He had already written acclaimed scores for films such as Excalibur in 1980 and The Dark Crystal in 1982, but was still working mainly on British television projects when he was hired to write The Last Place on Earth. The music for The Last Place on Earth was written by the then 36-year-old composer Trevor Jones, and was one of his earliest major assignments following his move from South Africa to the UK in the 1970s. ![]() The series starred Martin Shaw as Scott, Sverre Anker Ousdal as Amundsen, Max von Sydow as Amundsen’s mentor, the famed explorer Fridtjof Nansen, and Brian Dennehy as the American Arctic exploration pioneer Frederick Cook, as well as several now-popular British actors in early supporting roles, including Hugh Grant and Bill Nighy. Their trials and tribulations caught the attention of the world in 1912, but ended in great tragedy, as the entire British party famously died from a combination of exhaustion, starvation and extreme cold on the return journey, having been beaten to the Pole by Amundsen by just a matter of days. It charted the epic race between two teams of intrepid adventurers and their efforts to become the first men to reach the South Pole – one from the United Kingdom led by Captain Robert Falcon Scott, and one from Norway led by Scott’s great rival, Roald Amundsen. As the title indicates, it chants the songs of the people who inhabit this southern stretch of African earth.The Last Place on Earth was a critically acclaimed British TV mini-series, directed by Ferdinand Fairfax, which aired over seven episodes in the spring of 1985. Paul's moving imagery harnesses the spiritual rituals of a cross-section of southern Africa’s belief systems - indigenous, Muslim, Jewish, African Zionist, Roman Catholic, Buddhist and more.ĮarthSongs draws together the ethereal or intangible realm of belief and ritual with the very tangible soil that makes up our landscape. The lesser-known sites often tell stories of contest and simultaneous spiritual significance that need to be told more volubly and heard more widely. In others, as in the case of Twee Rivieren, where a small statue at the confluence of the Swart and Liesbeek rivers in Cape Town pays homage to the brave Goringhaiqua Khoi who defeated the first colonisers in 1510, these sites are less known. In some instances, these spiritual sites are well-known, like Mount Nhlangakazi, the endpoint of a 50 km pilgrimage for thousands of followers of the Ibanda lamaNazaretha (Shembe Church). When the eye meets the stillness of a river estuary, or the isolation of a San rock painting, or the pantheon of deities decorating a Hindu temple, it is not 'God' that comes to mind but the image of the believer, the faithful, the acolyte who comes to this place to seek the soothing balm of absolution.' Such rituals may take place in makeshift places of worship, in caves, next to rivers, or in churches, temples and mosques.Īccording to Associate Professor Hlonipha Mokoena at the University of Witwatersrand 'Paul Weinberg's photographs reflect our human desire for sanctuary. They may go on pilgrimages, or re-ritualise places of archaeological, historical and cultural significance. In quiet ways beyond the news and headlines, people of all traditions, persuasions, faiths and spiritual engagements partake in formal and informal rituals that mark the land in ways that align with their beliefs. He traces these intersections from the first peoples, the San and Khoi, whose domain this land was for centuries, to those who came from elsewhere on the continent and from across the seas. Paul Weinberg has traversed the breadth of the South African landscape to portray its deepand intrinsic meaning and encapsulate the inter-connections of cultures and peoples across the spectrum of time. ![]() Such meaning-making often etches the landscape, turning it into a natural canvass through which layered stories, manifest or buried, are expressed. While the ownership of 'land' in South Africa is a highly contested issue, people have long marked and celebrated their spiritual connections to the land in ways that signify and re-imagine what it means for a variety of its inhabitants. Earth Songs explores and celebrates spiritual connections to the land in South Africa.
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