Reviewed onSaturday November 5
Marrickville’s Addison Road Community Centre is an essential hub of multicultural celebration in Sydney, with the weekly Addison Road Markets and monthly Street Food Markets actively encouraging and supporting local stallholders and community groups.
Now entering its sixth year, West African Festival Inc. (WAF) is one such collective that values and emphasises grassroots involvement and the invaluable work of volunteers to drive its celebration of culture. Saturday’s inaugural African Rhythm And Roots Festival continued this rich, essential tradition in colourful style, bringing the earthy ochres, decorative fabrics and textiles, and insatiable spirit of West African cultures to Inner West suburbia.
Keeping in line with WAF’s strong focus on community, much of the early part of the afternoon was devoted to the dynamic drumming and dancing of local groups featuring a cross-section of African-Australian and Australian children. Embodying the many vibrant nuances and practices of West African dance were the lively Afro Kidz (of Sydney’s African Drum and Dance group), who treated a steadily building crowd to an energetic and funky display.
Over several plates of delicately spiced couscous and mafé (a sweet nutty beef stew popular throughout West Africa), the day’s events gently heaved and swelled through the afternoon, as the long-running Sydney-based reggae group King Tide drew the curtains of warm dusk gently closer with their upbeat rocksteady.
Not unlike the traditional call-and-response structure that features heavily in African music, each artist in the program was followed by performance from communal dancing and drumming troupes, with a battery of impressive tribal drummers ensuring a steady groove within which to ensconce oneself.
Unruffled by a momentary lapse in their performance, Ghanaian-born Newcastle musician Afro Moses and his impressive Afrobeat band were one of the festival’s highlights; the jangling guitar riffs responding to Moses’ chanting song, painting an unmistakable figure with his traditional tribal headpiece.
Every smile and movement was testament to the safe, relaxed and intimate environment which director Rachel Bangoura and her many volunteers successfully created. Aided by the festival’s small scale, there was a real and tangible sense of happiness and celebration hung lightly in the warm air; this was the warm embrace of Africa.
