By Thabang Mokoka
A FREE concert is being held at the Kliptown Youth Community Centre, in Soweto, on Saturday, 11 March at 3pm.
Called Nhanssala, which means "very, very crazy" in a Mozambican dialect, the show is a musical and instrumental creation featuring "Les Urbs" (from France) and "Les MozUrbs" (from Mozambique and Democratic Republic of Congo), who make music with instruments made of recycled materials.
The unique musicians will share the stage with The Kliptown Children Youth Club, a group of young children from Kliptown who hold dramatic performances and are consummate gumboot dancers.
The concert is hosted by the French Institute in South Africa and the Alliance Francaise.
Peggy Boucon, the performing arts director at the French Institute in South Africa, said Kliptown was chosen as the venue, because "there is a lot of talent among the youth".
Nhanssala was born in 2004 when Les Urbs and Les MozUrbs met at the Festival Africolor in Paris, when they performed together. They decided to work together, combining their creative voices and energies.
Les Urbs is made up of five drummers (Braka, Patrick Gigon, Alain Guazzelli, Jean-Louis Mechali and Jacques Nobili), percussionists and multi-instrumentalists. These artists create the unusual instruments on which they play.
The 10 artists who make up Les MozUrbs are led by singer Sandro Valadas. They have been mentored by Les Urbs through both creating and using the instruments. The result of this co-operative effort has been recorded, and a CD was launched in February.
Nhanssala is on a tour of southern African that began in Mozambique, and visited Swaziland and Namibia before arriving in South Africa.
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