Journey to the moon and 9 drawings for projection
25/10/2005, 
20:00
by William Kentridge
original music composed by Philip Miller
performed live by Quartetto Archimia
Serafino Tedesi, violin
Matteo Del Soldà, viola
Vitaliano De Rossi, violin
Andrea Anzalone, cello
and Vincenzo Pasquariello, piano
recorded voice Thumelo Moloi
sound Danio Catanuto
produced by Art Logic, Johannesburg
with CRT Artificio, Milano and Change Performing Arts, Milano
duration 1h20'
William Kentridge is one of the most influential contemporary visual artists. His animated short films, admired in museums and art galleries around the world, are deeply rooted in South Africa , the country he comes from. Jorney to the Moon – 9 Drawings for projection is the artist's personal homage to the end of apartheid and to South Africa 's long road to democracy that started ten years ago. Kentridge celebrates the tenth anniversary of the end of apartheid by narrating the life of Soho Eckstein, a Johannesburg property developer, and his timid alter ego Felix Teitlebaum.
The shorts that make up the film were shot over the years (from 1989 to 2003) and testify the political and social development of the country and its artistic liveliness. The images have not only the artist's peculiar touch but also his subtle sense of humour and inventiveness that capture the spectators' gaze.
The music that accompanies the film has been composed by the South African composer Philip Miller and is performed live by an ensemble made up of a quartet and a piano.
William Kentridge on the project
“These films that we are seeing tonight started 14 years ago. The project began, not as a coherent project, but as a first attempt to play with animation and drawing.
They started because I had spent some years on writing film scripts in the hope of making a feature film. I realized at that stage that it was going to be many years of jumping through hoops, in order for me to be able to practice the craft of film making. At a certain point this seemed impossible. So, the corollary of that is to say that the only way to make films is to find a condition of making films in which I could do them on my own.
(...) In showing the films we would try to do some where possible with life music. And this meant Philip Miller, who is the composer I have worked with for years on many different projects, became essentially involved. To change the films from the form in which they had been done, with a lot of different sound effects into a form where they could work with life music, meant that most of the music had to be re-scored and had to be adapted. “
