Their performance began with a spoken word piece recited by TJ Dema from Botswana, whose first line ‘my dream for Africa’ made me feel that I was going to be impressed. Sonic Slam Chorus is a cross genre collaboration that had been kept alive for several months on the internet before their five days of rehearsal at the Festival. The group members include slam poets TJ Dema and Dickson; Norwegian composer and vocalist Cecilie Giskemo, fellow Norwegian guitar maestro Asbjoern Lerheim, Saxophonist Vee Mukarati, Jazz vocalist Prudence Katomene-Mbofana and drummer Blessing Muparutsa.

The chorus performed five pieces, blending Jazz and spoken word in their performance. They explored diverse themes including Africa’s destiny, the contentious relationship between a father and child, and moving on to describe the ill-fated love a beautiful girl has for a mischievous rebel.

I was impressed, but not by the Chrous as a whole. Sonic Slam Chorus is an obviously well thought out concept. TJ Dema and Dickson are the stars of the performance, their words being well written and therefore powerful and emotive. In particular, TJ uses attention grabbing lyricism, and delicate changes in cadence to deliver the emotion of her words. Unfortunately Prudence does not sing in this act, providing only backing vocals for the performances, which is a pity because she is a force to be reckoned with on the local Jazz scene. Parts vocal portion of the show seemed too lengthy and elaborate, overpowering the subtleties of the spoken word making it inaudible at times.

Watch part of their performance here.

This entry was posted on April 28th, 2011 at 9:27 am by Upenyu Makoni-Muchemwa and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.