Ch. 14: The New World

Classes are out for the term, and yesterday I had my one and only exam – a piano practical. For the previous few days I had put all my energy into preparing for it, and so when it was over I felt like celebrating. My official business with the University of Cape Town is now complete, except for nagging the administrative offices to put Jazz Ensemble on my transcript (I registered of it at the beginning of the term but they never got around to entering it into the system). This exam marked the beginning of a two week period of tying up loose ends before my departure on 9 June. This is the part where I start thinking about the practicalities of getting and being home. Kind of exciting.

It was with this on my mind that I went into a performance of Dvořák’s 9th Symphony (“Symphony of the New World”) by the university’s Symphony Orchestra last night. I sat there with a South African friend, a few meters from the cello section, letting Dvořák’s melodies wash over me. This symphony was based on the Czech composer’s visit to “The New World” in the late 19th century, and the themes are modelled on American folk styles – especially African American spirituals and Native American music. Hearing this in Cape Town, it occurred to me that this symphony, and its title, probably evokes a sense of exoticism for those who have not visited America. Perhaps it functioned more this way before America’s pop music took over international airwaves, but I’m sure even in that audience last night there were some people with the thought in the back of their mind, “So, this is what America sounds like.” I’m guessing this because I found traces of that thought in my mind.

I’ve been out of touch with my homeland now for eleven months, and I’m wondering what it will be like when I get back. Will I suddenly remember, in a rush of disappointment, all the things I was happy to leave behind in July? The hyper-consumerism, the technology cult, the de-emphasis on personal communication, the pursuit of the meaningless? More likely, this will come bit-by-bit, but my first sensation will be one of return to comfort.

I’m also wondering how this experience will look as it is disappearing over the horizon of my past. What will I miss about being here? The diversity of people and experiences? The musical gatherings? The individuals I have come to know? The bond I have with the friends that I have made here is becoming more tangible as it is about to be broken. I wonder if I’ll ever see them again.

I think, experience-wise, what will stick out most in my mind will be my time with Khoi Khonnexion working on our recording project. We’ve finished all the recording, mixing, mastering, and album design, and we’re now in kind of a limbo stage. We still haven’t exactly come up with all of the money to pay the manufacturing company, but we’ve already given them the master and the CD design, and we’re confident that by the 5th of June, when we receive our 1,000 copies, we’ll have raised enough or be able to invest enough to pay them. It’s exciting to think that in just a few days we’ll have the finished product in our hands. It has been a creatively challenging and fulfilling project. Both the form and the content are new territory for me – indigenous consciousness in Southern Africa, expressed with sounds that, for the most part, lack what I have come to learn to be the basic elements of music. It has involved a lot of experimentation, and the result is something quite fresh and, I think, compelling. I have learned so much about possibilities in the arts, and the people I have met through the project will serve as models for me as I try to carve out my path as an artist.

One of these people is local visual and musical artist Brendon Bussy. He went to school for visual art, and then started making money doing interesting projects that came his way, and even more interesting projects that reflect his own voice as an artist, but aren’t as financially rewarding. Right now he has what he describes as a “pizza delivery job” managing the production of a boxed set of South African documentaries, which will be manufactured in the thousands. In his spare time he finds ways of incorporating local indigenous musical styles into his mandolin playing, makes field recordings, and beta-tests electronic music software. He lent me a pair of speakers for the project, and showed me how to mix a piano so it sounds like shattering glass.

And there’s Isa Suarez, a French composer who spends much of her time in Cape Town. Her latest project is working with choirs of school kids, developing songs about their views about the world, and performing them on minibus taxis as they travel throughout the city.

Manfred Zille is a German-born artist who came to Cape Town during the apartheid struggle. His work was banned when he painted portraits of government officials and invited the public to add their commentary, graffiti-style, to the canvasses. These canvasses are now owned by the South African National Gallery.

The biggest inspiration to me has been Garth Erasmus – visual artist and member of Khoi Khonnexion. He too got his start during the time when the revolutionary task was to make the nation “ungovernable” by the apartheid system, so that it would collapse on itself. He stencilled tributes to recent victims of the regime’s violent tactics on the walls of the city. After apartheid ended, he began the quest for healing in his work, focusing specifically on his Khoisan heritage. He began research into indigenous history, and found his way to indigenous instruments. He began to create them as sculptures, and soon was taken in by their sounds. He also has taught himself the saxophone, and has the largest record collection of free jazz that I have ever seen – libraries included. From Garth I have learned about personal authenticity in artistic work, putting process over product, and integrating artistic vision with personal mindset. Garth is one of the most compassionate, understanding people I have known, and he seems to cultivate this in his artistic work.

So when I go back to the New World, I will have to keep my memories of these artists and their work alive. In America I found I had a crisis of cultural identity, but I have learned that there is a lot to explore in my own background, and I hope to use the models of these artists to go about it. No longer a fish trying to define water, I will go home having seen what my culture is not, which will bring to light what it is.