From Leonor González Mina and Sathima Bea Benjamin to Ronald Snijders, Toumani Diabaté and Aziza Brahim to Peter Tosh… The idea for Sonic Alignments sparked between self-made playlists, the pages of theater scripts, telephone conversations, memories of concerts and tables with food… many tables with very good food. This first edition will be about Cape Town jazz and kawina.
Date, location: Thu. March 6, Bijlmer Parktheater (Amsterdam)
Speakers: Denise Jannah, Dylan Valley (Cape Town), Grant Jurius (Cape Town), Marlon ‘MrJetFly’ Francis and Wayne Modest.
Program schedule
19.00h-20.10h: Part 1, a conversation with Denise Jannah, Dylan Valley, Grant Jurius and MrJetFly.
20.10h-20.40h: Break, including iftar. At Bijlmer Parktheater, we’re offering spaces to do wudu and pray.
20.40h-21.45h: Part 2, listening session with Dylan Valley, Grant Jurius and Wayne Modest.
Location: Bijlmer Parktheater (address: Anton de Komplein 240, Amsterdam).
Tickets: Please use this link to buy your tickets in our pre-sale. Buying your tickets in advance gives our teams and the chefs who’ll make food for iftar enough time to prepare.

Sonic Alignments is a collaboration between Wereldmuseum Amsterdam, Research Center For Material Culture and BPTUnpacks, a Bijlmer Parktheater label. In this series, DJs, musicians and vocalists discuss the sonic works that form the soundtracks to their senses of belonging. During the first edition on Thursday, March 6 in Bijlmer Parktheater’s theatre hall, we’ll listen to the sonic conversations between South African jazz and kawina, traditional music from Suriname.

The first hour of the program consists of presentations on the histories and similarities between South African jazz and kawina. After a break where we’ll provide iftar and spaces to pray, Dylan Valley and Grant Jurius will host a listening session. During this session we’ll closely listen to the jazz songs discussed in the first part of the program. Wayne Modest will give his reflections on the work.

About the speakers
Denise Jannah , Singer, vocal coach, actor and jazz icon.
Dylan Valley , film maker, lecturer at the University of Cape Town and part of Future Nostalgia.
Grant Jurius , visual artist and part of Future Nostalgia.
Marlon ‘MrJetFly’ Francis , musician, producer and co-founder of both Future Kawina and 4TheCulture.

Initiators
– Carine Zaayman: Artist, curator, scholar whose work focuses on the afterlives of slavery and colonialism, particularly in the Cape.
– Wayne Modest: Director of Content of Wereldmuseum.
– and yours truly.

The illustration above was made by Grant Jurius. Jurius also made the illustrations for the Anton de Kom Vandaag program + the GembertheeSessies with Romana Vrede and Shehera Grot.