Report on the Carnegie/AU Deliberations on Continental Forum on the role of the diaspora in higher education, research and innovation in Africa, No. 6
Toyin Falola
The first day of the conference ends with a wonderful reception, dinner, and a life performance by Professor Niyi Coker and his team on Miriam Makeba
Niyi Coker and the Miriam Makeba Musical
In 2015, the Carnegie African Fellowships envisioned the significance of supporting an African-born scholar to return to Africa to contribute to sustaining African culture. What was even more significant and critical about this project is that it would be bridging the cultural experiences of South Africa and that of the African Diaspora. Under the apartheid regime in South Africa, theatre was banned in black townships. Theatre was correctly viewed as a tool for rebellion and sedition against apartheid. Consequently, the extension of that ban was more impactful in K -12 education. Schools and Universities in Black and Colored townships were denied the inclusion of the Performing Arts in curriculums.
This proposed project to the Carnegie Organization was to develop an original Musical Theatre production based on the South African cosmology and worldview. And, to do this working with University students and township communities in Cape town South Africa.
The Principal Investigator, writer and director of the project is Professor Niyi Coker who was then the E. Desmond Lee Distinguished Professor of Theatre and Cinema at the University of Missouri. He is now Director of the School of Theatre, Television and Film at San Diego State University in California.
This original musical centers on the life, struggle and legacy of South African talent and phenomenal singer, Miriam Makeba. She lived the majority of her life, exiled from South Africa for more than 30 years. She left South Africa in the late 1950’s and was forbidden to return until 1990. During her years in exile she devoted her life and art to the South African ideal and cause, for freedom, justice and equality. Miriam Makeba embodied the hopes and the voice of Africa as no other. She was an inspiration to musicians throughout the world and was a delight to international audiences. She was also a formidable activist against Apartheid who had an impact on the global civil rights movement. In 1959, she was forced into early exile from her homeland as a result of her involvement in a documentary indicting Apartheid, and chose to live in the United States for about a decade before being forced to relocate again and settle in Guinea, West Africa where she continued to fight the minority white Apartheid regime.
Makeba’s art and presence educated the West and the rest of the world about the realities, and evils of apartheid.
The Carnegie Organization recognized the power and importance of culture in this project. It was an example of the critical connections between Africa and its Diaspora. Miriam Makeba arrived in the USA at the height of the Civil Rights movement. She joined forces with the movement, which led to her marriage of Kwame Touré (Stokely Carmichael).
The production opened in 2016 in Cape town, at the University of Western Cape, and then was picked up by a London UK production company, ZMirage production & Wole Soyinka International Exchange-- Executive Producer Teju Kareem, for a 2 month run at the ArtsCape Theatre in Cape town, in addition to another month-long tour of Saint Louis Missouri and New York City.
With this project a generation of students and community in South Africa who have missed out on Miriam Makeba’s life, came to appreciate how her contribution to their struggle for emancipation, while understanding and appreciating how the Civil Rights movement in the USA, had a major impact on the Anti-apartheid struggles in South Africa. This is being transmitted through cultural retentions that have been championed by the Carnegie Foundation.
https://vimeo.com/262599187/65ced00a00
https://medium.com/us-in-sa/remembering-an-icon-63b79417ed51
http://amsterdamnews.com/news/2016/oct/13/miriam-makeba-magnificently-honored-mama-africa-mu/
http://globalsouthafricans.com/latest/732-zenzi-the-musical-coming-soon.html
http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/miriam-makeba-mama-africa-musical-comes-touhill#stream/0
http://blogs.umsl.edu/news/2016/09/13/new-musical/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yX-kwwfkMWs
https://www.enca.com/media/video/new-musical-to-celebrate-mama-africa
http://fox2now.com/2016/09/09/the-north-american-premiere-of-mirian-makeba-mama-africa-the-musical/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yX-kwwfkMWs
http://nyuiaaa.org/event-items/miriam-makeba-mama-africa-the-musical/
https://www.enca.com/media/video/new-musical-to-celebrate-mama-africa
http://nyuskirball.org/calendar/mamaafrica
http://www.concertseries.org/2016/09/19/remembering-miriam-makeba/
Awosika Itunu
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Emeagwali, Gloria (History)
History Department, Central Connecticut State University
www.africahistory.net
Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 2019 11:17 AM
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Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Report on the Carnegie/AU Deliberations on Continental Forum on the role of the diaspora in higher education, research and innovation in Africa, No. 6
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