Listen to S3E07 of The ICA Podcast
Episode 7
Listen to the final episode of Season 3 of The ICA Podcast, featuring multi-instrumentalist and creative writer Kolawole Gbolahan!
Gbolahan reflects on his 2022 musical performance Reclaiming the Poetics of Indigenous Horns, which incorporates horns made from conch shells and the greater kudu, alongside contemporary musical instruments. Through poetry and storytelling, Gbolahan re-evaluates the capabilities of indigenous instruments in terms of both their use and social function, and seeks to trouble perceptions of indigenous instruments as archaic, naive and unsophisticated.
Listen on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Podcast Addict, on our website; or wherever you find podcasts.
Kolawole Gbolahan, Reclaiming the Poetics of Indigenous Horns. 2022 ICA Live Art Festival. Photos by Xolani Tulumani.
Kolawole Gbolahan is a Nigerian by birth who resides in Cape Town, South Africa. He is a Mellon scholar with an MA in Music and is currently studying for a PhD at the College of Music, University of Cape Town. As a multi-instrumentalist and creative writer, he has shared creative works and performance spaces with diverse musical projects and creative academics such as Mandla Mbothwe, Marlon Swai, Dizu Plaatjies and the UCT Symphony Orchestra. In 2016, he founded a poetic band (Sounds & Words), and in 2019 he was invited with a cohort of other academics from UCT to participate/present at an international symposium entitled Art and Anthropology and Beyond, held at the University of Kobe in Japan – a collaboration that led him to co-author a book on resilience. In 2021, Gbolahan became co-founder of THE COMMONS, an experimental and collaborative events space in the heart of Muizenberg.
Kolawole Gbolahan.
About The ICA Podcast
The Podcast – launched in July 2020 – emerged out of the ICA's 2019 publication Acts of Transgression: Contemporary Live Art in South Africa and extends the work begun by the book through conversations with the creators and curators of Live Art. Each episode is alive with music and audio from artists’ performances, and the weight and emotion of their personal stories.
Season 1 looked at the bodies of work of 8 diverse artists. In Season 2, each episode focused on a single performance, and the creative processes that brought them into being. Catch up on any episodes you may have missed on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.
Season 3 – hosted by writer Nkgopoleng Moloi – explores 7 performances featured at the 2022 ICA Live Art Festival. Listen to each artist bring their immersive and richly layered performance to life, and reflect along the way on how their upbringing has shaped their practice.
The 7 episodes of Season 3 dive into:
I AM by Tandile Mbatsha
Between my finger and thumb by Asemahle Ntlonti
We are everywhere by Qondiswa James
Ingoduko yamaNkazana (The Return of the Home of Harlots) by Lukhanyiso Skosana
UkuNqula kukuThandaza by Nkosenathi Koela
Ifu Elimnyama: The Dark Cloud by Russel Hlongwane; and
Reclaiming the Poetics of Indigenous Horns by Kolawole Gbolahan.
Looking ahead
Episode 7 marks the end of Season 3 of The ICA Podcast; stay tuned for the release of Season 4 next year!
Rate and review the podcast on Apple podcasts to help other listeners find the show. Or share The ICA Podcast with a friend!
Kolawole Gbolahan, Reclaiming the Poetics of Indigenous Horns. 2022 ICA Live Art Festival. Photo by Xolani Tulumani.