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The first "Panaf" in Algiers
1969 - a legendary year!
Paris
03/07/2009 -
The "Arts Nègres" world festival, organised in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, in 1966, was the first event celebrating the African arts. But three years later, Algeria - working in collaboration with the Organisation of African Unity - went one better, hosting "Panaf", the biggest cultural festival in African history. "Panaf" coincided with the end of a historic era and no less than thirty African countries which had recently won their independence attended the festival, sending dance troupes, traditional orchestras and contemporary groups to represent them. Six national liberation movements were also present at "Panaf," inviting festival-goers to mix politics and debates on decolonisation with films, literature, poetry, dance and music celebrating black identity.
Revolutionary sounds
By the late '60s African music was undergoing one of the most fertile periods in its history. Boosted by the introduction of contemporary instruments and the fusion of traditional African rhythms with Cuban music, jazz, biguine, soul and American R&B, modern orchestras from sub-Saharan Africa invented revolutionary sounds which reflected new-born African nations' pride in their independence. Guinea's Bembeya Jazz, a group that became emblematic of this period, carried off second prize in the modern orchestra section at "Panaf" in 1969 with their tribute to Samory Touré (immortalised on the album Regard sur le passé.)
"Panaf" also coincided with the ongoing struggle of the Civil Rights Movement and a number of major black American stars put in appearances in Algiers in 1969. The American jazz saxophonist Archie Shepp was there, jamming away with various musicians. Nina Simone took to the stage to perform her version of Brel's Ne me quitte pas for the very first time and the legendary South African diva Miriam Makeba (who had just moved to Guinea with her husband, the Black Panther leader Stokely Carmichael) brought the house down with her stirring protest songs.
Cultural manifesto
In a news wire dated 2 August 1969, the AFP reported that Panaf ended with a "cultural manifesto", the Organisation of African Unity famously declaring that "a cultural front should take the place of the front of resistance." Forty years on, one of the main reasons behind the decision to stage a Second Pan-African Cultural Festival is the fact that between 1995 and 2005 culture ministers from the African Union had never been brought together. This year, brandishing the slogan "Africa is back!", Panaf II is set to stage the biggest rally in the world of African artists and intellectuals in Algiers (5 - 20 July), with the aim of creating a durable African cultural policy this time.
Eglantine Chabasseur
Translation : Julie Street
