Poetry Jazz – live in Addis Ababa

Saturday, 24 March 2018, 5.30 pm
at
Ras Hotel, Addis Ababa

With Frezer Admasu, Eric Ellingsen, Mihret Kebede, Robert Lippok, Nebiy Mekonnen, Neo Muyanga, Jorga Mesfin, Tasew Wendem Mose, Solomon Sahle, Rike Scheffler, Misrak Terefe, and Rediet Terefe

Spoken poetry has a long history in Ethiopia, finding contemporary expression in Poetry Jazz. Based on this popular style of performance poetry, the evening fuses recitation in Amharic, English and German with musical elements that draw connections between traditional Ethiopian pentatonic music, jazz influences and electronic music.

The event is an experimental get-together of acclaimed poets and musicians, joining in an exercise of styles and improvisation. They engage in investigations of the geographical places that are based on a plethora of acoustic sources, ranging from traditional flute playing to the latest urban field recordings. Continual shifts in languages, reiteration, fragmentation, translations and re-translations, as well as changes in metres and rhythms, create awareness of the subtle divergences of meaning that can be attributed to social and cultural influences, while exploring the gains and losses of such unspoken and outspoken interactions.

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This event is part of the poetry series “Poetry Jazz: Wax and Honey, I’m Home” by the Institut für Raumexperimente, Berlin; in cooperation with the Akademie der Künste, Berlin; in dialogue with Tobiya Poetic Jazz, Addis Ababa; choreographed by Christina Werner; supported by the Studio Olafur Eliasson, Berlin; Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Chicago; Co-financing Fund of the Senate Department for Culture and Europe, Berlin

Funded by the TURN Fund of the German Federal Cultural Foundation.

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