| As a result
of Angolan's wide cultural diversity, literature
and the arts have shown themselves to be particularly
creative.
Angolan literature, whose origins go back to the
mid-19th century, has been marked by a native
press traditionally combative and satirical. It
has rapidly separated itself from other similar
literature in the Portuguese language and reached
other countries high lightened by the publishing
of the first novel by an Angolan writer, Antonio
Assis Junior: 0 segredo da morta in 1935. A little
later, Castro Soromenho - although a native of
Mozambique -with Terra morta and Viragem was to
produce remarkable analyses of the relationship
between the diverse Angolan ethnic groups and
the Europeans.
The "generation of 1950" with the magazine
Mensagem, brought such people as Agostinho Neto,
Viriato da Cruz and Antonio Jacinto. They have
continued that tradition of combat and the impact
of their work has been decisive in shaping the
entire generations' consciousness of necessary
resistance to colonial domination and national
self-assertion.
In the following years, authors like Oscar Ribas,
Luandino Vieira (Vidas Novas, Luuanda), Arnaldo
Santos, Uanhenga Xitu, LaraFilho and Mario Antonio,
among others, have started to re-create a language
that helps express styles of living, of thought
and of action that were more specifically connected
to the Angolans, to encourage the diffusion and
strengthening of their own identity.
After the independence of the country, the creation
of the Writers' Union of Angola boosted the publishing
industry, revealing the works of the poets Arlindo
Barbeitos, David Mestre and Ruy Duarte de Carvalho
and the prose and fiction of writers Henrique
Abranches, Manuel Rui Monteiro and Pepetela -
the author (/Mayombe, who received the Camoens
Prize. |
These men, of great aesthetic
and literary level, started to question the courses
followed by the country and helped the poets build a
new sensitivity. The prose writers raised a conscienceness
of the nation as a whole.
The following generation, after the 80's, appears to
have nothing more to demonstrate on historical and political
grounds and thus leans towards a greater freedom of
creation, with themes predominantly of an intimate and
love bound nature. Standing out for the richness of
their images are poets Jose Luis Mendonca, Joao Maimona,
Joao Melo, Paula Tavares, Lopito Feijoo, Botelho de
Vasconcelos, and a few more.
The 90's have seen the predominant comeback of the prose
writers, characterising the principle present literary
production in Angola. On an equal footing with Pepetela,
Manuel Rui, Henrique Abranches and Arnaldo Santos, who
have never ceased to publish new work, new names have
been making their appearance or confirming their position,
like Jose Eduardo Agualusa, Jose Sousa Jamba, Boaventura
Cardoso, Fernando Fonseca Santos, Cikakata Mbalundo,
Fragata deMorais, Jacinto de Lemos, Roderick Nehone,
Alberto Oliveira Pinto, Jacques Arlindo dos Santos.
They keep alive the tradition of Angolan literature,
at the same time enriching it with the diversity of
their themes and the growing quality of their writing.
Drama continues practically unexpressed as, since independence,
only 23 plays by 9 authors have been published: Jose
Mena Abrantes (12 titles), Pepetela, Domingos Van-Dunem
and Trajano Nankhova (2 plays each), and with a single
play, Henrique Guerra, Manuel dos Santos Lima, Costa
Andrade, Joao Maimona and Casimiro Alfredo.
However, it is in the fields of music and plastic arts
that the contrasting extremes of Angolan culture are
revealed with the greatest intensity. Almost all the
people and ethnic groups of Angola enjoy a very rich
stock of music and dance, naturally integrated in their
everyday life, an almost anonymous continuation and
re-creation of ancient tradition. The same can be said
of wall painting and of popular carving and sculpture.
At the same time, particularly
in the urban zones, many musicians and plasticians use
their media of expression as a basis to inspire the
creation of music and individualized works of art. Their
influence both at home and abroad is constantly growing.
In the field of music, the pioneer work (in the50's)
of the Ngola Ritmos group of Liceu Vieira Dias and,
in the plastic arts, starting in the 60's, the production
of Viteix et Antonio Ole are recalled.
More recently, worthy of registering in the musical
field are the constantly creative Lourdes Van-Dunem
and Elias dia Kimuezo, the consecrated "king of
angolan music ",and their attachment to their roots.
The memory of the suburban and provocative Luanda with
Barcelo de Carvalho Bonga, the gripping voice-power
and vision of solidarity of Rui Mingas, the strict rendering
of ancient tones by Mario Rui Silva are ever present.
The longing and tender look Teta Lando casts back on
the simpler things of life, the sense of disappointment
in the new generations of Paulo Flares, and the co-existence
of tradition and modernity in the music of Filipe Mukenga
and Mito Gaspar are notable.
Plastic arts do not run quite so wide a gamut. Apart
from Viteix and Ok, major symbols of a modern painting
rooted in tradition, only a few names have begun to
set an original course, like for instance Jorge Gumbe,
Francisco Van-Dunem Van, and Fernando Alvim.
In the chapter on ballet, only Ana Clara Guerra Marques
with her Contemporary Dance Company has done research
in a creative way for a possible coexistence of traditional
and contemporary dancing. Most of the other groups limit
themselves to a reproduction - to the point of exhaustion
- of rhythms and choreographic movements that become
monotonous and lose their meaning outside the original
spaces.
The same discrepancy could be felt for many years in
the performing arts, which were limited to transposing
on the stage rituals and ceremonies which lost their
character in the process, or reproducing the same situations
with the same characters, almost always in narrow scenes
from rural zones and unconnected to the lifestyle of
the audiences of these shows.
Things have been gradually
changing in recent times, with several groups appearing
or making themselves more visible, particularly in Luanda.
However, there is still no professional theatre in Angola,
nor are there the conditions for it to materialize.
The only groups, all amateur which succeeded in keeping
up a minimal activity and survived a span of ten years,
have been the Experimental Theatre Group of the Ministry
of Culture, Oasis, the Horizonte Njinga Mbande, the
Makotes and Elinga-Teatro, all of them with occasional
presence in festivals outside Angola.
Let us conclude with a reference to the film industry,
whose production was practically non existant in the
middle of the 80's, after a relatively promising start,
during which a few obstinate movie-makers recorded with
enthusiasm the difficult birth of the new country. Its
greatest craftsmen have been Ruy Duarte de Carvalho
and Antonio Ole, already mentioned in connection with,
respectively, literature and the plastic arts.
In 2000, the government created the national award for
Arts and Culture which rewards the best creators of
the country. The winners of the First edition were:
Oscar Ribas (literature and social science)
Ze Keno (spectacle arts)
Viteix (fine arts)
Ruy Duarte de Carvalho (cinema and audiovisuals)
We must not forget that the carnival is, of course,
considered to be one of the greatest cultural events
in Angola.
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