{"id":110848,"date":"2025-12-15T14:58:26","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T22:58:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/?p=110848"},"modified":"2025-12-15T15:12:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T23:12:19","slug":"soweto-gospel-choirs-energy-compels-berkeley-audience-to-participate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/soweto-gospel-choirs-energy-compels-berkeley-audience-to-participate\/","title":{"rendered":"Soweto Gospel Choir\u2019s energy compels Berkeley audience to participate"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Energy is the operative word at Peace, a concert at Zellerbach Hall on Sunday. Photo by Stefan Meekers.<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

By WOODY WEINGARTEN<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was hard to believe that 16 singers from South Africa could sustain the amount of energy they expended Sunday.<\/p>\n

Their arms kept flailing, their legs kept pumping, and their butts kept shaking in the first half of a concert titled Peace at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley. Solo voices reverberated with gusto as the rest of the all-black, three-time Grammy-winning Soweto Gospel Choir harmonized behind them, their bright, colorful costumes undulating and rolling to rhythms so complex and fast they sometimes impeded audience toe-tapping.=<\/p>\n

The packed crowd was nevertheless drawn into the songs, clapping and singing along and shouting approval, as well as offering an almost universal standing ovation at the end of the 95-minute concert. Support seemed loudest when freedom songs became political and angry and reminiscent of anti-apartheid struggles and rallies \u2014 and the choreography was highlighted by outstretched arms with fists.=<\/p>\n

It was amazing that just two men \u2014 a keyboard artist and a percussionist \u2014 could supply sufficient musical sound to be a booming but flawless foundation for the vocals, which ranged from the melancholy sweetness of \u201cYou\u2019ll Never Walk Alone\u201d to screeching like birds and animals.<\/p>\n

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Colorful backdrop complements costumes of Soweto Gospel Choir. Photo by Stefan Meekers.<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

The second half of the pre-Christmas concert was a contrast \u2014 soft, spiritual, and spunky \u2014 featuring gospel standards, snippets of four carols, and then ending with the rousing Leonard Cohen classic, \u201cHallelujah.\u201d<\/p>\n

Being present for the 23 musical numbers, which are sung in six African languages plus English, meant having a vibrant experience that dragged a listener emotionally back to the heyday of Nelson Mandela and Dr. Martin Luther King. It also became impossible to ignore the fact that Donald J. Trump is currently allowing only whites to emigrate from South Africa.<\/p>\n

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Members of Soweto Gospel Choir are in sync. Photo by Stefan Meekers.<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

The choir, which was formed in 2002 \u201cto celebrate the unique and inspirational power of African gospel music,\u201d stands, in effect, as a tribute, to Soweto township, a suburb of the city of Johannesburg. The area became world famous in June of 1976 with the Soweto rebellion, when up to 20,000 school children protested the government\u2019s policy supporting education in Afrikaans, \u201cthe language of the oppressor,\u201d rather than the native tongue. Police opened fire on the students.<\/p>\n

In a sense, the Soweto Gospel Choir is a living monument to those who were killed.<\/p>\n

Upcoming vocal performances at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley include the San Francisco Gay Men\u2019s Chorus in a holiday spectacular Saturday, Dec. 20 and An Evening with Kelli O\u2019Hara <\/em>on Saturday, Jan. 31.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sherwood \u201cWoody\u201d Weingarten, a longtime voting member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Circle and the author of four books, can be contacted by email at\u00a0voodee@sbcglobal.net<\/a> or on his websites, <\/em>https:\/\/woodyweingarten.com<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0https:\/\/vitalitypress.com.<\/a><\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By WOODY WEINGARTEN It was hard to believe that 16 singers from South Africa could sustain the amount of energy they expended Sunday. Their arms kept flailing, their legs kept…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":4,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[837,26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-110848","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-joe-cillo","7":"category-woody-weingarten"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"