Contradict: How Musicians in Ghana Push for Change.
Screening of the documentary film «Contradict» and discussion with ethnomusicologist and filmmaker Thomas Burkhalter
Tomorrow’s ideas and trends are emerging more decentralized than ever in a globalized world. What do global developments and shifts in values look like from the ground up in Ghana and the African continent? How do we want to confront and contradict those changes? Can new visions for the future become global realities?
Swiss ethnomusicologist Thomas Burkhalter and filmmaker Peter Guyer answer these questions with the help of seven musicians from Ghana – M3NSA, Wanlov The Kubolor, Adomaa, Worlasi, Akan, Mutombo Da Poet, and Poetra Asantewa – who have written new songs and produced video clips especially for the documentary film Contradict.
Screening of the film followed by a discussion.
https://www.contradict-film.com/
Thomas Burkhalter is an ethnomusicologist, interdisciplinary artist and music journalist from Bern (Switzerland). He is the founder and director of Norient, the Norient Space (Norient.com) and the Norient Film Festival (NFF). He co-directed the documentary films “Contradict” (Berner Filmpreis 2020) and “Ghana Controversial” (Al-Jazeera Witness, 2019), the AV/theatre/dance performance “Clash of Gods” (2018), is the author of “Local Music Scenes and Globalization: Transnational Platforms in Beirut” (Routledge), and he co-edited the books “The Arab Avant Garde: Musical Innovation in the Middle East” (Wesleyan University Press), “Seismographic Sounds – Visions of a New World” (Norient Books), and “Out of the Absurdity of Life – Global Music” (Norient/Traversion). His experimental radio feature, “Gqom Edits – A Durban Visit”, was nominated for Prix Europa in 2017. Currently, Burkhalter is working on a new music project, on the podcast series “Timezones”, and on an experimental interview series with musicians from the UK, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan.
Burkhalter ran various research projects (financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation), and he taught at Universities in Berlin (Humboldt), Fribourg, Oldenburg, Paderborn, Karlsruhe, Basel and Bern. He wrote academic and journalistic articles and produced radio features on music in the Middle East, Africa and Europe for academic journals, blogs, newspapers, magazines and radio stations (e.g. Popular Music and Society, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Swiss National Radio SRF, Die Zeit, TAZ, SWR2, Der Bund). His experimental radio feature, “Gqom Edits – A Durban Visit”, was nominated for Prix Europa in 2017.
He works across different forms of art: including the audio-visual performances “Sonic Traces: From the Arab World”, and “Sonic Traces: From Switzerland”; the exhibition “Seismographic Sounds – Visions of a New World” (e.g. ZKM Karlsruhe, CTM Berlin, Base Milano, 2015–2017); various documentary films (e.g. “Ghana is the Future” (2014), and “Buy More Incense – British-Asian Musicians in the UK” (2000)). As an event organizer (e.g. a concert series at Schauspielhaus Zürich, 2018), curator of CD-Compilations (e.g. “Golden Beirut: New Sounds from Lebanon”, Outhere Records) and cultural funder (e.g. Musikbeirat Goethe Institut, from 2018; member of the jury of Schweizer Musikpreis, 2014–2018; board of trustees of the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, 2002–2010), Burkhalter wants to learn about music and music-making from different perspectives. He places great emphasis on transdisciplinary approaches between theory and practice. (#PerformingMusicResearch).
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