Peace and Blessings be with you,
2 weeks ago I had an 8 day job “swinging the boom” or working as a “klankie” (afrikaans , lit. soundie), aka sound man with a cameraman who goes by the name of Peter Rudden. Being accustomed to working as a photographer during the Cape Town International Jazz Festival, this as you would understand was a new angle as it were.
I found myself recording sound for a Jazz workshop, organised by ESP Afrika as part of their outreach programme that involved a workshop given by Rachelle Ferrel!! Ask me who she was 2 weeks ago and i would have been able to tell you, now however,it is an entirely different story.
She started, and I saw the look of concern on the faces of a crowd of people who realise that there is no way to escape the fact that participation is inescapable! Her understanding of Language & Communication was astounding, helping us all claim our vocal abilities, our Voices for our own.
We were all given sounds to perform, to commit our energy into the common space we shared and the collective effect was incredible! i have never seen a room of complete strangers overcome their self consciousness and sing together like that!
That was only the beginning, at this stage she had not even started singing yet! once she had finished with the workshop , and had realised that there was no way she was going to leave without singing, she opened her gift and shared with us.
let the response of Clare Phillips and Lindiwe Suttle inform you of how it went down…
Salaam
Yasser
Yasser Booley's Blog 