Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Wilcken, Lois

Titel

Vodou Nation: Haitian Art Music and Cultural Nationalism

Ist Teil von

• Latin American Music Review / Revista de Música Latinoamericana, 2007-04, Vol.28 (1), p.161-165

Ort / Verlag

Austin: University of Texas Press

Erscheinungsjahr

2007

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Project MUSE

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• In his introduction ("Performing the Nation") Largey argues for cultural memory as the central concern of Haitian elite composers, then identifies and elaborates four modes of cultural memory: recombinant mythology, "the practice of using mythologically oriented language to highlight praiseworthy characteristics of cultural heroes through a series of concatenated stories" (17); vulgarization and classicization, "the use of class-specific practices to produce cross-class performances of important cultural ideas" (17); diasporic cosmopolitanism, "the process by which Haitian and African American elites deliberately adopt values associated with intellectuals from African, African American, and Caribbean cultures (as opposed to white cultural models)" (18); and music ideology, where decisions about the transcription of Haitian peasant music "are based on competing ideologies of power and authority" (19). The composer's presentation of an art music at once culturally unique and universal provoked the disapproval of Haitian elites, perhaps because it underscored a paradox of cultural nationalism identified by Turino and referred to by Largey early in the book, namely, that nation-states support local culture but only insofar as it does not threaten the inner cohesion of the state.4 Even a year after Jaegerhuber's death, his Messe tirée de Thèmes Vodouesques (Mass Drawn from Vodouesque Themes) roused the wrath of the Church, which cancelled its performance at a national celebration. The author's opening anecdote on Booker T. Washington and the impact of his thinking on Jean Price-Mars sets the book's priorities, and the material he presents in the chapter "Visions of Vodou in African American Operas about Haiti" offers new food for thought on the roots of cultural nationalism.