Field recordings of 3 groups of San from the Central Kalahari have been combined with the work of composer Barry Donnelly into a new CD. The music has been reworked from the original soundtrack of the movie. Of particular interest is the way in which Barry has used the natural elements of Africa and the Kalahari to influence the music. The rain music is made up of an African rain drum, live recording of Barry playing ''drums'' on a river and the call of a rain bird. The percussion is a mixture of individual recordings of water drops on sand as well as a rainstick. The overall effect is very musical but subconsciously the listener is drawn into the San hunters world of life spirit. Field recordings were done by sound recordist Teo Bielefeld and the directors of the film Craig and Damon foster. On one of their journeys with archeologist Janette Deacon on the 3 year project they discovered a giant San rock gong, which Barry has used in the sound track. The gong was perhaps last heard thousands of years ago in a landscape where now only San engravings remain. Their is very little evidence of the San using drums and so Barry has replaced most of the drum tracks in his music with the sounds of the gong and of the footsteps of San doing the trance dance. He has also stood on large stones and rocked them back and forth. Barry has taken these sounds back to the studio and pitched them to his liking. Craig and Damn gave Barry a kelp horn possibly used by early coastal San and a contemporary mouth bow from the Kalahari, both of which he learnt to play and use in the soundtrack. At least half of the songs are untouched recordings from the San singers and musicians whose extraordinary music has its origins as long ago as 30 000 years. The music can sound strange to the western ear and was banned by the colonial settlers in some areas. In their ignorance the settlers were surpressing an art form that holds the integrity of the individual while also expressing the power of the community, a rich and deep sound that plays to the essence of human nature. The phrases of voice in the music are direct translations from the master tracker/hunter and trance dancer !Nqate Xqamxebe and tell of his passion for the land and the animals. Porcupine tail quills given to the filmmakers of ''the Great Dance'' by !Nqate were used in an ostrich egg as a rattle by the composer. This piece of music accompanies the tracking of two porcupine that were hunted and eaten by !Nqate and his friends Karoha and Xlhoase. Even the Kalahari insect sounds were sampled and played in different rhythms, slowed down or reversed in an attempt to open up some of the knowledge and understanding of the San who use insects as time keepers to age the tracks of animals they are following. No one sound track or film can ever capture the vastness and complexity of this most ancient culture, but ''the Great Dance'' can be summed up in the words of !Nqate ''tracking is like dancing because your body is happy.......you are talking with God when you are doing these things.''

 

	The Great Dance is proudly sponsored in South Africa by Coca-Cola		Web Design: Copyright © L. Blaine Content Copyright © Sense Africa Email: greatdance@senseafrica.com	Top of Page	Sense Africa	Home	The Movie	Images	Sales