Showing posts with label language. Show all posts
Showing posts with label language. Show all posts

Monday, October 21, 2013

Slam Poetry Videos by Holly McNish - Food, Language, Love, Womanhood, Human Rights.




 "Kids can't even read the ingredients of their meal time"

 Powerful stance on food rights. Whole Food Nutrition.


 

 "I'm happy I'm learning Spanish." Activate the left and right brain. Ride the language love train.

 

 "So I whispered and tiptoed with nervous discretion. But after 6 months of her life sat sitting on lids, Sipping on milk, nostrils sniffing on piss, Trying not to bang her head on toilet roll dispensers, I wonder if these public loo feeds offend her, 'Cause I'm getting tired of discretion and being polite."

 Why not to be embarrassed when a mother feeds her child - from her breast.

 Holly McNish's honest words and delivery on potent topics of food, language, love, womanhood, human rights.

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

It all started with her love for maps.

jacked from Hannah Wayte

  It all started with her love for maps.  

   Ever since her big brother started darting his journeys on a globe, Athena knew she wanted to travel.  Through her adolescence, she spent summer breaks visiting her yiayia (grandma) in Greece and road tripped through Europe with her uncle, Terry.  She migrated North from her hometown, Evanston, IL and attended Michigan State University to study Education and theories around the globe.  She used studying abroad as a vessel to experience different parts of the world, and with her camera in tow, she completed short and long-term programs in Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Brasil, South Africa, Greece, and Spain.  After college, she taught 2nd grade in Honduras and travelled through Central America.  Later, she founded an after-school arts & environment program and managed a surf Eco-lodge in Nicargua with her South African husband, Chris.  In 2008, they returned to South Africa to begin a new adventure, where her passion for food, film, language and nature collided in the city of Cape Town.

Friday, March 1, 2013

Detroit, Sugarman, and South Africa

A story strong to South's Africa heart beat, plays a different tune for Detroit's singer-songwriter Rodriguez.

picture jacked from Google.com
  Living in South Africa and hearing the impact of his music upon adults from that generation is fact to how powerful the powerful influence of music is to our collective history.  Music's language connects personal experiences across the world.

The locational link of this particular music story-South Africa and Detroit caught the interest of my dad, who grew up in Detroit.

 He recently forwarded me this article after watching the Documentary made about Rodriguez and South African listeners: Searching for Sugarman.

 Rodriguez' lyrics and music stretched beyond the artist's imagination into a moment of history that has been shared with the world.

  Click here to read the article:

   Long before Oscar-nominated doc, Detroit writer went on his own search for Sugar Man | Movies | Detroit Free Press | freep.com

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Conscious Hip Hop and MC's: She The Hard Way

Eversince Lupe Fiasco released "Bitch Bad", I was thinking where the Female voice was in Hip Hop.  Nicki Menaj and Azelia are bubble gum wrappers that don't have much chew capacity.  Mc's are not absent, they are strong in all parts of the world.

  I am drawn to the sisterhood in Atlanta where the MC's are releasing lyrics to the highest super delight, no need for repetitive materialistic chants-just solid dope lyricists that don't spit from an adam's apple and represent Respect.

 I'm giving respect and spreading inspiration from She the Hard Way.  A collaboration of different poetic flow from Sa-Roc, Khalilah Ali, Stahhr, Rita J, Boog Brown.  I love the way Stahhr describes the compilation as a delicious 5 course meal.  I don't have any information on the progress of this project, but each of these MC's hold a strong place in the way Hip Hop continues to evolve towards conscious poetic messages for our global socio-polito-econo-naturalistic Earth concerns.

 

Thursday, September 20, 2012

A Raw Sun in Marikana


MARIKANA
by Ari Sitas

The digital images fold as the TV screen tires
The cops, rifles in cabinet, past their third beer are edging towards bed
The night is quiet as the smelter has been closed,
the only music is of the wind on razor wire
the ears are too shut to hear the ancestral thuds on goatskin
humanity has somehow died in Marikana
who said what to whom remains a detailed trifle
the fury of the day has to congeal, the blood has to congeal
I reverse the footage bringing the miners back to life
in vain, the footage surges back and the first bullet
reappears and the next and the next and the next
and I reverse the footage in vain, again and again in vain

The image of the man in the green shroud endures
Who wove the blanket and what was his name?
There are no subtitles under the clump of bodies, no names
stapled on their unformed skull
A mist of ignorance also endures, a winter fog
woven into the fabric of the kill
The loom endures too, the weaver is asleep
The land of the high winds will receive the man naked
The earth will eat the stitch back to a thread
What will remain is the image and I in vain
Reversing him back to life to lead the hill to song
In vain, the footage surges back
another Mpondo, another Nquza Hill, another Wonder Hill
the shooting quietens: another anthill

My love, did I not gift you a necklace with a wondrous bird
pure royal platinum to mark our bond?- was it not the work of the most reckless angel of craft and ingenuity? Was it not pretty?
Didn’t the bird have an enticing beak of orange with green tint?
Throw it away quickly, tonight it will turn nasty and gouge
a shaft into your slender neck
And it will hurt because our metals are the hardest- gold, pig iron, manganese
yes, platinum
Humanity has somehow died in Marikana

What is that uMzimu staring back at us tonight?
Darken the mirrors
Switch off the moon
Asphalt the lakes

At dawn, the driveway to the Master’s mansion
Is aflame with flower, so radiant from the superphosphates
of bone
of surplus oxygen and cash,
such flames, such a raw sun
such mourning by the shacks that squat in sulphur’s bracken
and I wait for the storm, the torrent, the lava of restitution
the avenger spirits that blunt the helicopter blades in vain

these also endure: the game and trout fishing of their elective chores
the auctions of diamond, art and share
the prized stallions of their dreams
their supple fingers fingering oriental skins and their silver crystals
counting the scalps of politicians in their vault

The meerkat paces through the scent of blood
I want it to pace through the scent of blood,
she is the mascot, the living totem
of the mine’s deep rock,
the one who guards the clans from the night’s devil
she is there as the restless ghosts of ancestors
by the rock-face
feeding her sinew and pap

goading her on:
the women who have loved the dead alive
the homesteads that have earned their sweat and glands
impassive nature that has heard their songs
the miners of our daily wealth that still defy
the harsh landscape of new furies
the meerkat endures-
torn certainties of class endure
the weaver also endures: there-
green blankets of our shrouded dreams
humanity has died in Marikana

The strike is over
The dead must return
to work.


-----------------
" (written after a tough two weeks and seeing Pitika’s miner sculpture with the green corrugated iron blanket) "

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Rollaball Skate Soccer Movie: Support This-Ability



  Serious skills when it comes to extreme sports! A sport in Ghana that was invented to suit their abilities.  What a cool story to share with the world: Big World Cinema presents a film by Eddie Edwards.

   I support anyone who spread the true sense of the word: This-Ability instead of Dis-Ability.

 A must-to-support for a must-see movie!

 Good luck!

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Athena and Chris Go to Madagascar.

  Husband and wife team weave visuals and syntax about Madagascar.   Read all about it here on Wavescape's breaking news story:  I Like to Move it : In depth about the Malagasy travels!

 and yes, it was our honeymoon.              Thank you TrueBlue Travel for organising a sweet trip!

Pirogues in in Fort Dauphin Tolagnaro-Libanona Bay

Beer at Talinjoo

Young Malagasy girl braving the warm yet winter Indian ocean

Learning French and Malagasy along the way in order to get a meal!

We thought this Lemur reminded us of Desmond Tutu-blessing us with his wisdom of the forests

What Madagascar produces: Vanilla

Young Malagasy boy fishing from a handline in Fort Dauphin Tolagnaro

Reef fish off the coast in Fort Dauphin, Tolagnaro

Ring-tailed Lemur in the Nahampoana Reserve


Monday, August 6, 2012

South African dance documentary films: "I dance as if I have gun to my head" Pop, Lock 'n Roll


There are incredible stories to be told.  And dancers who use their body to express and encapsulate emotion is a language, a story in itself.  I filmed African Cypher Dance Session on my phone at Fly on the Wall Production House in Cape Town, December 16th, 2011: Dance crews that perform and compete at contests like the Red Bull Beat Battle in South Africa and around the world.  Check the trailer link below.

  I have always been captivated by music and dance.  I couldn't resist the urge to film on my phone in the dark warehouse above Roeland St in Cape Town.  The pantsula artists had woven a whole sequence of comedy, sex, violence and gender roles with innovative movements that put the whole cypher into a hypnosis.
Now, another fresh young filmaker, Ziggy Hofmeyr, is raising funds to share a story with the world about dance, love and quest.  Pop, Lock 'n Roll -- Indiegogo: http://igg.me/p/191398

  If we support filmmakers, creactivists, dancers: Culture . . . then we will be preserving a tapestry of identity.   Go on to IndieGogo and support the projects that speak to you. Or better yet, tell us when your next project is!

Watch the film African Cypher, and support South African films like Pop, Lock 'n Roll to be made.


Monday, November 14, 2011

Bahamadia-Legend MC


   How come it took so long for me to come across the cunning crisp wordpoetress!?  This is what happens when you share music on a Sunday afternoon-you get the missing links to your music library.

  I'm inspired by her rhythmic flow and the platforms from which she expresses her wordplay. Manic Xsplosive Spontaneity.  Well explained, pure art form in lyrical soulfood.

 Her track, CommonWealth (Cheap Chicks) had me laughing, taking me back to my teenage years inside TJ Maxx.


   Play here:
 
   Bahamadia & Hezekiah: Gypsy Slang Track
Spontaneity cut

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Quite a White Ou - Ndingumlungu - Full Version - YouTube

Quite a White Ou - Ndingumlungu - Full Version - YouTube: 'via Blog this'  The Music Video Link.

 HayiBo!

I had a lot of fun helping style some uMlungu outfits with Quite a White Ou.  So cool to see how everything came together. Thanks to Ubuntu Bridge, I got also go to up my Xhosa speaking skills to a Level 2.  It was a lot of useful learning.

In this video, eMzantsi definitely shows her true style around the Cape Peninsula.


 “Learn the Lyrics” video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogoLeUj2Y2U)

Or the lyrics can be found below:
INTRO:  Mamelani eh eh mamelani eh eh  x 2  – Listen y’all!
 CHORUS:
Ndisafunda isiXhosa                                    (Im still learning Xhosa)
Ndithetha kancinci.                                      (I speak a little only)
So Khawuzekelele                                       (So Please talk slowly)
xa uthetha nami                                           (when you speak with me)  X 2

VERSE 1:
Ndithetha kancinci kuba ndingumlungu*
I talk a little xhosa because I’m a white ou.
Ngikhuluma kancane kuba ndingumlungu
I talk a little zulu because I’m a white ou.
Andikwazi ukujiva kuba ndingumlungu
I don’t know how to dance because I’m a white ou.
Andikwazi ukucula kuba ndingumlungu
I don’t know how to sing because I’m a white ou.

REPEAT CHORUS:

VERSE 2:
Andithathi iteksi x2 kuba ndingumlungu
I don’t take taxis because I’m a white ou.
Ndiqhuba Mercedes x2 kuba ndingumlungu
I drive a Mercedes because I’m a white ou.
Andikwazi ukushela kuba ndingumlungu
I don’t pick up girls because I’m a white ou.
Ndithanda ukukempa kuba ndingumlungu
I love to camp because I’m a white ou.
Ndinxiba ishortsi kuba ndingumlungu
I wear shorts because I’m a white ou.
REPEAT CHORUS:

VERSE 3:
[Andiqondi (I don’t understand), andikuva (I don’t get you) x3, eh, andiqondi]  x 2.

VERSE 4:
Cool and Nice                                    Hot and Spice
Like vanilla ice                                    like pap n rice
You know I’m down,                        Come get down
Umlungu waseCape town                with ingamla yaseCape Town
(White guy from Cape Town)        (with the Whitey from Cape Town)
Hayi bo!!                                                Hayi bo!!                                                X 2:





  

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Zereshk

I love these little berries of sour goodness. Zereshk as I grew up knowing them always found themselves in Giti's blissful rice.  Was so happy when I was tagged in this photo.  I may need to plant my own Beriberis.

Friday, April 25, 2008

Learning a Language of Chords

April 24th, 2008
It's lunch time in Pamplona in the middle of Ciudedela. Old men in collared shirts and polyester pants sit on the bench near the young man playing his livelihood: the accordion.
Spring birds chirp as insects fly past the daisy weed grass we are sitting on. Grassy patches of land that surround the fort of the 1500s: Military architecture del Renacimiento Espanol. The outer fort walls have plants bursting through its aged stone cracks bringing life to its modern age existence of a bustling Spanish city in Estado Espanol. I am in a province that not only speaks Spanish where you can hear and read signs in Euskara, Basque, as well. I am in Spain for a month intensive Spanish course, but Spain represents a plethora of languages, history and conflict over topics such as language, religion and sovereignty. The clouds are painted in the sky dancing with the sunshine's playful manner of peek-a-boo on my back. I travel with my cotton fabric from Mozambique almost everywhere, and I am laying on it in Spain, as it soaks up the dewy lawn from yesterday's spring rain.
Caina jingled her bike and joined us on the lawn. She has wild curly hair and a simple sweet smile. She's from the Canary Islands and is studying sociology with my friend Nani, who I am visiting in Pamplona. We greet each other with kisses on both cheeks and chat about the change in weather from the usual rainy days in Pamplona, the accordion music playing in the park. Our conversation deepens into the politics of Basque vs. Espana as a passing couple speaking in Basque triggers our dialogue. We explore the language laws that exist in Spain and the parallel situations around the world.
She was interested in what South Africa was like, and we talked about the realities, dynamics, and questions to be explored in relation to Nicaragua's current leadership and conflicts and then to Nani's experience with the Zapatista movement-the organization, the struggles, etc. I wondered what life was like in the Canary Islands where she says no other languages are spoken there except Spanish. Histories and rhythms of Mozarbic, Ajami, Basque, Euskara . . .
I continue journaling as an ant travelled across my pages, inspecting the edge of my journal and the curves of the words that I scribe. Speaking Spanish again is like a riding a bike, but there are still tricks to be learned. Language may be better explained as a guitar rather than a bike. If you remember to play some chords you once learned and feel comfortable playing them, you can transition from one to the other.
Making different and authentic tunes, maybe even with your eyes closed.
But there is still a whole range of notes, chords, songs and melodies left to learn. So even though you can play some tunes, and its fun and enjoyable, there is still a desire to learn more. One day realizing your own melody can harmonize with what you want to express. What you are feeling: to communicate through a new language.

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