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J.C. Abbey
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Secondary Title:
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, Ghana's Puppeteer
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Filmmaker Name:
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Steven Feld
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Film Length:
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55 min
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Film Year:
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2016
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Duration:
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46-75 min
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Decade:
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2010s
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Series:
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Jazz Cosmopolitanism in Accra Series
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Language:
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in English, Ga, Ewe, Fante, Twi
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Subtitle Language:
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with English, French, Italian subtitles
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Color:
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color
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Closed-captioned:
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closed-captioned
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Region:
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Africa
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Subject:
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Music, Dance & Theater
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This film documents an exceptional fifty-year artistic career, from Accra's streets to Ghana's villages to international TV. In fifteen delightful puppet shows, Mr. Abbey is joined by musicians Nii Noi Nortey and NiiOtoo Annan and filmmakers Nii Yemo Nunu and Steven Feld to chronicle Ghana's music since independence in 1957.
The marionettes perform ethnic songs, dances and stories, but equally the sounds of highlife, Afrojazz, Afro-rock, reggae, and contemporary hiplife. The innovative soundtrack includes historical documents from radio, TV and broadcast, and LP, as well as new compositions commissioned and performed to playback.
This fifth feature in the Jazz Cosmopolitanism in Accra series mixes styles of historical documentary and contemporary music video. In a review of the film in Visual Ethnography, Rina Sherman quotes ethnomusicologist and filmmaker Steven Feld:
"By doing what these guys have done, which is to give us an alternate history of music in Ghana, they're asking, 'Who tells the story of a nation's music? Is it just the elites and the universities or is it the artists in the streets who have lived these 50, 60 years of history since independence? ...this world of traditions ... is what it means to be a contemporary Ghanaian."
Through the pleasures of performance it reveals the cosmopolitan politics that intertwine ethnic, traditional, national, and global musical styles in Ghana today.
[J.C. Abbey]..."documents the extraordinary art and craft of Joseph C. Abbey... Abbey's remarkable work has remained largely unknown to the wider world and it is thanks to filmmakers Nii Yemo Nunu and feld, and their colleague Nii Noi Nortey, the multi-instrumentalist and administrator of the Anyaa Arts Library outside Accra, that we can now get an impression of Abbey's puppetry treasures."
—Markus Coester and Christine Matzke, University of Bayreuth (Germany)
Includes the short film From Accra to Santa Fe (18 min, 2009)
Includes the short film M.V. Labadi (20 min, 2013)
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