Slow Walker # 199
Slow Walker
13:00, Sunday 16th June, CMB 1&2
- Director/Anthropologist: Alex Vailati
- Year of Release: 2012
- Duration: 52 mins
- Country of Production: Italy / Brazil / South Africa
- Location: Durban, South Africa
- Language: South Africa, Zulu, English, Isizulu (English)
Saturday night, four o’clock in the morning. In Durban downtown, is starting an isicathamiya competition, a genre of music and dance created during apartheid, by migrant workers that lived in townships, urban spaces where non-whites were segregated. Today, in the age of freedom, isicathamiya is one of the most important expressive tool of low class black South Africans. Moreover, it is a mirror of problems and resources of South African society. Despite this, isicathamiya seems to be in decline, due to its low commercial power. This documentary is an encounter with the dancers’ lives and a description of a performance that happens every Saturday night, for almost seventy years.
Organised by the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain & Ireland (RAI) since 1985, it is an itinerant festival that moves biennially from one university host to another, in association with local community and cultural organisations.
The festival will be held from Thursday 13 June to Sunday 16 June 2013 in Edinburgh, hosted by National Museums Scotland and the STAR consortium. Scottish Training in Anthropological Research (STAR) is a collaboration between the Universities of Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh and St. Andrews. Over 60 new films will be screened alongside a conference 'New Observations' and a selection of special events and workshop about art & anthropology and the use of archival film.
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