Africa Utopia returns to Southbank Centre for its fifth year, from 15-16 July 2017, with a lineup of some of the most exciting musicians, artists, performers and thinkers from across Africa and its diaspora.
This vibrant weekend explores Africa’s lead in shaping the way we think about culture, gender, race, sexuality, fashion, activism and society.
Highlights include:
- Afrobeat superstar Fuse ODG performing hits in the Royal Festival Hall that have propelled him to multi-platinum status;
- Award-winning screenwriter Amma Asante in conversation discusses her films Belle, A United Kingdom, and the power of telling Black stories on the big screen;
- salt.– a theatrical journey to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, as performer Selina Thompson jumps on a cargo ship and retraces the slave trade route from the UK to Ghana and Jamaica and back;
- The return of Southbank Centre’s Associate Orchestra Chineke! Orchestra, Britain’s first professional orchestra comprised entirely of black and minority ethnic musicians;
- Showcasing some of the very best fashion collections by designers from across the African continent, and the diaspora, this year’s Africa Utopia Catwalk is curated byAfrica Fashion Week London;
- Rebooting Africa – a chance to create and pitch an Africa-focused tech-driven business or social idea to Tom Illube, Tech entrepreneur and Powerlist’s most influential person of African and African Caribbean heritage;
- Egyptian activist and human rights researcher Mariam Kirollos, who founded Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment to combat sexual harassment in Tahrir Square, gives a keynote on activism, social change and solidarity across borders;
- Interactive singing, storytelling, and songwriting with dynamic singer-songwriter Lánre;
- Cosmic Ashokeperforming afro-futuristic poetry and music with an innovative visual and auditory experience;
- What The Trees Know – an improvised, immersive performance through music and poetry, that explores human vulnerability, in which the audience and the artists are blindfolded – performed by South African poet Toni Stuart and UK poet Remi Graves.
A powerful programme of talks, debates and workshops forms the foundation of the weekend, exploring issues such as activism, social change, the future of African politics in a new age of populism, and gender equality. Participatory workshops include a Short Story Surgery, to empower the next generation of writers to create potentially prize-winning texts, and the much-loved Twerkshop, celebrating West African dance.
Africa Utopia also hosts wide-ranging free events across Southbank Centre’s site, from a Black History Walk along the Thames which explores British Civil Rights, African and Caribbean history and black heroes along the riverside, to Afrikan Yoga on Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall Roof Garden.
The Big Sing event is an opportunity to all join in and sing, while The Africa Utopia Block Party with DJ Rita Ray, brings you everything from afrobeat to Congolese jazz, to South African electronica. Running throughout the weekend, the Africa Utopia Marketplace creates a bustling arena in the Royal Festival Hall offering the latest in African and African-inspired arts, crafts and workshops and the space under Hungerford Bridge is transformed into a bustling African inspired street food market with 14 stalls of authentic African cuisine and live music.
Previous performers, artists and speakers who have taken part in Africa Utopia include award-winning Senegalese musician and human rights activist Baaba Maal and Grammy Award-winner Angelique Kidjo, the former First Lady of Somaliland and founder of Somaliland’s first maternity hospital. Other star acts have included Edna Adan; Kenyan creative collective The Nest; South African performer Spoek Mathambo; ‘godfather of Ethiopian jazz’ Mulatu Astatke; the Kinshasa Symphony orchestra; and many more from across the African continent and the diaspora.
Jude Kelly, Artistic Director, Southbank Centre said: “Welcome to the 5th year of our Africa Utopia festival at Southbank Centre. Since we started the festival with Baaba Maal in 2012 each year brings an ever-more dazzling display of energy, music and dance to Southbank Centre but also looks beyond the surface at some of the most pressing issues the African continent is facing.
Africa so often finds itself on the frontline of global issues and, as the world changes at a ferocious pace, we look to artists, thinkers and entrepreneurs to highlight what ideas and stories are coming out of Africa that can help us face these issues – and find solutions – together.”
African Eye Report
