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Congress of the CAF
CAF holds ordinary assembly
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OPENING CEREMONY
10 January 2010
CULTURE
WELWITSCHIA
Welwitschia mirabilis is a genus of a succulent plant that can only be found in desert south to Angola. This specie was named after being discovered by Dr. Friedrich Welwitsch, who contributed to the knowledge of this and of many other plants of Angola. This is a creeping plant, formed by a fixed ligneous stem, a huge taproot and two small leaves that continuously grow during the plant’s cycle of life. It is estimated that this plant can reach to 1.000 years.
Boaboa
Boaboa is a wide-bodied tree that can live up to 6000 years. Native from the Angolan forest of Mayombe, this tree can reach 30 m high and is capable to store in its giant trunk up to 120 litres of water. For this reason, it is also called “bottle tree”. According with an old African tale, for example, once a dead person is buried inside a Boaboa plant, his soul will live as long the plant exists. It takes just one night for Adansonia digitata to flourish, between May and August.
The Angolan culture is rich and diversified, and each region of the country shows it in different ways be it in handicraft, music, dance, fine arts or literature.
In handicraft and fine arts, special focus should be made on wood, bronze and ivory masks. These masks play an important role in religious and cultural rituals, representing life or death scenes, as Mwana-Pwo for puberty; Kalelwa polychromatic masks used during circumcision ceremonies; Cikungu and Cihongo masks of Lunda-Cokwe mythology, with particular attention to the imaginary of princess Lweji and prince of Tschibinda-Ilunga civilization.
In sculpture, The Thinker, of tchokwe origin, is probably the Angolan most famous piece of art and a symbol of its country. It represents an ancient, a figure that occupies a privileged statute in the Angolan society: “the oldest” represents wisdom, experience and knowledge of secrets of life. The first figures of The Thinker were sculpted in Dundo Museum in the ends of 1940.
The Ngangela art, in west of Bié province and east in Moxico province, comprises the traditional Lwena Ceramics with its magnificent pottery Works, producing pots, bottles and other recipients for water transport and reservoir, with anthropomorphous heads, human or animal figures, evoking proverbs, myths and legends. The colour of Lwena Ceramics is usually black and shinny. This colour is achieved through natural pigments (vegetable and inorganic).
Music and Dance
Semba is Angola’s most popular music styles together with Maringa, Kabetula, Kazukuta and Caduque. According with some researchers, semba is based in massemba and lundu, which are of Portuguese origin. Semba is danced in pairs, with elegant steps from gentlemen and followed by ladies in wide steps where dexterity counts a lot regarding improvisation.
Kizomba, in Kimbundo language means “party”. The word Kizomba as a dance was born in the 80’s in Luanda, Angola after being influenced by the Zouks.
Kuduro, however, is the fusion of beat music with typically African styles, created and mixed by young Angolans adapting the way to dance, which is to hold the hip to the sides in two times.
Rebita is an Angolan type of music and ballroom dancing that shows gentlemen vanity and ladies adornments. Danced in pairs in coordinated choreographies by the chief of the circle, they perform acts of generosity, gesturing the lightness of their ladies to the tune of massemba.
Kazukuta is the excellence of slow tap dance, followed by body swinging. The dancer stands on his heels or tiptoes, leaning on a cane or in an umbrella. Players play instruments as tins, dikanzas, bottles, barrel arches and for some rhythmic variations, brass cornet and box cornet. Dancers dress listed pants and coats and cover the face with a mask for a better caricature of the enemy.
Kabetula is a Carnival dance of Bengo’s region and it exhibits pretty fast waggles followed by some acrobatic jumps. Dancers usually present themselves with white shirts or shirtless.
In Cabinda, it is obligatory to visit the sanctuary where the “Bakama” gather to dress the traditional garments of dry leaves from banana tree and the masks. The sanctuary is located in the village of Tchizo – a small village in the outskirts of Cabinda – and centre of the traditional power of the “Macongo”, “Maloango” and “Muangoyo” people.
From 1940 to 1950, and under leadership of Liceu Vieira Dias, the group Ngola Ritmos started to compose lyrics about the country’s political situation, praising nationalism in national dialects. Thus, the group was able to introduce music in the urban scenario, making of Luanda the capital of music, and contributing to Angola’s independence process. In function of the musical background of its creator, the Ngola Ritmos was strongly influenced by American jazz and Portuguese fado.
In 1959 another group emerges, the Duo Ouro Negro, formed by Raúl Indipwo and Milo MacMahon. During the 60’s, great stages from Switzerland, France, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, Brazil, Japan, USA and Portugal opened their doors to receive the duo who sang Angolan popular and urban music, among them, the hits "Tuende Kurikutela", "Larip", "Muxima", "Luanda" and "Mamã".
Contemporary of the Duo Ouro Negro, Lourdes Van-Dúnem consolidated herself has a feminine reference in Angolan music. Deceased in 2006, the singer began her career with the group Ngola Ritmos in the 60’s and became famous with the song "Monami" of her first record. In the 80’s and 90’s she toured several times to Portugal, South Africa, Algeria, United States, France, Spain and Brazil. Lourdes Van-Dúnem always sang about culture and African traditions.
More recently, other interpreters of Angolan music continued to work with the line between tradition and modernity, as Paulo Flores, who has in his repertoire the union between sounds of traditional and modern instruments. Despite his activity has singer, Paulo Flores contributes to Angolan music with the creation of other groups as the Kituxi. Created in 1980, this group won admiration and respect from its public by encouraging young people to play traditional instruments as ungu, mpuita, dikanza, guiro, among others.
Thus, we must point out to songs from Diá Kimuenzo, Rui Mingas, Mário Rui Silva, Wyza, Filipe Mukenga and Teta Lando, whose themes turn to national values, the country’s history and national culture. In their works, these artists value the original sounds of Angolan music.
Literature
Classics of Angolan Literature
The Generation of Utopy - Pepetela
Sacred Hope - Agostinho Neto
Mayombe - Pepetela
Yaka - Pepetela
Year of the Dog - Roderick Nehone
I Wish I Was a Wave - Manuel Rui Monteiro
Surviving in Tarrafal de Santiago - António Jacinto
Dead Land - Castro Soromenho
Viriato da Cruz - Poems
Echoes Of My Land- Óscar Ribas
The Seller of Pasts- José Eduardo Agualusa
Mário António - Poetry
Boaventura Cardoso – The Sign of Fire
Ondjaki – Good morning comrades
The beginning of literature currently written in Angola occurred during colonization, period in which our literature rose and developed as Portuguese extension. 1901 marks the publication of the first fully literary organ in Angola: “Almanach – Literary Essays”, print in Luanda in Tipografia do Povo. In 1934, The Secret of the Dead Woman by António de Assis Júnior was published and considered the milestone of the Angolan fiction in prose. In 1949, the romance Dead Land by Castro Soromenho was published in Brazil and describes the effects of Portuguese colonization on Angola.
The 1950’s define the clear existence of an indigenous literary elite constituted of essayists, poets and writers. This elite contoured repression exerted upon the press and defined the future natural literature. In 1951, the publication of magazines and student newspapers where the first essays of Angolan writers and poets could be read.
In the 1960’s, as possible result of the desire for independence, the preference for narrative reappears in the literary scenario. This trend continued until mid-1970.
The post-independence period in 1975, was marked by patriotic euphoria in which some writers were inspired by the civil war while others decided to use imagination to create fiction literature.
The group of writers that emerged in the 1980’s was known has the "Generation of Uncertainties”, due social and political circumstances and the perspective of an uncertain future for the Angolans. However, it was during this period that some of Angola’s most popular literary works were published: Sacred Hope by Agostinho Neto; Yaka and Mayombe by Pepetela; I Wish I Was a Wave of Manuel Rui Monteiro.
Fine Arts
During the post-independence period, Angola assisted to a cultural explosion, which was initiated by artists all over the world engaged in a campaign for the country’s autonomy. However, it was the Angolans who starred in this campaign. Thus, in function of political agitation, the art of the 1970’s uses murals and high dimension public posters as striking expressions. Some are still well-preserved, which is the case of the murals of Luanda’s Military Hospital and wall of the Union of Angolan Writers head office.
Since the 1980’s, Angolan painting and sculpture works moved to the international scenario, when fine artists began to present their works in countries as Cuba, Brazil, Portugal, France, Hungary, Sweden, Norway, among others.
On account of war installed in the country, many fine artists moved to other countries as Olé (United States of America), Alvim (Belgium), Viteix (France), Eleutério Sanches, Raul Endipwo, José Rodrigues, Vaz de Carvalho and Dília Fraguito (Portugal) as well as Kiana, Marcos Kabenda, Lally Salvador, Paulino Damião, Matondo Alberto, Zan Andrade, Pululu, Dudu, Délio Baptista, Filomena Coquenão, Helga Gambôa, Valentim Caterça, Sérgio Piçarra, Hugo Lito Silva, José Fernandes, Van, among others.
The 90’s came to consolidate the Angolan culture with the creation of the Middle School of Fine Arts. Through this institution, technicians have been trained and directed for the printing industry and to the development of art activities. Over a decade, the Middle School of Fine Arts, under tutorship of the Ministry of Culture, promoted exhibitions, established awards as the Banco de Fomento e Exterior and Cidade Luanda in Fine Arts, comprising diverse areas as painting, engraving, sculpture and weaving.
To point out the important names of Mpambukidi, Kabissi, Remos, Ngombo, Odaly, Belmira, Kidá, Telmo Vaz Pereira, Gonga, Domingas Correia, Tona/Etona, Isabel Baptista, Barcas, Nunes, Tozé, Don Sebas, Raul Silvestre, Yana Van-Dúnem, Fineza Teta, Luandino de Carvalho, Kátia Rangel, Fátima Fonseca, Sabby, Lino Damião, Maniloy, Pedro Dala, Sungu Lumingu, Abraão Eba, Marcos Kadenda, among others.
In the most recent generations shine the talents of Kabundi Ely, Ventura, Mayembe, Venâncio, Sozinho, Daniadão, Marcela Marcos, Kamuto, Ngola, Casimiro, Lindomar, Olímpio, Ndilu Mutima, Hildbrando and Álvaro Macieira, among others.
Art Galleries
• Galeria de Maio (Gallery of May)
• Galeria Cenárius ( Cenárius Gallery)
• Galeria do Centro Cultural Português ( Gallery of the Portuguese Culture Centre)
• Salão Internacional de Artes (International Arts Saloon)
• Galeria Sosso (Sosso Gallery)
• Espaço Cultural Chá de Caxinde (Tea Cultural Space of Caxinde)
Carnival
Carnival is celebrated in Angola for over a century. It was introduced by the Portuguese, and records from 1990 reveal that Ndembu (Ambundo) dances and masks already corresponded to Carnival.
Carnival has always had a great strength in Luanda, especially among islanders and thanks to Nzau and Nzeto people, who brought the axiluandas the Semba dance. In Luanda, from the Kamama, Kapari and Mulenvo arises the spiritual recreational dance Kimuala, in fraternal solidarity in days of death.
Other provinces where Carnival plays an important role are those from the coastline, namely, Cabinda, Zaire (Soyo), Bengo (Ambriz), Kwanza-Sul (Porto Amboim), Benguela (Lobito), Namibe, Malanje, Kwanza-Norte (Dondo and Ambaca).
With the struggle for national freedom in February 1961, the Portuguese authorities did not allow the Carnival parade in Angola. The few groups that dare to parade were beaten by the police.
In mid-1960’s, the main parade was marched through the Avenida da Marginal (then called Paulo Dias de Novais), with the presentation of Carnival marches. In that time, after Luanda, only the Lobito Carnival was distinguished by being one the country’s most animated and organized Carnival.
SOURCES: ANGOLA GOVERNMENT, UNION OF ANGOLAN WRITERS/Francisco Van-Dúnen, SONANGOL, FOLHA DE ANGOLA
Final standings
Tournament results
Security forces’ role during CAN 2010 recognized
CAN 2010 will stand out football development in Angola
Dom Anastácio Kahango praises closing ceremony
Government to create company to manage sports infrastructures
Colour, sound and lights close African Cup of Nations
Nigeria closes matches in Benguela with a victory
FAF secretary-general commends national journalists
Angolan government complied integrally with tournament’s programme
