Celebrating 20 Years of the Ngoma project
Introduction
The word ngoma can be found in many parts of Africa. It has its roots in the holistic nature of the continent’s cultural traditions, meaning, variously, drum, dance, song, anthem and divine healing energy. I was inspired by this all-encompassing image to come up with the concept of the Ngoma project.
Why the Ngoma project
I had been in exile from my native South Africa since 1980, having been involved as a cultural activist in the Steve Biko-led Black Consciousness Movement of the 1970s. When Nelson Mandela became the first democratically elected president of our country, it was obvious that I needed to begin the process of my return home. What better way to orchestrate this than to take a team of artists skilled in the art of creative education in order to give back to the communities that had sacrificed so much during the struggle!
How it happened
Assisted by my colleague Denise Mellion, who acted as Project Manager, we used my high profile and good connections in the arts world in the United Kingdom to raise the necessary funds. We positively exploited the fact that the British government’s Department of Trade & Industry as well as Buckingham Palace saw my creative leadership as an ideal export product at a time when Madiba’s Reconstruction and Development Programme was looking for suitable global channels to promote its new image and vision.
The Ngoma launch at South Africa House in London in December 1994 was a historic occasion. This was the first time ever that a cultural event of such far-reaching magnitude and harnessing impact took place at the High Commission. One of the wealthiest wine families from Stellenbosch contributed the wine and paid for members of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra to be flown for the evening from Glasgow to perform my award-winning composition Spirit Of The Drumsong.
In January of 1995, coinciding with the official state visit of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip to President Nelson Mandela’s new South Africa, I led the Ngoma project as Artistic Director. The Ngoma project included the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO), which I led as Special Projects Leader and Director of Education Programmes; it also included a team of 17 artists, whom I brought together from across a range of nationalities and genres comprising jazz, opera, Hip-Hop, poetry, dance, carnival design and performance, classical composition and arts administration.
Our international team, which included the legendary musicians Bheki Mseleku and Thebe Lipere, spent close to 4 months in South Africa (with the LPO staying for the first three weeks). We performed and conducted workshops in many communities in KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng and the Cape, which included townships like Clermont, KwaMashu, Chatsworth, Mariannridge, Soweto, Mamelodi and Langa. We also collaborated with a host of brilliant local artists, including Sibongile Khumalo, Moses Molelekwa, Pops Mohamed, Madala Kunene, Jackie Semela and Gito Baloyi.
One of the lasting memories of Ngoma was when we took residency in the design faculty of ML Sultan Technikon (now Durban Institute of Technology) in Durban. The inspiration to choose this formerly ethnically designated institution as our base came from the worrying news of a rift that festered between students of Indian and Zulu descent, which bore insidious echoes of apartheid. It was remarkable to witness and experience the divide disintegrating during our intensively intimate design and drumming sessions, and completely vanishing once we took this colourful rhythmic healing energy to the streets of Durban. I will never forget the alarmed expressions of motorists who, on first hearing our loud drums and chanting, would lock their doors as if we posed a threat; but as soon as they realised that the intensity of our sound was in celebration of the human spirit, they would roll their windows down and blast their hooters into the gloriously blue sky in time to the gathering beat of our carnival music.
Here is a list of the core Ngoma team who travelled from the UK:
Kamal El Alaoui
Marcina Arnold
Francisco Carrasco
Oscar Carrasco
Julie Dexter
Khadijatou Doyneh
Zena Edwards
Jeff Gordon
Stephen Langridge
Thebe Lipere
Denise Mellion
Bheki Mseleku
Eugene Skeef
Mpho McKenzie
Anthony Tidd
Curtis Watt
Special thanks to Justice Skeef, Vusi Mchunu and Sandile Ngidi, our hosts with the most.
Eugene Skeef – 21 January 2015
Eugene Skeef's Rhythm For Life blog 