Collected Scatterings: Living Ethnographies - Music, Movement and Identity

Loubser, JC

Abstract

Collected Scatterings is a practice-based project and website that started as a research paper which examined the repositioned ideas as presented in capoeira, the Brazilian martial art, in its globalized form. In the noted paper I examined the way we as Western-thinking capoeira practitioners think about and interact with capoeira, whilst still trying to adhere to our Brazilian master’s traditional Brazilian teachings. Consequently, I created a project entitled Collected Scatterings. The premise was a simple one: to provide recordings and short ethnomusicological films for local musicians and dancers, in exchange for free learning opportunities for our ethnomusicology and sound recording students. The musicians and dancers initially recruited all participate in art forms that hail variously from Brazil, Ethiopia and the Gambia/Senegal-region. These diasporic art forms had scattered throughout the UK for a variety of reasons. Since then, a number of new musicians have expressed interest in being recorded, filmed and interviewed which will to take the project away from its Afrocentric beginnings, to include music from Japan and possibly China (funding depending).



Consequently, despite the simplicity of our initial expectations of lessons, master classes, participant-observation and professional recording opportunities, it quickly became clear that, considering the groups that we recruited, ideas of diaspora, identity and, what some of the participants called ‘authenticities’ are at play. For, as these scattered art forms herein are gathered, repositioned and reimagined stances are highlighted - not only for the practitioners of art the forms, but also in its transmission. Where some hope to carry the transmission of ideas forth with the same aplomb of that found in the originating country, others constantly change their practices, linguistically, performatively, technically and in its position held in society. This then influences its analyses both theoretically and, in the words of one of the engineers “How authentic do you want that drum to sound?”.


This site, collectedscatterings.com is thus a living and growing piece of ethnomusicology with papers, blogs, music and films used for teaching and promotional purposes for the community (ICZ) partners involved .

Citation

Loubser, J. (2017). Collected Scatterings: Living Ethnographies - Music, Movement and Identity

• Other Type: Other
• Online Publication Date: Jan 1, 2017
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2017
• Deposit Date: Apr 10, 2019
• Related Public URLs: http://www.collectedscatterings.com/