The story of the African Choir of 1891 has been quite widely chronicled. The amazing journey is written about in at least three books and is the subject of a theatre production, television documentary and growing academic research. Jane Collins, a professor of theatre and performance at Wimbledon College of Arts, is the author of the theatrical production Umuntu, Ngumuntu, Ngabantu: The Story of the African Choir. She explains that after an African American group called the Virginian Jubilee Singers visited SA in 1890, members of choirs at mission stations in Kimberley and Lovedale were inspired to emulate them. Author Veit Erlmann, in his book, South Africa and the West, wrote how this event "set the minds of black South Africans ablaze by evoking ideas of freedom and development". A South African Jubilee Choir organised by two white professional performers and entrepreneurs, Walter Letty and John Balmer, was assembled. The choir was led by Paul and Eleanor Xiniwe and included the ...
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