EVENT: it is a gathering of elders, conversation series #1
Details and registration
Conversation (online, via Zoom)
Date: 3 February 2022
Time: 18:00 SAST, GMT+2
About the event
it is a gathering of the elders (borrowed from a James Matthews poem), is a research project based on the life and work of photographer George Hallett. In 2020, the UCT Works of Art Committee acquired seventeen photographs by Hallett, which in this project serve as catalysts to a series of questions relating to artistic production and practice, notions of collaboration, disciplinary and institutional entanglements with photography, and the politics of the archive.
In this first conversation of the series, elders Eugene Skeef and Lefifi Tladi, who developed friendships with Hallett during his exile years in London in the 1980s, will share their personal reflections on George Hallett. The conversation will be guided by researcher-musician-curator Valmont Layne.
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About the speakers
Eugene Skeef is a London-based South African percussionist, composer, poet, educationalist and broadcaster who cut his teeth as an anti-apartheid activist working alongside Steve Biko in the Black Consciousness Movement. He also works in conflict resolution, acts as a consultant on cultural development and teaches creative leadership. Eugene has made his mark on the British cultural scene through his innovative, creative projects that straddle a broad spectrum of art forms, including community music, jazz, 'world' music, European classical music, contemporary dance theatre and children's storytelling.
Eugene has composed for major orchestras like the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO), the London Sinfonietta and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, training their players and helping to set up their education departments.
In 2005 Eugene performed with his Abantu Ensemble at Buckingham Palace and was presented to the Queen as part of the historic Music Day to celebrate the diversity of culture in Britain.
In June 2008, Eugene and Richard Bissill's Excite!, an orchestral commission by the LPO, premiered at the Royal Festival Hall at Southbank Centre, London.
Eugene has been the Artistic Director of Quartet of Peace, an international project initiated by Brian Lisus, the South African luthier who has made a quartet of string instruments in honour of South Africa's 4 Nobel peace laureates, Dr. Albert Luthuli, Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and FW de Klerk. Quartet of Peace uses music to bring about peaceful resolutions to conflict and poverty, with a special focus on young people.
In 2010 Eugene's collaborative project The Battle Of The Wordsmiths (with writer Tunde Olatunji and producers Blue Hippo Media) was shortlisted for the PRS New Music Award.
Eugene is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Lefifi Tladi is an artist, poet, and jazz singer. He cofounded Dashiki in 1970, a Jazz music and poetry band which was very functional within the Black Consciousness Movement. He was forced into exile in 1976 in Botswana by the then security police. In 1977 he performed in Nigeria FESTAC Festival with the likes of Dudu Pukwana, Julian Bahula, Louis Moholo, Jonas Gwangwa and many more.
In 1983 he performed at the UMIO jazz festival, which led to a release of a CD titled Tribute to Nomazizi (his mother). He worked with a band dubbed the acronym DAST, Daniel-Adolfson-Skotte-Tladi, in making this masterpiece a success.
In 1988 Tladi recorded a poetry project which he personally named Poetry for Artvanced Listeners. This was followed by a collaboration with Gilbert Mathews Brus Trio in 1990. He was also featured on the jazz album Ingoma by one of his fellow jazzmen Zim Ngqawana.
Much of Lefifi's artworks have been created in Sweden because this is where Tladi was in exile. In Sweden, Tladi apprenticed under Harvey Cropper, who is a well-known painter who taught another jazz artist, Charlie Parker, how to paint. Tladi received a scholarship to enter Cropper's studio in 1980. Lefifi Tladi's style is described as modernist and African.
In 2002 he worked with Tlokwe Sehume, and Naga ya Fya was released. After recording a Jazz and Poetry performance with Malombo Jazz Men at Wits University Great Hall in Johannesburg in 1973, a CD was released in 2005.
Valmont Layne is a researcher at the Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape, South Africa. Layne has developed a lifelong interest in critical thinking as the basis for musicianship, activism, advocacy and scholarship in the arts. He has also worked as a university arts administrator, curator, and cultural advocate and played a leading role in the development of the audiovisual collections and curated programmes at the District Six Museum in Cape Town as an archivist and later as its Director. His current research interests include music, sound studies, archives and heritage studies and digital preservation. In 2019 he completed his doctoral thesis titled: Goema's refrain: Sonic anticipation and the musicking Cape.