African Video Movies and Global Desires by Carmela GarritanoISBN: 9780896804845
Publication Date: 2013-01-01
The first full-length scholarly study of Ghana's commercial video industry, an industry that has produced thousands of movies over the last twenty years and has grown into an influential source of cultural production. Drawing on archival and ethnographic research conducted in Ghana over a ten-year period, as well as close readings of a number of individual movies, this book brings the insights of historical context as well as literary and film analysis to bear on a range of movies and the industry as a whole.
Viewing African Cinema in the Twenty-First Century by Mahir Şaul (Editor); Ralph A. Austen (Editor)ISBN: 9780821443507
Publication Date: 2010-10-01
Since the early 1990s, a new phenomenon has come to dominate the African cinema world: mass-marketed films shot on less expensive video cameras. These "Nollywood" films, so named because many originate in southern Nigeria, are a thriving industry dominating the world of African cinema. Viewing African Cinema in the Twenty-first Century is the first book to bring together a set of essays offering a comparison of the two main African cinema modes.
Mi Broni Ba (2009): a film by Akosua Adoma Owusu: Weaving together sequences of hair-braiding salons in Ghana, voice-over of Oprah rhapsodizing brown-skinned dolls and animated clips of signature hairstyles, Me Broni Ba (My White Baby) is an artfully composed, thought-provoking work that investigates the fraught relationship between images of beauty and power.
Highlife Saturday Night by Nate PlagemanISBN: 9780253007339
Publication Date: 2012-12-19
Highlife Saturday Night captures the vibrancy of Saturday nights in Ghana--when musicians took to the stage and dancers took to the floor--in a penetrating look at musical leisure during a time of social, political, and cultural change. Frames the history of highlife in urban Ghana during much of the twentieth century and documents a range of figures who fueled the music's emergence, evolution, and explosive popularity.
Ghana's Highlife (2019): Ghana's Highlife is a musical identity that became the back beat for an African soundscape, a style of song that borrowed from abroad but took on its own traditions.
Bernard Ayisa: Musician: Even though he is one of Ghana's most respected jazz musicians, Ayisa still plays the saxophone on the streets of Accra. Teachers include Mrs. Kumagai, Darius Brubeck, and Dusty Cox. Ayisa discusses traveling internationally, releasing his debut album "Gbee," educating youth, and collaborating with Victor Dey.
Ghana Art Scene (2017): We take a look at how members of Ghana's art industry are targeting new consumers with more disposable income.
Trickster Theatre by Jesse Weaver ShipleyISBN: 9780253016591
Publication Date: 2015-06-22
Trickster Theatre traces the changing social significance of national theatre in Ghana from its rise as an idealistic state project from the time of independence to its reinvention in recent electronic, market-oriented genres. The text presents portraits of many key figures in Ghanaian theatre and examines how Akan trickster tales were adapted as the basis of a modern national theatre. This performance style tied Accra's evolving urban identity to rural origins and to Pan-African liberation politics.
Nkyin-Kyin: essays on the Ghanaian theatre by James GibbsISBN: 9789401206730
Publication Date: 2009-01-01
This collection brings together essays written over a thirty-five year period. They reflect James Gibbs's position vis-à-vis the Ghanaian theatre as sometimes a remote onlooker, sometimes an enthusiastic participant observer, deeply involved in issues of perception and influence in a society moving through colonialism to nationalism, independence and beyond.
ATENA/NETS (2019) is a site-specific contemporary dance set in Jamestown, a traditional fishing community in Accra, the capital of Ghana. Rising stars in Ghana's dance community, Julius Yaw Quansah and Sena Atsugah are enmeshed in the challenges of daily life. Drawing from Ghanaian customs and traditions, they cast a wide net, remaking their world. The soundtrack for ATENA/NETS was created by the New Global Ensemble, a collaboration of artists from the USA, Germany, and Ghana.