By John Owoo
(In Malmo – Sweden)

Sunrays filter through the gentle breeze at the Pildamms Amphitheatre in the Swedish city of Malmo as an over capacity crowd eagerly await a concert by the Ghanaian highlife legend Pat Thomas.

As the musicians emerge from the back stage, the audience shows appreciation with an applause, which culminates with a loud roar as the highlife maestro walks on stage in a colourful yellow and blue costume.

The amphitheater gradually turns into a kind of health spa as intense energy from the seventy-five year old Thomas and his musicians including percussionist Eric Owusu, Berlin based saxophonist Ben Abarbanel-Wolff and guitarist / keyboardist Kwame Yeboah inundate the venue

Reworked evergreen highlife tunes like “Mewo Akoma”, Gyae Su”, “Odo Be Ba” and “Me Ho Asem” noticeably fused with Sikyi, Osode, Afrobeat, jazzy brass lines and interweaving electric guitars gradually move their way into the hearts of members of the audience – and they react with cheers and applause as they hit the dance floor.

“This is the original groove that reminds mankind to be in cohesion – indeed, the concert is full of joy and it’s undeniably contagious – all the young people here are dancing”, says Karen V. Rasmussen, a guitarist who is working towards distinctive and global consciousness.

“It’s a tremendous feeling to see Pat Thomas perform in Malmo with additional inflections to his original compositions – I have not seen him on stage for nearly thirty years. This is an unforgettable evening”, continues Kwaku Boateng, a Ghanaian resident in Malmo.

In a good way, Thomas, who is known as the golden voice of Africa, is able to pull from these musicians, who are known collectively as the Kwashiebu Area Band, while crafting an aesthetic appeal that is uniquely his. He takes on a director’s role as he steps aside vocally thereby allowing his features to shine.

Alongside a compelling stage presence, the musicians seem to be having fun with each other as they crisscross the stage in near choreographic movements while sporadic solos and duets calmly add up to the sheer exuberance of the crowd.

Pat Thomas and the Kwashiebu Area Band is currently on tour of several cities in Europe – and is set to perform to a huge crowd at the Roskilde Festival, which is held annually in the Danish town of Roskilde.

The performance in Malmo, forms part of Summer Scene festival, a three-month long event, which takes place in diverse venues throughout the city, which is noted as the cultural capital of Southern Sweden.

By John Owoo
(At large in Aarhus – Denmark)

Afro Pop singer Noella Wiyaala last week mesmerized fans at the Danish city of Aarhus with a magnetic stagecraft during the 2016 edition of the Pan African Arts Festival (PANAFEST).

Clothed in a charming costume made from African fabrics, she engaged the audience at the Aarhus Botanical Garden with a dramatic fusion of sounds that sent them on a journey through some distinct but very closely-knit territories, which they are without doubt familiar with.

Alongside elements of tribal folk music, the concert was fittingly firm, trickily woven and tranquilly penetrating – and provided a solid platform for the promotion of rhythms and a soulful voice from the Upper West Region of Ghana.

African Footprint Legends (AFL) took the stage by storm with a curious blending of ritualistic rhythms with highlife. Employing a combination of Western and traditional instruments from Ghana and Burkina Faso, the group surprised the audience with music that is contemporary, but with it’s heart firmly embedded in traditional Africa.

With musicians and dancers from Denmark, Ghana and Burkina Faso, AFL turned the stage into a music groove – and elation suddenly became an infectious commodity – moving from artists to the audience, audience to the artists and eventually from musician to musician.

In a related concert at NY V 58, a performance hall in downtown Aarhus, Ghanaian reggae star Shasha Marley – who is noted for his Franciscan Friar-like costumes – swayed the cheering crowd with his charismatic voice and an incredible stage presence.

Full of energy, Marley who was joined by Ghanaian and Danish musicians, displayed a real sense of creativity and absolute skill as reggae fans among the audience applauded, danced and joined in the singing.

Also on stage at NY V 58 were the Rasta Mizizi Family (Kenya) and Shungu Afro Beat (Denmark) while the Botanical Garden also hosted DJs, acrobats, poets, storytellers, art, crafts and food exhibitions as well as fashion shows.

Yves Afro Events organized and presented the festival, which was supported by Aarhus Kommune, Goodness Photo, Reach Out For A Child, House of Kente, Little Sir & Madam and AVANU.

By John Owoo

Polyversal Souls, a Berlin based band last week made manifest the power and attractiveness of cross-cultural collaborations with a compelling performance at the Goethe-Institut in Accra.

Performing to a near capacity audience alongside Bolgatanga based kologo virtuoso Guy One and high pitch singers; they managed to turn the venue into a music groove with diverse rhythms and songs full of tremendous emotional power.

With a distinct blend of instrumentation that appeared flawless – the group put together saxophones, trombones, keyboards and drum sets alongside kologo, which they dramatically blended into a greater whole.

As sharp, stimulating and stirring voices from Florence Adooni and Jonas Alo-Ohotoho as well as brisk rhythms from the Germans and Guy One, the audience was coolly transferred to the savannah highlands of Northern Ghana together with the kologo rhythms.

Fascinated by the wild rhythms from the Kologo, a two-stringed lute that can produce great tempos and delightful sound effects, the audience appeared to be at the edge of their seats as flutes, baritone / tenor saxophones and trombones equally blasted sweet sounds in to the cool night air.

A fusion of several musical cultures, the concert was truly tight, intricately woven and quietly intense. It provided a platform for fruitful collaboration that ensured a dramatic fusion of soul, rock and jazz with indigenous beats, sounds and voices from the Upper East region.

An apostle of collaborations, Weissenfeldt, who is the leader, has toured Europe and various parts of Africa well as South Eastern Asia, where he studied classical Burmese Saing Waing music. He later decided to start a label and formed Polyversal Souls in order to play and record with local Ghanaian talent.

Organized by the Goethe-Institut, the group is scheduled to perform in Nigeria, Benin, Togo and La Côte d’Ivoire. Further performances and recording sessions will take place in Germany later this year.

A recent work by the Ghanaian performance artist Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi (crazinisT artisT) that made the familiar intensely political and the peculiar eccentric ended recently in the Ashanti regional capital Kumasi.

Tapping deep into potentially traumatic subjects, Fiatsi exploits the “aesthetics” of human rights violations, sexism, gender violence, political injustice, xenophobia and religious extremism as a social process within the global community and powerfully comments on them.

Using his naked body alongside braided hair and painted nails, the artist lays motionless on a mounted table covered in red and white sheets splashed with his own blood. In the midst of an eerie silence, he engages the audience with conflicting emotions of desire and revulsion, fear and fascination as well as provocation and irritation.

Merging iconographic imageries of funerary rituals with an appropriation of the last supper from the Bible, the performance made bold comments on “pleasuring and commodification” of marginalised citizens while showing then off as victims of “freak shows”.

Fiatsi sought to re-examine the paradoxical relationship between human rights and international political structures that claim to protect marginalised individuals and groups – and he largely succeeds as he challenges the vision of the world while exposing its contradictions and complexities.

Through a multi layered performance that lasted five hours, Fiatsi managed to reduce the human body to an exotic product as though to be bargained, purchased and consumed. Indeed, he stimulates an open-ended dialogue on degradations of voiceless citizens and violations of human rights by presenting his naked body as a provocative tool.

In a near cryptic performance, Fiasti calls on his audience (who graciously take part) and indeed the world at large, to re-examine the issue of humanity while coolly urging them to see beyond his nakedness and begin a soul-searching exercise.

Currently an MFA student at the College of Art & Design, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (Kumasi), Fiatsi is a multimedia performance artist. His works investigate the socio-cultural supremacy of dominant groups by questioning the relationship between “right wing” groups and marginalised citizens within “civilised” societies.

He explores the hybridity of forms, spaces and structures as “inherent” components of performance art and therefore decontextualizing the relationship of the human body to society and its normative cultures. Indeed, he perceives the human body as a colony of societal norms, codes, taboos and doctrines striving against oppressive prejudices.

Pictures by Anwar Sadat Mohammed & Justice Amoh

By John Owoo
(At the Nubuke Foundation)

Ghanaian artist Fatric Bewong has without doubt succeeded in employing items used in daily activities to convey complex narratives.

Her current exhibition, which is on-going at the Nubuke Foundation in Accra, comprise discarded pieces of fabrics and plastics that have been placed on boards, wrapped around tubes in concentric rings, attached to canvasses and installed on mannequins.

She makes a successful foray into our management of the environment by handing over to us various discarded items that she has precariously thrown on (and around) a faceless mannequin thereby reminding us of the harm been perpetuated against the environment.

Loaded with artistic energy and expressive resonance, the works are characterized by obsessive quality and neatly interspersed with grid-like boards covered in colourful fabrics that are equally laden with social commentaries and memories.

Rolled around long tubes, they appear like stalagmites and stalactites in ancient caves. Unquestionably, the artist who perceives the works as four-dimensional pieces suspended in time and space, mimics the chaos, contours and contortions of our environment.

Undeniably, discarded plastic bags appear to have found a “home” on the streets, alleys drains and fields of the city instead of garbage bins and are often carried into the ocean by torrential rains thereby harming marine life – and the artist makes a bold attempt at reconstructing this scenario.

Bewong is noted for highly abstract pieces that are characterized by little or no corporeal indication. Indeed, her new series of canvases, characterized by deliberate or incidental colour splish-splashes and splatters, embody an inspiring view on diverse issues.

For the past several years, she has explored sounds and African proverbs, through paintings, installations and collage. Bewong has equally accessed and assessed the ancient traditions of abstraction that are encoded within proverbs, Adinkra symbols and other narratives to tell her personal and our collective stories.

The exhibition ends on Sunday May 29.

By John Owoo
(At the Kempinski Hotel Gold Coast City – Accra)

Young artist Serge Attukwei Clottey is indeed a wild maverick – he seems to re-invent himself for each new performance – and undeniably, he is daringly brilliant.

His latest performance, dubbed “My Mother’s Wardrobe”, marked the formal opening of Gallery 1957. Located within the Kempinski Hotel Gold Coast City in Accra, it is set to stimulate the art scene with refreshing installations, works and performances.

“My Mother’s Wardrobe”, which comprised male and female models wearing clothes of Clottey’s late mother, is a symbolic testament to his mother while exploring the narratives of personal, family and collective histories.

Grieving for his late mother, Clottey alongside other muscular young men and women, arrive at the premises of the hotel in a wooden “trotro” loaded with discarded plastic gallons. Fully clad in colourful clothes left by his mother, they promptly move in well-coordinated movements and gestures alongside the plastic gallons.

With his mother’s death, Clottey came to realize the numerous sacrifices his mother had made and paid tribute through her copious Kaba clothes as he dealt with the issue of mortality, while considering them as a tangible expression of an irreversible loss.

Indeed, the cross dressing equally symbolizes a subtle protest of gender imbalances that is largely inherent in some traditional forms and societies. As the models move in unison, one can feel some form of activism bordering on politics and religion.

With powdered faces / chests and huge plastic bags known locally as “Ghana Must Go” hanging on their shoulders, they pose alongside the gallons, which he employs in large-scale installations to draw attention to the issue of preserving and protecting the environment.

Clottey has over the years been engaged with “Afrogallonism” – a term he explains as an artistic concept aimed at exploring the relationship between the prevalence of yellow oil gallons as regards to consumption and necessity in the life of the modern African.

“My Mother’s Wardrobe” is a result of Clottey’s residency with ANO Cultural Research Platform in Accra, whose remit is to uncover hidden, alternative, personal and collective histories, which make up what is now known as Ghana.

He has participated in several group and solo exhibitions including, The Kampnagel, Hamburg (2015), Intelligentsia Gallery, Beijing (2015), The Mistake Room, Los Angeles (2015), 27th Festival Les Instants Vidéo, Marseille (2014), WUK, Wien (2014), Mohr-Villa, Munich (2014), Ozwald Boateng, London (2014) and 11th Dak Art, Dakar (2014).

The rest are Nubuke Foundation, Accra (2014), Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2012), The Drum Ace Café, Birmingham (2010) and AfriCAM, Napoli (2009). Clottey has also been an artist in residencies at ANO Centre for Cultural Research Accra (2015–2016) and Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna (2013).

Gallery 1957 has evolved from over fifteen years of private collecting by construction entrepreneur Marwan Zakhem. With an initial curatorial focus on contemporary Ghanaian art, the gallery will present a programme of exhibitions, installations and performances by the region’s most significant artists.

Pictures by Regula Tschumi

By John Owoo
(At large in Cape Coast)

African Footprint Legends, Australia based star Afro Moses and two Danish Bands last week delighted live music lovers in Cape Coast with a magnetic performance during the maiden edition of Green Music Festival.

The festival, which will be held annually, is aimed at promoting the use of eco friendly energy to power equipment during festivals, concerts, workshops, seminars, film shows and other related events.

A master of fourteen instruments including mbira, seperewa and kora, Moses mounted the stage at the Addison’s Square Garden and immediately went into his own world and dished out a dramatic blend of afrobeat, reggae, funk, jazz and Ghanaian traditional compositions.

Joined by African Footprint Legends (Denmark/Ghana), Total Hip Replacement, Junglelyd (Denmark) and Dzesi Band, the all female Ghanaian group, Moses exhibited extreme showmanship as music full of energy flowed from the stage.

With refreshing tunes from his seperewa, Moses uplifted, inspired and transported the audience to a refreshing groove, while lyrics laced with humour and social commentary filled the festival grounds.

With Danish soloist Luca Sophia Krohn on vocals, African Footprint Legends dished out a dramatic blend of highlife, rock and jazz as the voice of Krohn, who appeared to sing from the bottom of her heart, cleaved through the air like a sparrow in full flight.

Total Hip Replacement, a youthful funk/reggae band, took the stage by storm with highly bouncing sounds that engaged the crowd. Indeed, their warm repertoire enriched by lively rhythms created a cool atmosphere of bliss.

Dzesi Band, led by Della Hayes charged the audience with their Afro sound as they drowned the stage with cross rhythms that turned into a highly poetic performance resulting in cheers from the enthusiastic crowd.

Junglelyd band, which included Ghanaian drummer Cici Frank, sent the crowd deep into the forest with elegant rhythms and beats that equally mesmerized the audience while topping up with tunes laced with rhythms from Northern Ghana.

All the participating groups also performed at the TV3 Studios (Music Music), Piano Bar and +233 Jazz Bar and Grill (all in Accra) where they entertained diverse audiences with their various compositions.

The Royal Academy of Music, Maths Records, Klejtrup Musikefterskole, Den Rytmisk Højskole, Vestergaardskolen, Addisons Mighty Works Aps (all in Denmark), Music Department – University of Cape Coast (Ghana) and Hello Afrika (Hungary) are partners of the festival.

By John Owoo
(In sack clothes)

A stunning installation of sewn cocoa sacks by the Ghanaian public artist Ibrahim Mahama that question the conditions of supply and demand in African markets last week engulfed the National Theatre in Accra.

The installation, which has completely overwhelmed the huge edifice, forms part of Ghana Culture Day, which was held in the same building that Mahama has effectively turned into a kind of protective zone while dispersing diverse messages.

His ambitious art derives its potency from continuous research and unrestrained dedication. Undeniably, his questions do not only require answers – they equally end up posing more questions.

By carefully recycling cocoa sacks that have been reconditioned into charcoal sacks and stitching huge chunks together, he adds texts that include names of markets and market women while adding tiny patches of red paint.

The rough nature of the sacks coupled with the loose hanging; radiate tenacious power as one begins to imagine the time, effort and number of people required to erect this gigantic artwork.

Mahama sporadically embellishes the installation by inserting foreign made wax prints and other colourful materials thereby providing another angle of analysis of the large-scale movement of goods and services.

Wherever his installations are mounted, they constantly take on the mantle of a socio political investigation into the foundation of materials while revealing the transitional nature of ownership of these sacks as they move from one person to the other.

Undeniably, he has succeeded in drawing attention to the global transportation of goods across borders through immersive installations, which are found in art spaces and market places in several cities and towns in Africa and Europe.

By John Owoo
Alliance Française – Accra

“The March”, a dance piece which involved artists from diverse cultures that explored human perception and challenged inherent sensitivities last week received cheers at the Alliance Française in Accra.

Comprising Hamadou Sanogo (Mali) Foli Adjo Delali (Togo), Mbali Nkosi (South Africa) Kossi Sebastien Aholou-Wokawui (Togo) alongside Felix Dompreh (Ghana), the group radiated tenacious power as they engaged in complex movements that were inspired by images of American photographer Kenturah Davies.

Choreograhed by Felix Dompreh, the piece is full of sleek, compelling and clever movements. Undeniably, the dancers exhibited raw talent and skill acquired through their involvement in unpredicatble works commissioned from a range of choreorgraphers over the past several years.

With shadows cast on the screen, which created a feeling of multiple scenes, their bodies moved in unison while fingers, arms and heads transmitted messages through highly controlled and well crafted movements.

The dancers, who appeared visually and emotionally striking on stage, exhibited a rather captivating body language that laid bare the power and ability of the human body to tell stories.

Employing the use of a flag to convey the power of cultural symbols while projecting strength and solidarity, the commitment of the group was clearly phenomenal as they provoked a myriad of interpretations from the audience.

Interspersed with refreshing solos and duets, the piece, which was characterized by interwoven layers of well-structured scenes, was equally full of rhythm, innovation and originality.

Earlier dancers from the Noyam African Dance Institute in Dodowa (near Accra) engaged the crowd with a brilliant piece that set the tone for “The March”, which is set to tour several African and European countries in the next several months.

By Nii Laryea Korley

Smiles and laughter – inspired by optimism – lit up the atmosphere at the Best Western Premier Hotel, Accra, as artistes of different persuasions came together for the launch of a multi-flanged project dubbed Cultural Crossings.

It is basically a platform to enable eligible African artistes travel on the continent and share relevant experiences. The brains behind the project are Liberian-born, England-based artist Sarah Güsten-Marr and Ghanaian spoken work exponent and founder of the Ehalakasa poetry movement, Benedict Kojo Quaye (aka Sir Black).

They took time to explain the essence of the project to the gathering which included the Deputy Minister of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts, Dzifa Gomashie; actress and film producer, Juliet Asante; Daddy Bosco of the Musicians Union of Ghana; photographer and music industry publicist, Cary Sullivan and Liberian photographer and actor, Omanza Shaw.

Sarah Güsten-Marr is a well-travelled, bubbly, eloquent character with a deep passion to see African artistes explore more of their continent and help each other excel at what they do. She owns Gallery GM in Yorkshire, England, and was the hub of the gathering as she explained the different components of the Cultural Crossings project.

“I truly believe that travelling enhances knowledge, so the more we travel, the more we are open to different things, which is exactly what we need in the world. Sir Black and I got together and decided it was important to give opportunities to our brothers and sisters in the arts on the continent,” she said.

“We have these beautiful countries side by side but we do not know each other’s country so we have decided that Gallery GM, together with the Ehalakasa movement, will support one artist every year to do a cultural crossing for the next 10 years and experience another African country.” “If you have extra funds, forget about another pair of shoes. Put it into an orphanage, put it into another artiste.”

Paul Forjoe Jnr, also known as 100 per cent, winner of the 2015 Ehalakasa Slam Championship for spoken work artistes, will, therefore, be sponsored to an African country, at a date to be announced soon, to interact with other artistes there.

Cultural Crossings is also bent on helping to strengthen cultural ties between Ghana and Liberia and there will be frequent exchange of artistes between the two countries.

Sarah Güsten-Marr said her artiste-in-residence programme at Yorkshire was still functional and African artistes were welcome to participate. Her Gallery GM has also made provision to support a culture-driven environmental programme for a section of Liberians in the Central Region under the Cultural Crossings project.

Omanza Shaw, co-ordinator of the Cultural Crossings project in Liberia, also pointed out that the arts, more than any other field of endeavour, has the capability to unite and rejuvenate communities. He urged for support from artistes and other relevant bodies for the project.

The Deputy Minister of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts praised the Cultural Crossings project because “it helps to create a platform for young people to have a stage on which they can fly higher than we are doing.”

Cary Sullivan, who is reggae star Rocky Dawuni’s wife, described the arts as a weapon for social change and said people, must get into it primarily for the passion they have for it and not for the money.