Origins Centre events: July 28/31

[Origins Centre]

JULY 28: MANDELA@94 WALKABOUT

On Saturday morning, 28 July, Prof Iain Currie of the Wits School of
Law will lead a walkabout of the art exhibition, Mandela@94.

The exhibition is curated by Natalie Knight, and features the works
of 20 African artists who have expressed their sentiments about our
former president in paint, sculpture, beadwork, photography and print.

Prof Currie is a practising advocate at the Johannesburg Bar and a
part-time lecturer, teaching intellectual property law, media law and
privacy law. He assisted in acquiring a magnificent collection of art
for the Wits Law School and its Mandela Institute. Many of the artists
in the Mandela @ 94 exhibition are represented in the School of Law’s
collection.

Date: Saturday 28 July 2012
Venue: Origins Centre
Time: 10h00 for 10h30
Cost: R50/R40 Wits students and staff
Bookings essential: a...@origins.org.za

JULY 31: ARE WE DANCING APES? THE EVOLUTION OF MUSIC MAKING

Is music ‘auditory cheesecake’, as Steven Pinker famously suggested?
Music making is present and pervasive in all known human societies;
the first musical instruments are as old as 40 000 years, probably
much older. This suggests a fundamental evolutionary role for music
in hominin evolution.

The Western ‘concert hall’ experience of music obscures the fact that
music is about action and interaction. In many non-Western contexts
moving together in time with sound, or dance, is the essence of music.
In this talk the speaker, Sarah Wurz, will discuss why it is likely
that rhythmically coordinated movement was the core of the earliest
music. The biological adaptations underlying rhythmic expression, for
example innate rhythmic capabilities of infants, are addressed. The
other aspect of music, complex learned vocalizations, its adaptations
and new-born infants’ predisposition for melodic perception, will also
be examined.

This exploration of the origins of music will suggest that protomusic,
or the first music, may have evolved surprisingly early, before a
million years ago.

Sarah Wurz is a senior researcher at the Institute for Human
Evolution at Wits University and Associate Professor at the Department
of Archeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion, University of
Bergen, Norway.

Date: Tuesday 31 July 2012
Venue: Origins Centre
Time: 18h00 for 18h30
Cost: R45/R35 Wits students and staff
Bookings essential: a...@origins.org.za

Please e-mail your request for seats to a...@origins.org.za. If you are
a Wits student or Wits staff member, please include your student/staff
number. We will then e-mail an invoice to you, which you can pay by
eft.