Dear Students:
I am delighted to invite you to the performance of Gabriel’s Odyssey, a vibrant musical and visual narrative of slavery, conversion, persecution, and resilience from an early modern Indian Ocean world, performed by the renowned Afro-Asian Kukutana Ensemble (founded by Dr. Janie Cole), at Yale Luce Hall on April 4, 2025.
Gabriel’s Odyssey brings to life the earliest surviving biography of a 16th-century Ethiopian slave in a sumptuous imaginary of the early modern sound- and visualscapes of Ethiopia, Arabia and India, combining music, poetry and visual artistic effects in a rich and moving performance. Reconstructed from surviving archival documents from a 16th-century trial held by the Goan Inquisition, Gabriel’s Odyssey tells the true story of Gabriel, a Beta Israel Ethiopian Jew, who was abducted as a young child and sold into slavery in the Arab world, and his woeful wanderings between faiths, love and persecution in Asia to his final encounter with the Portuguese Inquisition in Goa, as based on historical reconstructions by Matteo Salvadore. Drawing on imaginary and sumptuous soundscapes, visuals and voices of an early modern Indian Ocean world, Gabriel’s life represents a universal story of oppression, faith, migration and self-fashioning like the experiences of countless other early modern Africans.
Venue: Yale Luce Hall, 34 Hillhouse Ave., New Haven
Time: Friday April 4, 7.30pm
The event is free and open to the public, but registration is required here.
The event will be livestreamed.
The performance is part of the virtual international and interdisciplinary conference on “The Black Indian Ocean: Slavery, Religion, and Expressive Cultures (1400-1700),” on April 2-3, 2025, organized by Dr. Janie Cole (University of Connecticut) in collaboration with Yale MacMillan Center, Yale Council on African Studies, and Yale Institute of Sacred Music.
Need transportation? Complete this form to reserve a bus seat no later than Wednesday March 26. Departs 5:00 pm from the School of Fine Arts, returning after the performance. Reserve your spot ASAP! The bus will only run if we have a minimum number confirmed.
Best wishes,
Janie Cole
For more information, contact: Janie Cole/Music at janie.cole@uconn.edu