Rio loco Report on the South Africa edition
Photograph: Christian Nitard - Rio Loco also organised a special ‘all-star’ show—an innovative homage to Miriam Makeba. From left to right: Vusi Mahlasela, Thandiswa Mazwai, Hugh Masekela, Zolani Mahola, The Mahotella Queens.
Ignoring the gloomy skies, nigh on 100 000 music–loving festival–goers have once again applauded the wealth and variety of the artistic brew served up by Rio Loco at the Prairie des Filtres and 30 related sites.
The festival would like to thank all artists, teams, partners and participating organisations… all those who were involved and worked enthusiastically throughout the year to make this 16th edition a success.
Diverse and cosmopolitan, Rio Loco is one rendezvous you cannot ignore on the summer festival scene, managing, as it does every year, to bring off its artistic challenge of creating affinities, sparking off original projects and bringing together great names on the international scene.
Still brandishing their fists against all forms of oppression, Johnny Clegg,Hugh Masakela, Abdullah Ibrahim and The Mahotella Queens all answered the festival’s call Committed musicians, symbols of the anti–apartheid struggle, they have lost none of their generosity and wholeheartedly communicated their enthusiasm, joie de vivre and sense of sharing.
This awareness of the past and spirit of altruism was felt also in the music of the widely represented younger generation :
• THANDISWA MAZWAI, rebel princess of kwaito,as much at her ease with BLK JKS as with Hugh Masakela, paid moving homage to Busi Mhlongo, the Urban Zulu who sadly passed away a few days before the festival
• TUMI AND THE VOLUME carried the audience off on their energetic, poetry–filled ‘tide’
• FRESHLYGROUND, representatives of a new ‘crossbreed’ generation of South Africans
This 16th edition of the festival once again promoted creativity and discovery. This year 6 shows were specially created for the festival (out of 30 concerts,i.e. 20% of the programme)—involving more than 30 artistes who were invited to Toulouse before the festival— as well as musical collaborations with other local organisations (Le Bikini, Centre Culturel Henri Desbals, Le Mandala, the region’s National Conservatory), all presented at the Prairie des Filtres and Le Mandala.
The show Africa Rocks! promoted by Rio Loco with BLK JKS and Vieux arka Touré has subsequently been signed up for several European events. The festival also organised a special ‘all-star’ show—an innovative homage to Miriam Makeba, orchestrated by the debonair seventy year old Hugh Masakela—a unique occasion for the public to see and hear some of the greatest South African musicians—the Mahotella Queens, Hugh Masakela, Vusi Mahlasela, Thandiswa Mazwai and Zolani Mahola—together for an evening on the same stage.
True to its avowed vocation of discovering talent, Rio Loco gave trumpeter Marcus Wyatt an opportunity to appear on stage in France for the first time along with his Language 12 and gave the Toulouse public the opportunity to enjoy the tangy pop of Desmond and the Tutus.
It was also the opportunity to re–create the Intsholo Project led by William Haubrich along with a brass section from the Conservatoire National de Région de Toulouse and the musicians of The Dizu Plaatjies
Ibuyambo Ensemble as well as to support the adventure ‘Ashes to Machines’ (an African–sound electro groove trip).
Rio Loco was also behind a creative residency involving Cape Town independent hip–hop militant Ben Sharpa and various musicians from Toulouse… An act worth following…
While music is what the festival mainly offers, Rio Loco also brings together other disciplines representing the
country invited.
It thus put the spotlight on dance with the energy of Pantsula and with the Gumboots of the Via Katlehong Dance Company,on photography with an exhibition by Pieter Hugo in a linkup between the Chateau d’Eau and the Théâtre Garonne, on literature with the simultaneous launch of a Marathon des Mots dedicated to South African writers and poets, on art with young visual artist Cameron Platter, on the South African omic–strip collective Bitter Komix and its French equivalent, Indélible, with full length features and short films, puppets, conferences, every effort was made to present different viewpoints from which to observe this vast territory.
The festival is still going on, through repeat broadcasts by media partners: France Inter with the podcast ‘l’Afrique Enchantée’, France Musique which will be broadcasting Françoise Degeorges’ open stage recordings made at the Prairie des Filtres in July, and, finally, Arte Web Live which is offering to revive memories of the festival with a series of concerts broadcast on http://liveweb.arte.tv/
HEART OF THE FESTIVAL
15 - 19 JUNE 2011
