Bhekizizwe

For the opening event of Cardiff University School of Music’s 2024-25 concert series, we celebrate Black History Month with a showing of Opera’r Ddraig’s 2021 film of Bhekizizwe by Dr Robert Fokkens, Reader in Composition in Music, and fellow-South African, librettist Mkhululi Mabija.

The key themes of Bhekizizwe explore immigration, racism, apartheid and other challenging topics. But underlying all of these often difficult issues lies a genuinely universal story of a young man trying to find a place in the world – a way to be in the world – whilst displaced and removed from the communities and support structures that have helped him to aspire to a life beyond the horizons of those communities.

Dr Fokkens writes about Bhekizizwe.

Watch a trailer with short interviews with Dr Fokkens and some of the other creatives:

Watch the video

Events in this series

Black History Month; School of Music concert series

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