Tennessee Williams, it is interspersed with subtle drumming and xylophones while unveiling a dramatic story of a popular American boxer, who travels to a place known as Camino Rail, meets strange people while experiencing equally abnormal situations, which compelled him to engage in a rather bizarre manner.

“It is an interesting play that engages your mind in various ways – the actors and actresses are truly professional thus they constantly grabbed the attention of the audience. We need more of such performances to educate our people”, said Nii Otto Darko, a primary school teacher during the performance in Teshie, a suburb of Accra.

With scenes revealing visits to fortune tellers and logic defying events, the play equally touched on the complexities of life while calling on the audience to be aware of such possibilities in life and urged them to take charge of their lives and handle such difficulties with utmost care.

Indeed, it is a drama of huge ideas – it reveals the need for logic and rationality as well as events relating to the physical and the supernatural – all presented by powerful acting by experienced actors and actresses including Mawuli Semevo, Abena Takyi, Eldad Womtumi, Yaa Ocloo and Godwin Awador.

“Performing this play on streets and markets is a laudable idea – it is very important to take theatre to people who would normally not be in a position to see shows in a theatre. It is refreshing to see local drums infused into a foreign drama”, added Yaa Pokua, a dancer / choreographer in Accra.

Produced by David Kaplan, the play is scheduled to be performed later this year at the Tennessee Williams Theatre Festival in Princetown (New York), United States of America.

“We were not made – only to wash dishes launder clothes, mow lawns…”

These words are recited loudly by a girl still in her teens – her passion for women’s rights and more than an uneducated village life is shining through her speech. It is a poem called “Freedom” written by the Ghanaian author Aba Oppong and forms part of a series of workshops by two Danish volunteers from “100% for the Children”.

Moderated by Camilla Olesen and Kristoffer Bressum, who employed their university background in literature to create a project titled ”Poetic Empowerment: Youth in Dialogue”. It aims at establishing an intercultural exchange between Danish and Ghanaian youth through the use of poetry.

The project involves teaching children how to take notice of themselves by writing literature while encouraging them with the fact that they can learn about other cultures by reading foreign poetry.

During the workshops, participants first get to describe themselves by writing letters to Danish students before using their voice to produce poetry. The workshop places maximum emphasis on creativity emphasize, which is often neglected in education.

“Writing and reading poetry may teach them how to think beyond themselves, but also get to know themselves better – indeed, it has the potential to create independence and expand their consciousness” said Olesen.

With Catholic Action for Street Children, Rural Education for Empowerment Programme as partners and support from Civilsamfund I Udvikling in Denmark, the primary goal of the workshops is to give the young boys and girls tools to use their own voices and become empowered to tell their personal stories through poetry.

“Their poems will be distributed in a poetry collection printed by a Danish university press. The assembled collection will be brought back to the partners as an educational material with a purpose of further using poetry and creative writing to continue the empowerment of young and youthful voices”, added Bressum.

“Poetic Empowerment: Youth in Dialogue 2017” is a project that focuses on character building and intercultural communication between Danish and Ghanaian youth.

The aim is to enhance the youngsters’ awareness and understanding of issues regarding gender, identity and equality through seminar-sessions of reading and discussing poems and novels by Ghanaian and West African authors.

It will focus on how poetry can be creatively used to empower individual and collective voices by also carrying out a workshop in creative writing with a specific goal of making the youth produce a selection of personal material.

By John Owoo

(In Accra – Ghana)

A team from the University of Glasgow (Scotland) led by Prof Alison Phipps, Chair in Refugee Integration through Languages and the Arts at the University of Glasgow alongside affiliates from the University of Ghana and the Islamic University of Gaza are currently in Accra for a series of seminars and workshops.

Dubbed “Idioms of Distress, Wellbeing and Resilience”, the researchers, which include Prof Kofi Anyidoho of the University of Ghana (Legon), will examine the way in which people express their distress and develop ways of coping with anguish in many different languages.

They will examine Arabic from the Gaza Strip and the on-going siege, to the languages of refugees and displaced people / ethnic groups in Northern Uganda, young refugees in Scotland, artists as well as people enduring the loss of their cultural heritage in Zimbabwe and elsewhere.

Words, proverbs and phrases have been collected in these different contexts and the common themes and important differences have been analysed. This will help with more accurate diagnosis of the forms of trauma or distress while providing a vital well of support from indigenous knowledge that are readily available.

As well as publishing academic findings the team are also working with Noyam African Dance Institute (Dodowa), under the leadership of Nii Tete Yartey, to explore sounds, music and languages for expression in dance. These dance pieces help reveal a world of assistance and substances beyond that of the medical or clinical setting.

Gameli Tordzro and Naa Densua Tordzro are leading the artistic work, which includes a production focusing on the distress caused by separation of families and people by borders – not only refugees but also for others caught in the web of entanglements which is the experience of visa application and refusal processes.

In addition, the team will present a documentary about their work with Noyam. This includes recording the experiences of young Noyam dancers who recently visited Scotland to perform as headline acts at the annual Solas Festival, as well as the inaugural lecture of the UNESCO Chair at the University of Glasgow.

African Arts has come a long way from its previously ascribed tribal or primitive perceptions. As narratives continue to change, established and emerging artists from across Africa are very conscious of global affairs.

As interests towards African Arts continues to grow, Lucie Chang Fine Arts and Mwimbi Fine Art Gallery will showcase three young artists from Zimbabwe currently at the forefront in contemporary visual practices entitled “Bridges” from Wednesday July 19.

The three emerging artists from Zimbabwe are Tafadzwa Gwetai, Franklyn Dzingai and Anthony Bumhira. The exhibition will show their latest works, which come in the form paintings and screen prints.

The role played by artists is to partake, create dialogue and initiate conversations pertinent in our times. Although, the artworks in this context are specific to a country and region, the exhibition creates a Bridge for opportunities between Africa and Greater China.

Opportunities to learn, exchange ideas, share experiences and commonalities. Each artist presents us with a Bridge of his own in the form of education, tradition, culture, religion, citizenship, past and present, as they unpack and interrogate these common themes, guests are invited to walk through these Bridges and explore a multitude of lens. Chang Yue Lucie and Lee Garakara are curating the exhibition.

Three emerging artists from Zimbabwe – Tafadazwa Gwetai, Anthony Bumhira and Franklyn Dzingai will be showcasing their works. Tafadzwa Gwetai paints with mediums such as oils, mixed medium and found objects. Gwetai explores the human condition and how mankind has redefined themselves and their basic existence.

He reintroduces and redefines mathematics with science and logic to create a new language – a language that challenges the very core of industry and its relevance to mankind. He views our existence as having been transformed into a virtual reality based paperwork and documentation.

Existentialist philosophy such as that of Rene Descartes and Plato who challenged the existence of man and founded the concept of ‘I think therefore I am’. This influenced his line of thought to that of challenging the purpose and meaning of mankind’s existence. Franklyn Dzingai specialises in printmaking.

He prefers using cardboard for printing relief using the reductive method. Collage and drawing are often incorporated into his prints. His prints are typically vibrant in colour and ornate in design. He sources his images from books, magazines, newspapers and family photos.

Themes such as social interactions and personal memories are found in his prints. Anthony Bumhira, the youngest of the three artists but already has works in the permanent collection of the National gallery of Zimbabwe and around the world.

Exhibition Details

Exhibition Title: Bridges

Venue: Lucie Chang Fine Arts,
No.26 Tai Ping Shan Street, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong

Date / Time:
 19/7/2017 – 18/9/2017 (Monday to Sunday 10am – 7pm) 18/7/2017 (Tuesday) 6:00pm

About the Organizers:-


Lucie Chang Fine Arts


Lucie Chang Fine Arts is founded by Lucie Chang, who has a rich background of Chinese contemporary arts within the art market with experience and expertise being transformed into her latest venture, encouraging aesthetic, spiritual, and social dialogues and diversity of art forms and offering a space for contemporary dialogues and social engagement.
Lucie Chang Fine Arts has stable collectors resource; currently the collectors mainly are from Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Beijing, etc. Lucie Chang Fine Arts has good connections with academic institutions and Art centers in Hong Kong, the future exhibition program will cooperate with the Oil Painting Department of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts and OCT Shenzhen, Lucie Chang Fine Arts not only pays attention to the continuous art works presentation, but also attaches importance to the exhibitions of which are good curated works, will be valued by academic institutions, art gallery and curators.

Lee Garakara and Mwimbi Fine Art Gallery

Lee Garakara was born in Harare, Zimbabwe. He attended and lectured at the Centre for Visual Arts, University of KwaZulu Natal (South Africa) from the period 2001 to 2009. After pursuing his post graduate studies, Mwimbi Fine Art Gallery was born out an urge to support the development of African contemporary Arts by realizing projects internationally. Mwimbi Fine Art Gallery is now based Hong Kong and aims to showcase contemporary African art of the highest form possible. By forging cross-cultural ties between Africa and Asia, Mwimbi Fine Art Gallery aims to engage with communities in ways that have yet to b explored. Through collaborations with industry professionals and institutions, Garakara aims to explore the elusive link between contemporary Art, African Art and its wider audience. Garakara is currently serving as curator and advisor for Mwimbi Fine Art Gallery and Mwimbi Consulting Hong Kong.

About the Supporter: Leap Initiative Philanthropies

The exhibition is supported by the Leap Initiative Philanthropies based in Hong Kong. With strategic partnerships and collaborations, the foundation aims to preserve and promote African Arts and culture within and outside Africa. The foundation is a non-profit organization that supports programs focused on emerging artists throughout the continent of Africa, Europe and Asia. As projects are realized, the foundation support structure also comes in the form of much need resources such as expertise, advisory and networking.

By John Owoo

(Alliance Française – Accra)

An evocative exhibition of various shapes, forms, patterns and symbols that hypnotize contemporary mythology by multi media artist Efo Sela Adjei is closing at the Alliance Française in Accra.

Adjei’s works on display are characterized by dark and often thick backgrounds with hues of blues, greens and pinks alongside whites that sometimes serve as outlines, which often stand out while ensuring a sparkling effect.

His rather hazy images confront and collide with each other as they congregate to powerfully herald intense representations and sketches of his inner soul and spiritual consciousness.

Titled “Lomnava Exhibition”, his extremely distorted human figures appear to float in weightlessness while emphasizing the paradoxes and contradictions of harmattan love, sexual fantasies and covetousness.

Beyond the obvious cultural syncretism, Adjei’s works offer several planes of interpretation – optical illusions, philosophy of romance, sanctity, eroticism, spiritualism and an ingenious sexual indulgence.

Undeniably – Adjei’s work reflects a subtle mediation between his different personalities – his inherent qualities, the spiritual forces that surround him and his views on diverse issues that compel him to react with his brush.

Talented poet Elpklim Akorli performed a number of his poems while inventive dancer / choreographer Sena Atsugah led a group of dancers in a magnetic performance that mesmerized art lovers at the opening.

Efo Sela Adjei has exhibited in the United Kingdom, Italy, the United States and several venues in Ghana.

By John Owoo

(In Accra – Ghana)                      

A new dance / video art production titled “bodyRealities – cityCodes” – which deals with the complex structures of Accra and its inhabitants – will in September 2017 premiere at the Tanzfaktur, which is located in the German city of Cologne.

Featuring Ghanaian dancers Mark Lomotey / Alfred Quarshie and produced by DIN A 13 Dance Company (Germany), it examines the impact that places, landscapes, locations as well as personal experiences have on individual body memories and how these spaces are reflected in physical movement.

The piece further scrutinizes the human body as a living sign of its culture and architectural habitat – what we do with our bodies, how we deal with it, how we use it, what attitudes we exhibit from it, how we evaluate it, how it feels and what significance we attribute to it – are shaped by the society and culture we live in.

Together with German filmmakers Miriam Jakobs and Gerhard Schick, choreographer Gerda König managed to trace these contexts in parts of Sri Lanka in 2016. Currently, the research has led the artistic team to various parts of the Ghanaian capital, Accra.

In Accra, they found rural structures in informal settlements and slums that extend along a river front, a railway track, a street with high-rise buildings where the values and products of globalization seem unattainable for a majority of the population behind these shiny glass façades.

The attempt to understand a city and its people inevitably leads to a confrontation with past and modern-day slavery – undeniably, the consequences of colonization and globalization. Accra is indeed a melting pot of the past and present consisting of different ethnic groups, languages and cultures.

The sociology of the human body, as a sub area of sociology, deals with the interpenetration of body and society. Although the body is part of nature and as such subject to its laws, the way in which this natural side of the body is perceived, valued and lived depends on the epoch, culture, and society.

The basic goal of the sociology of the body is to work out how the human body is to be understood as a social phenomenon. Consequently, the project analyzes the processes in which the body becomes the product and the producer of society.

DIN A 13 Dance Company is one of the few dance ensembles comprising dancers with different bodily capabilities. By means of continual artistic and conceptual development of their productions, DIN A 13 has managed to become one of the globally leading mixed-abled dance ensembles.

The artistic approach taken by the company is marked by the exploration and visualization of the quality of movement inherent in “differing bodies” whose diversity forms the basis for the choreographic work.

Gerda König challenges viewing habits and normative ideals found in contemporary dance while enriching it through new impulses. Consequently, assumed frontiers and evaluations between special bodily dispositions and a dancer’s peak performance become dissolved in choreographic pictures, posing questions and inviting one to enter into an artistic dialogue.

She perpetually searches for contrast and provocation in her choreographic pictures, mirroring the human tension between inner and social conflicts. The unexpectedness of another body becomes the aesthetic experience whose expressiveness shows new benchmarks of quality.

“bodyRealities – cityCodes” is being sponsored by Landschaftsverband Rheinland, German Ministry for Family, Children, Youth, Culture and Sports of the country Northrhine Westfalia, the Cultural Office of the city Cologne, Aktion Mensch, Art Foundation NRW, Kämpgen Foundation, Beatrix-Lichtken Foundation, Goethe-Institut Ghana, iDAS nrw and Fonds Soziokultur, npn.

Pictures:- David Schmenger

By John Owoo

(At The University of Ghana – Legon)

Dr. Frank George Bernasko, a medical officer with the Presbyterian Hospital in Akyem Agogo last week won the 2017 edition of Falling Walls Lab, which was held at the University of Ghana, Legon.

Founded by the Falling Walls Foundation with support from A.T. Kearney in Central Europe, the competition aims at connecting aspiring innovators, discover and develop talents, support interdisciplinary dialogue / international cooperation, and develop new ways of scientific communication while building up new and strong networks.

Dr Bernasko presented a cost effective system that will be mounted on the surface of the sea and effectively tap energy from both incoming and receding waves to generate and supply electricity to local communities at moderate charges.

Eric Opoku Osei from the University of Ghana (Legon) and Dr. Nii Amu Dodoo from the Kwame Nkumah University of Science and Technology (Kumasi), took the second and third positions at the keenly contested competition, which involved twenty-two participants from diverse tertiary institutions and organizations throughout the country.

Presentations include solutions to water pollution, manufacturing trucks with local content to clean open drains, use of folklore to contain sanitation problems, effective dissemination of research findings, fresh water governance and use of simple equipment to curtail malaria infections.

Others are ending the perennial leakage of examination papers, global warming, plastic bag pollution, youth unemployment, adulteration / unsustainable use of plants for herbal medicine and alcoholic beverages, domestic violence and the eradication of illiteracy and superstition.

In a message to the participants, Bernhard Ables, Deputy Head of Mission at the German Embassy in Accra, said it is time to break down walls through science, politics, arts and diverse areas of endeavors adding that this is significant as the fall of the Berlin wall is in its 28^th year.

Members of a jury that vetted the presentations include Prof. Nana Aba Appiah Amfo (Dean, School of Languages – University of Ghana), Prof Mansa Prah (formerly of the University of Cape Coast), Prof. Felix Asante (Director, Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research – University of Ghana) and Maximilian Butek (Country Director, Delegation of German Industry and Commerce in Ghana).

The rest are Dr. Wazi Apoh (Head, Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies – University of Ghana), Dr. Francis Boateng Agyenim (Director, Institute of Industrial Research), Dr. Rosina Kyeremanten (Director, ARPPIS – University of Ghana), Director – Association of Ghana Industries) and Dr. Godfrey Mills (Head, Department of Computer Engineering – University of Ghana).

The programme was organized and supported by the Falling Walls Foundation (Germany), DAAD Information Centre and the Goethe-Institut – both in Accra.