Harmony Holiday
Harmony Holiday : Astro/Afrosonics
Poet and choreographer Harmony Holiday digs in her Astro/Afrosonics Archive, which weaves poetry, poetics and music, through mythscientific gestures.
“To access recordings and writing that unite the philosophy of collective improvisation that galvanizes black music, with the literary tradition – and creates new motifs within both disciplines – one has to practically be a savant, a collector of rare out-of-print records and books, or an archivist in one’s own right.” Harmony Holiday
Harmony Holiday is the author of Negro League Baseball (Fence Books, 2011), Go Find your Father/A Famous Blues (Ricochet Editions, 2014) and Hollywood Forever (Fence Books, 2016). She curates the Afrosonics archive of Jazz Poetics and audio culture, and teaches at Otis College in Los Angeles
Sunday 15 November Runnings
Its the final day of the Pop-up at the Performa Hub in New York. Join us at 47 Walker street at 3pm when Nontsikelelo Mutiti kicks off with a talk on women in self-publishing featuring Yolanda Sangwena (Afripop Magazine), Amy Sall (SUNU Journal), Ali Rosa–Salas (Top Rank Magazine) and Jessica Lynne (Arts.black). Next up, Africa is a Country presents Seeing voices: Reflections on African photographic portraiture, a discussion on photography with Zachary Rosen and friends. Then poet and choreographer Harmony …
Category: Pass Blog
Tags: Africa is a Country, Harmony Holiday, Nontsikelelo Mutiti, Omar Berrada
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Harmony Holiday – Astro/Afrosonics Archive
Now streaming live: Chimurenga Library resident, poet and choreographer Harmony Holiday presents words and sounds from her Astro/Afrosonics Archive, a collection of Jazz Poetics and audio culture. In her own words: “Since the 1950s, jazz music and the literary imagination have been inextricably linked, producing transcendent recordings and written work and many hybrids of the two – a new sonics, an AntiqueFuturism – From Langston Hughes and Kenneth Rexroth and Duke Ellington to Joseph Jarman to Michael Harper to Mos …
Thursday 12 November runnings
Day two of the PASS Pop-up in NYC opens with Chimurenga Library resident, poet and choreographer Harmony Holiday at 3pm. She presents words and sounds from her Astro/Afrosonics Archive, a collection of Jazz Poetics and audio culture. In her own words: “Since the 1950s, jazz music and the literary imagination have been inextricably linked, producing transcendent recordings and written work and many hybrids of the two – a new sonics, an AntiqueFuturism – From Langston Hughes and Kenneth Rexroth and …
Category: Pass Blog
Tags: Brent Hayes Edwards, Harmony Holiday, neo mu, Triple Canopy
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PASS in NY: Harmony Holiday
Poet and choreographer Harmony Holiday curates an archive devoted to poetry, poetics and music, woven together through mythscientific gestures. “Since the 1950s, jazz music and the literary imagination have been inextricably linked, producing transcendent recordings and written work and many hybrids of the two – a new sonics, an AntiqueFuturism – From Langston Hughes and Kenneth Rexroth and Duke Ellington to Joseph Jarman to Michael Harper to Mos Def.” For PASS at the Performa Hub in New York, Harmony will …
PASS pop-up at Performa 15 Hub in New York
Through next week, we’ll occupy the Performa 15 Hub in New York with the Chimurenga Library. This multi-tiered programming platform takes the form of a library-of-people, bringing together a broad spectrum of collaborators and literal bodies of knowledge in an improvised, pop-up library which also functions as radio studio and market. The Chimurenga Library engages trade as both the process of buying, selling, or exchanging goods or services and the practice of exchanging ideas, imaginaries, perceptions, and vocabularies. Over five days, from …
Category: News
Tags: Harmony Holiday, Neo Muyanga, Nontsikelelo Mutiti, PASS New York
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Reeds & Drums by Harmony Holiday
From the Afro/Astrosonics Projects: In the summer 1970, reeds master Rahsaan Roland Kirk founded the Jazz and Peoples Movement in order to promote the visibility of the artform on mainstream television. Jazz musicians wanted to re-assert the dignity of their work to the very powers that threatened that dignity— a privately owned mass media that aggressively censored natural black inventions like collective improvisation. Their tactic: to collectively interrupt live tapings of talk shows, most notably the Merve Griffin Show and …
Oshun and the Country Preacher by Harmony Holiday
From the Afro/Astrosonics Projects. And then in November of 1973 a fiendishly anonymous trumpeter who called himself the Country Preacher started making headlines all over the South. Rumours of what was called a ‘Vertigo of the Infinite’ that he conjured with his words and ‘preachments,’ piled one atop the other like bandits trying to breach the borders of your consciousness without id. Like all the good and spreadingest rumours, the more the stories corroborated one another the more impossible they …
Your Own Hand Sold You
Call For An Archive Of Afrosonics
The collective improvisations of black America – and their profound impact on poetry and sound – are near impossible to find in the annals of US academe. In fact, their absence is as stark as the control of archiving is white, writes Harmony Holiday. Since the 1950s, jazz music and the literary imagination have been inextricably linked, producing transcendent recordings and written work and many hybrids of the two – a new sonics, an antique Futurism – from Langston Hughes …