Rock Music Rock Art

Documentary

'Rock Music, Rock Art' is a cultural exchange adventure that sets out to discover musical sounds of our earliest ancestors and fuse two very different music styles.

A group of contemporary western classical musicians and traditional Ugandan musicians journey in perilous canoes to a remote island in Lake Victoria to make music using the most elaborate prehistoric 'rock gongs' on the African continent.

Among the wind-swept grasses and beautiful storm-weathered rocks on the island these long forgotten rock gongs lie secreted beneath colossal granite tors. These musical rocks (worn over millennia by ancestral hands) have not been played for decades, if not centuries. The original settlers were evacuated in 1908 due to a sleeping sickness epidemic, hence the current residents had no knowledge of these incredible "singing rocks". The island is currently inhabited by a migrant fishing community who have had only two visits from Westerner's in the last 50 years.

The musicians’ common objective, together with world famous British sculptor Peter Randall-Page, was to explore the island, discover more about how these rock gongs might be played and to include them in a contemporary artwork incorporating music, performance, sculpture, photography and film. All were inspired by the dramatic sculptural setting, the gigantic naturally-balanced rock forms and the prehistoric paintings found in some of the caves.

Commissioned by The Ruwenzori Sculpture Foundation, we travelled with the expedition to the island. The collaboration between Ugandan traditional folk and contemporary western classical musicians began as improvisations among the rock gongs. The result was an amazing musical fusion that both showed the musicians' different approaches to music but also merged their different talents and instruments.

They discover a new gong with western harmonic notes that suggest this beautiful granite landscape could have been the original birthplace of both African and European musical scales.

BBC Four World News features Rock Music Rock Art

Listen BBC Radio interview with Zuleika Kingdon speaking about Rock Music Rock Art

Screenings

British Film Festival Los Angeles, U S A - Nominated 'Best Documentary, International' - May 2009 (Film Festival)

International Film Festival Egypt 2009 - Cairo - April 2009 (Film Festival)

Africa World Documentary Film Festival, St Louis, U S A - February 2009 (Film Festival)

Queens International Film Festival, New York, U S A - November 2008 (Film Festival)

Kings Place Opening, Kings Cross, London, United Kingdom - October 2008 (Theatrical)

Berlin at Babylon:Mitte (Berlin festival re-run) Berlin, Germany - September 2008 (Film Festival)

COMMFFEST Community Film Festival, Toronto, Canada - September 2008 (Film Festival)

Globians world and culture documentary film festival, Potsdam, Germany - August 2008 (Film Festival)

Heart of England International Film Festival, winner 'Best Documentary UK' award - June 2008 (Film Festival)

Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, People's Forum, Kampala, Uganda - November 2007 (Theatrical)