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Swansea University Professor and jazz musician, Daniel G. Williams, will lead Dylan Live performances in universities across Wales from 26 February to 27 March as part of the Developing Dylan 100 project, celebrating the centenary of Dylan Thomas's birth. The tour includes a performance at the Taliesin on 28 February.
Dylan Live is a bilingual performance that combines lecture with poetry, jazz and hip hop, tracing the Welshman’s influence on American culture in the period following his death in 1953. While the lecture is in English, the show includes several performances in Welsh as well as a poetry reading in Breton.
Dylan Thomas travelled to America four times during the early 1950s, a time when New York was witnessing a musical revolution, with musicians such as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillesie, Tad Dameron and others forging a new style of music known as Bebop. Many people compared Thomas’s lively and powerful readings with the new music, and the show recreates that unexpected connection.
Professor Daniel G. Williams, who is also a saxophonist with the jazz-folk group Burum, will lead the audience through the performance, and offer his academic interpretation of Dylan’s influence on American culture.
Picture: The Dylan Live performers, including Professor Daniel Williams (far left)
Professor Williams said:
“The performance is based on research conducted on the time that Dylan Thomas spent in the United States, and focuses on the impact Dylan had on American culture, especially on Afro-American poets.
The show comes alive through rap, music and jazz performances, and a new film by Ewan Morris Jones offers a wonderful visual aspect to the show.”
The hour-long performance includes some of Wales’ leading musicians and poets, including poets, Martin Daws, Aneirin Karadog and Zaru Jonson, jazz musician Huw V Williams, and hip-hop artist Ed Holden, all of whom claim to have been influenced by Dylan in some way or another.
Dylan Live will visit the following locations:
7.30pm February 27, 2014 – Cliff Tucker, University of Wales Trinity Saint David Lampeter
1.30pm February 28, 2014 – Taliesin Arts Centre, Swansea
7.30pm February 27, 2014 - Halliwell Centre, University of Wales Trinity Saint David Carmarthen
8.00pm March 25 2014 – Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff
7.30pm March 27, 2014 – Student Union Newport
- Tickets are free for students and £5 for non-students
- To book tickets, contact Literature Wales on 02920 472266 / post@literaturewales.org
- Thursday 27 February 2014 14.55 GMT
- Tuesday 17 September 2019 12.01 BST
- Public Relations Office