Tuesday 28 August 2012

Levity and gravity at play

LIGHT and dark, passion and humour - all four met, sang and danced together in Soweto Entsha's final, stirring performance at the Festival of Spirituality and Peace last night.

"It's not all over until the  five guys sing", people were saying. And they were right. A rousing, standing ovation saw off the acclaimed South African a capella ensemble after a show that spanned everything from township, to Gospel, to jive and beyond... even taking in a sassy version of 'Amazing Grace' (if you can imagine that!) and a complicatedly synpocated, joyously tongue-in-cheek take on the Spice Girls' 'Wannabe' as part of the encore.

The backdrop to this all-singing, all-dancing treat was the glorious symmetry of St John's Church, Edinburgh, where much of the Festival has been based for the past month. Tradition and innovation embraced in a sumptuous, gleeful African swansong.

It looked and sounded for all the world as if they were made for one another.

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