Cooperation: Wassermusik 2010 with Geoffrey Oryema, Rasha and Mohamed Mounir

The first two open-air summer festivals at the Haus on the Spree revolved around South Sea flair and Caribbean sounds. This time we are sailing into the very heart of the world‘s great rivers.  The stirring water of the Danube, the Amazon and Nile splash their sound to the shores of the Spree, more precisely, with shows on Berlin’s only rooftop for concerts. The film series takes up the atmosphere of the music and projects great (river) sensations onto the open-air screen.

The writing workshop Liquid Writing – Schreiben im Fluss helps you take a leap into cold water: the transition from consumer to producer of literature. And with us once again: our very own Wasserradio . Our series Summer Talks provides an abundance of superfluous thoughts featuring philosopher and former sailor, Michel Serres.nThe festival is waterproof! In case of rain in the exhibition hall. nTickets: https://www.hkw.de/en/top/service/tickets/information/cts-ticketbestellung.php?vn=2571 nBtownbusted feat. Johnny Strange [Culcha-Candela] (D)
Konzert
Fr 06.08.2010 19:00h
Berlin-Kampala-Connection: Berlin, the ruined city, is home to the big Dance Hall Band Culcha Candela and its front man. The band’s co-founder and singer also has a second home: Uganda, the land on the upper reaches of the Nile, where his parents were born and his family resides. It is also wthe place where John Magiriba Lwnga aka Johnny Strange sponsors school projects.

For WASSERMUSIK Btownbusted pays homage to the Nile. Along with the singer Sol and her voluminous voice, Johnny Strange creates an entirely unique mix of ragga, reggae, jazz, breaks and funky guitars.

Btownbusted – Songs on MySpace.com/berlinbusted

Geoffrey Oryema (Uganda)
Konzert
Fr 06.08.2010 20:30h
Hypnotic voice from the great rivers

For the New York Times, he is the “Leonard Cohen of Africa.” Like Cohen, Oryema combines intellect with a voice of unmistakable timbre. While still a child in Uganda, he caught “the musician’s disease,” as Oryema himself has put it. When his father died in a mysterious auto accident under Idi Amin’s regime, Oryema fled into exile in Paris in 1977. Exile is also the name of his first CD, produced by Peter Gabriel, featuring lots of electronics and hypnotic beats.

His songs are often filled with lyrical melancholy, paired with pulsing Afro pop. But Oryema does not want to stand still and be defined exclusively by his origins. So he works with French chansonniers, with jazz musicians, and with Brian Eno, David Byrne, and Lokua Kanza. For him it is always about songs “straight from the heart”: they keep alive the languages of his youth, Swahili and Acholi, and the memory of the “clear green land” near the great rivers.

Geoffrey Oryema: Listen to his songs on myspace.com/geoffreyoryema

Divizionz
Ugandischer Musik-Film
Fr 06.08.2010 22:00h
D: Yes! That’s Us, Uganda/Südafrika 2007, 91 min, English subtitles

Four talented musicians and a fabulous chance to make it big. Kapo, Bana, Kanyankole and Mulokole live in "Central Division", a suburb of Kampala. Each of the four young people comes from a different area of Uganda and embodies the "typical" traits of their home region. Their friendship is nourished by these contradictions, but also threatens to break apart when the four get the chance to participate in a karaoke contest in the city. On the way into town, they are robbed. Without money and equipment, the four continue their adventurous journey into the urban jungle. This film about friendship and ambition, and social life in the suburbs of east African cities is another refreshing work from the director’s collective "Yes! That’s Us "from Kampala.

Rasha (Sudan/Spanien)
Konzert
Sa 07.08.2010 19:00h
Her concerts come alive with her gentle timbres: Rasha’s voices floats, sometimes lyrically, sometimes in Oriental scat singing, above the lute, tambourine, and darbuka drums, as well as Western strings, saxophone, and guitar. Songs in the Merdoum style, which was brought to Sudan by Arabian nomads, alternate with Sudanese variations on rumba and reggae.

Rasha’s love of experimentation can be compared with that of Radio Tarifa, the deliberately eclectic band with which she has been working since emigrating from Khartoum to Spain. She has already recorded CDs with Maria Salgado on the Spanish side and Seydu from Sierra Leone on the African side: a balancing act between continents. Radio 1 enthusiastically called it “lovely stuff.”

Mohamed Mounir (Ägypten)
Konzert
Sa 07.08.2010 20:30h
Sufi-pop with charisma

With his charisma, sensitive vocals, his non-stop dialogue with the audience, Mohamed Mounir is a mix between rock star and oriental chanson. He is as popular at weddings as he is among critical intellectuals in Egypt and Europe.

His blend of traditional Nubian music of his homeland Aswan and reggae, funk and pop is simply irresistible. He makes music for passionate dancing, but with a message. After 9 / 11, he drew a connection to Sufi music to demonstrate: Islam is not violent, rather it is mystical and tolerant. His brilliant performance at the HKW the day the U.S. invaded Iraq was intoxicating and unforgettable. Mounir is the most complex and charismatic star in Egyptian pop heaven.

More infomation and sounds bites:
The website www.mshwarmounir.comThe YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/MeshwarMounir

Umm Kulthum: A voice like Egypt
Musik-Dokumentation
Sa 07.08.2010 22:00h
D: Michal Goldman, USA 1996, 67 min, English OV

Every other cafe in Berlin‘s Neukölln is named after her: Umm Kulthum, the diva of Arabic music, her skill and stage presence comparable only to Maria Callas. Born a farmer’s daughter in the Nile Delta at the beginning of the 20th century, she rose to become a wealthy and powerful woman. At her funeral in 1975, four million people lined the streets of Cairo. In "Umm Kulthum: A Voice Like Egypt," the Boston-based documentary filmmaker Michal Goldman went in search of the woman who would become the symbol of the hopes and aspirations of an entire country on the path to a post-colonial modernity. Omar Sharif wrote the screenplay for this award-winning documentary.