Listen to the beat of African dreams

TELL IT LIKE IT IS: Bliksemstraal and Mr Sakitumi.

Arts writer

TUNE in to the Afro Galactic Dream Factory at Joule City at 107 Longmarket Street this Saturday. The collaboration is a follow-on to last weekend’s showcase in Nyanga.

The Galactic musical collaboration is an Afro “techno-vocal symphony” which mashes up and remixes genres. It features an ensemble of international and local musicians that includes Jimmy Rage on mic, with some of his art work also featured in the show, Mr Sakitumi & the Grrrl, Masello Motana in her guise as Mercury, B-boy-rapper Bliksemstraal, Lee Thomson on trumpet, Ross McDonald on trombone, choral maestro Bongani Magat-yana and The Mafrica Mbube Singers & Choir from Nyanga.

African hip hop producer Bamba Nazar and Buddha Supreme will provide additional music. The showcase will end with DJ Jumbo and the Fong Kong Bantu Sound System playing out the evening.

The Afro Galactic Dream Factory is a living installation that shifts shape and form to embody poetry, performance, music and video. The group hope to transport visitors to places between origins past and imagined futures.

They best sum up their brief: “Our narratives are ethno-spooky, voodoo-digital, Afro-spiritual, visual-medicinal, connecting alchemic like magic to the cosmos of imagined worlds with music as our guide.”

STORYTELLER: Masello Motana mesmerises with her soulful voice.

Jamaican Jimmy Rage works within a spectrum of disciplines – visual art, performance and writing. The central thrust of Rage’s art is what he dubs “personal diasporas”. With several artistic tentacles, a clutch of monikers and a fistful of passports, Rage’s works have been exhibited and released from LA to London and Europe.

His discography includes Love is Supreme and the Coltrane Tribute with the Kindred Spirits Ensemble and label, The Divine Cockeyed Glimpse with Eric van der Westen and the EP praisekisseslovetears and smiles.

Storyteller Masello Motana is an actor, poet and vocalist who thrives on collaborations. She has recently collaborated with Neo Muyanga and Bokani Dyer on groundbreaking Pan African Space Station shows in Cape Town, where she is based. She is at home with a live band, orchestra, a capella setting, or a DJ and vocalist set up like the Familiar Strangers project where she collaborated with nu jazz DJ True Jones. Masello also recently played the lead in the film A Million Colours.

Mr Sakitumi has been instrumentally aligned with the electronic music scene for nearly two decades. Alongside long-time partner, The Grrrl, the two create a fusion of beats and visual treats.

The Mafrica Mbube Singers & Choir are known for their traditional mbube sounds and large repertoire of jazz standards and pop classics. The ensemble features Nonkie Momo, Sivuyile Mtshele, Khangelani Twani and Linda Thole.

Voyagers are encouraged to dress to impress in their best galactic threads, as there are prizes up for grabs during the course of the evening.

The show is directed by Catherine Henegan. Doors open at 8pm and the show starts at 8.30pm.

This Glasshouse production has been made possible by The Dutch Performing Arts Fund (NFPK) and The City of Amsterdam.

l Tickets are R80 at the door, or R50 pre-sold at African Music Store (Long Street), Mabu Vinyl (Rheede Street) and Tagore’s (Trill Road, Observatory).