M HKA Ensembles

1er Festival Mondial des Arts Nègres (The First World Festival of Negro Arts) was held in Dakar, Senegal, 1–24 April 1966, initiated by Léopold Senghor under the auspices of UNESCO. Visitors from around the world, as well as Dakar residents, were able to attend a vast programme of events, including exhibitions presenting tribal and modern art, conferences and street performances. According to Senghor, the festival was supposed to be an illustration of Négritude, a major showcase uniting the work of African and African diasporia artists. A colloquium that took place two day before the opening, which was considered the intellectual fulcrum of the event, gathered artists and intellectuals to reflect on the role of art in the emerging post-imperial world as well as the meaning of Négritude. The first side of this record consists of texts, music and slave songs, and the second side presents two different aspects of black music – short instrumental improvisations inspired by Senegalese traditional music and 'the Songs of New Nations' – Ghana, Nigeria, Congo – performed by a choir with native drums and percussion.

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