A Pleasantly Laid-Back African Festival

The stage at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre on Sunday for the African Village Music Festival was a study in color and motion. Colorful, African print fabrics were everywhere, and the elevated rear platform behind the performers became a dance floor for crowds of enthusiastic listeners streaming onstage to share the world beat rhythms.

But the music had a lot less to do with village life than with the reach of African culture throughout the world--the bill included acts from Africa, Brazil and Los Angeles.

Paris-based Zairian guitarist Diblo Dibala is a much-admired star of soukous, and his fast-fingered, infectiously rhythmic music fully justified his reputation. Typically, his set was both an aural and a visual presentation, with two female dancers arriving on stage every other number or so, wearing a seemingly endless array of colorful costumes, executing intricate dance steps with Dibala and his musicians.

L.A.-based Charanga Cubana’s son-based set featured the ensemble’s violinist and two flutists in a series of propulsive pieces bursting with call and response vocals that continually brought the crowd to its feet. Sonia Santos’ program--enlivened by a first-rate backup band--touched everything from Bahian rhythms to an odd rendition of Billie Holiday’s “God Bless the Child.”

Halfway through the program there was a pause to honor the memory of Fela Kuti, the charismatic, scathingly political Nigerian superstar who died a year ago of AIDS-related complications. His music, played during intermissions, displayed a fiery, energetic African expression that never quite made it into this pleasantly laid-back festival.