Just as great pressure creates diamonds out of coal — the world’s largest diamonds come, after all, from South Africa — man’s injustice to his fellow man can paradoxically create great art: an art of celebratory resilience and fierce protest.

The Virginia Arts Festival’s two recent offerings, the Soweto Gospel Choir, back in Norfolk for a third time, and the American dance company Step Afrika (born of a partnership with Soweto Dance Theatre and here for a second time) illustrate the best in cultural exchange: Africans learning from and teaching Americans about their commonalities and differences and vice versa — much to the delight and enlightenment of peoples on both continents.

Soweto Gospel Choir, at Norfolk’s historic Attucks Theatre on Oct. 14, drew an older and enthusiastic audienc

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