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INTO AFRICA

[[image - tribal decorations along left-side of page]]

Auteur, auteur: The Lion King's Tony Award-winning director, Julie Taymor 

books--but that's all just research.  There is a certain amount of freedom when you create from your imagination. I don't need the literalness. While it would be great to be out in the savannah and translate that to the stage, I try to imagine and create the essence of a place.  The sunrise, for example, in The Lion King is what I call the "ideograph" of Africa. The swaying grass--that is all part of the essence of Africa.

STAGEBILL: Speaking of essences, people throw around the world "multi-cultural" a lot, particularly in discussion of this play. What are the multi-cultural essences of The Lion King?

TAYMOR: Well it's Africa and America, first of all. On the level of music, you are colliding two cultures right there. Elton John and Tim Rice's Western European music, and Lebo M's African choral music, which people mistake for "traditional" African folk music--which is wrong. It may come out of a folk tradition, but it is very much Lebo's art. Then, as an American artist I bring my own sensibilities. I am riffing off my own ideas of African art. I try to capture the essence of Africa but, necessarily, as an American. [[right-pointed arrow]]

[[image: black and white photograph of Julie Taymor smiling and looking to her left]] 

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