From Soweto to South Los Angeles: Black Aesthetics and the Struggle for Racial Justice Port-Ferguson

Tamara Levitz
Musicology
UC Los Angeles

South African composer Neo Muyanga visited Los Angeles to train a group of professional and semi-professional singers from different cultural contexts and backgrounds in the township aesthetic of his opera, “The Struggle”, and to perform a that opera in a venue open to multiple publics in the city. The goal of this project was to initiate and sustain a debate on Black aesthetics in opera as part of the renewal of struggle for racial justice in the United States Post-Ferguson. Supported by the UCHRI & UCOP Public Partnerships in the Humanities: Vital Dialogues initiative.