Lives in Music: Mobility and Change in a Global Context 9781138358706, 9780429434204

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Lives in Music

Lives in Music analyses interwoven patterns of mobility, change, and power in music and dance practices. It challenges some commonly accepted conceptual tools that are ubiquitous in anthropology today, including cultural hybridity, transnational networks, and globalization. Based on seven “itineraries” that are the result of extensive ethnographic long-term field research efforts, the processes of geographic and social mobility, transformation, and power relative to music and dance practices are explored in different parts of the world. Seven writers provide “itineraries” constructed through ethnographic techniques and life histories and supported by a deep knowledge of local customs. Sara Le Menestrel is a cultural anthropologist with the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Paris and is a member of the Center for North American Studies at the Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales.

Lives in Music Mobility and Change in a Global Context

Coordinated by Sara Le Menestrel with Christophe Apprill, Kali Argyriadis, Julien Mallet, Nicolas Puig, Guillaume Samson, and Gabriel Segré

English translation first published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Translated by: John Angell Funded by Agence national de la recherche (ANR) Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 selection and editorial matter, Sara Le Menestrel; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Sara Le Menestrel to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. First published in French by Les Éditions Hermann British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-1-138-35870-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-43420-4 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Contents

List of illustrations List of contributors Acknowledgements Introduction 1 The life story of the volume 1 2 The life story as method 3 3 The life story as construction 6

vii ix xi 1

PART I

Seven singular itineraries 1

Olivier Araste: ancestors, memory, and a career as a maloya musician

13 15

GUILLAUME SAMSON

2

From Tulear to France: Damily – a tsapiky musician from Madagascar

42

JULIEN MALLET

3

Lori, Linda, and Andrea: the journeys of three French Louisiana music transplants

67

SARA LE MENESTREL

4

The sense of belonging – or not – to a transnational network: performers and promoters of Afro-Cuban music and dance in Veracruz, Mexico

94

KALI ARGYRIADIS

5

Ahmad Wahdan: maestro among the Frenzied streets of Cairo NICOLAS PUIG

119

vi

Contents

6

From milonguero to “professor”: inventing a trade

142

CHRISTOPHE APPRILL

7

Julien: A bass-player hits the road

167

GABRIEL SEGRÉ

PART II

From singulars to plural

195

Circulations 195 What are the underlying forces that drive circulation? 195 Changing contexts 199 Knowledge 201 Changes in status and categorizations 203 Social mobility and recognition 203 The plurality and lability of status 206 Imaginary and self-representational life projects 211 From “métissage” to adjustment 215 Questioning a paradigm 216 Field-testing the paradigm 218 Individual adjustments as a beginning 222 Conclusion Index Locations 243 Gigs, festivals, workshops, dancehalls, labels 244 Musicians, dancers and bands 244

233 240

Illustrations

Figures 1.1 Olivier Araste on stage at the champ de foire of Bras-Panon (Reunion Island), November 25, 2011, at the release party of Lindigo’s fourth album, Maloya Power 1.2 Olivier and his father, Paniandy, 2009 1.3 Olivier playing the drum malbar at a march on fire in Paniandy, July 2010 1.4 Olivier at a rehearsal at his home in Paniandy, with his band and the bassist Didyé Kérgrin (on right), November 2011 1.5 Olivier on stage, Champ de Foire Bras-Panon, November 2011 2.1 Damily at the Bar du Marché in Montreuil © Flavie Jeannin 2.2 From left to right: Ganygany, Claude, Rakapo, Naivo, and Damily © Flavie Jeannin 2.3 Damily on stage at La Bastille, 14th of July dance, 2009 © Flavie Jeannin 2.4 Dance at La Guillotine, Montreuil, 2006 2.5 Damily, portrait, Maine et Loire, 2011 © Flavie Jeannin 3.1 Andrea (foreground), Lori, jam at the Baudoins, September 15, 2008 © Dominic Cross 3.2 Linda and Madeline on the fiddle, jam at Tom Fiddle & Bow, Arnaudville, August 3, 2008 3.3 Lori and Shane, a Californian who used to come on a regular basis in the area. In the foreground, Rick. Jam at Tom Fiddle & Bow, back porch, Arnaudville, November 1, 2009 3.4 Lâche Pas at Nunu’s, Arnaudville, November 1, 2009. From left to right, Daniel Gayle (special guest), Linda, Andrea 3.5 Ashokan (New York State), Southern Week, August 2008. Jam with the Louisiana band The Red Stick Ramblers 4.1 The Orí troop performing in the Eco-Reserve of Nanciyaga, Catemaco, Veracruz, on the night of Friday, March 7, 2008. In foreground, the troop’s director, Javier Cabrera 4.2 Comparsa Aerosalsa, Veracruz. Carnaval, 2009

15 19 24 32 36 42 50 54 58 63 67 77 79 87 89 94 99

viii Illustrations 4.3 Tino and other members of his faith playing in a palera ceremony in Veracruz, September 2, 2010 4.4 Professional lineages 4.5 Professional lineages intersecting or not with ritual lineages 4.6 Guinea dance class with Karim Keïta, Instituto Veracruzano de Cultura, Veracruz. August 26, 2009 4.7 Manuel playing percussion (quinto, tumbadora, dundún and cajón) for the group Kábulas, at the La República bar in Veracruz, June 12, 2010 5.1 Ahmad Wahdan in 2005 at home during a rehearsal 5.2 A stage at a street wedding in the Cairo neighborhood of Darb al-Ahmar, 2003 5.3 Ahmad Wahdan in front of a music store on Mohamed-Ali Avenue (c. 1970) 5.4 Ahmad Wahdan, at home in the Darb al-Ahmar neighborhood, 2003 5.5 The musician Ad-Damanhuri on stage at a wedding. Darb al-Ahmar neighborhood, Cairo, 2003 6.1 Federico Rodriguez Moreno and Corinne Barbara, A fuego lento, 1996 6.2 Poster announcing an internship in Argentine tango with Federico Rodriguez Moreno and Catherine Berbessou 6.3 Federico, Catherine Berbessou, 1997. © Nathalie Sternalski 6.4 Federico and Catherine Berbessou on stage, Italy, 2009 6.5 Federico and Teresa Cunha, Valser, 1999. © Nathalie Sternalski 7.1 Julien with No One Is Innocent at L’Élysée Montmartre. Révolution Tour, Paris, April 2005, © Pidz 7.2 Julien. Oneyed Jack. 1993, © Mlor 7.3 Julien with No One Is Innocent. La Cigale, Paris, October 2004, Revolution Tour © Pidz 7.4 Julien with MC Solaar. 2007 © Pidz 7.5 Julien with No One Is Innocent. Le Splendid, Lille, March 2005, Revolution Tour © Pidz

101 104 105 108 114 119 120 125 130 136 142 145 155 157 162 167 173 179 181 189

Maps 4.1 1980–90s: Beginning of the movement in Xalapa, key actors 4.2 2000s: Xalapa, nodal location of the movement

97 107

Contributors

Christophe Apprill is a sociologist and associate researcher at the Centre Norbert Elias of the EHESS and at Unité de recherche migrations et société (URMIS). His research explores the social processes at work in the world of amateur and professional dancers. He has published Sociologie des danses de couple (L’Harmattan, 2005), Tango. Le couple, le bal et la scène (Autrement, 2008) and Les mondes du bal (Presses universitaires de Paris-Ouest, 2018). Kali Argyriadis is an anthropologist at the Institute for Research and Development (IRD, Urmis, Université de Paris). Her studies examine the question of the transnationalization of Cuban santería and its re-localization in the State of Veracruz, Mexico. Among other books and studies, she is the co-author with Stefania Capone, Renée De la Torre and André Mary of En sentido contrario. Transnacionalización de religiones africanas y latinoamericanas (México, CIESAS/IRD/Academia, 2012), with Sara Le Menestrel of Vivre la Guinguette (PUF, 2003), and the author of La religión à La Havane. Actualité des représentations et des pratiques cultuelles havanaises (Éd. des Archives contemporaines, 1999). Sara Le Menestrel is an anthropologist at the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris and works at the Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales. She has worked on the construction of difference in Louisiana and is the author of Negotiating Difference in French Louisiana Music. Categories, Stereotypes and Identifications (University Press of Mississsippi, 2015). She is co-author with Jacques Henry of Working the Field: Accounts from French Louisiana (Jackson, University Press of Mississippi, 2009). Her research interests has included the anthropology of disaster through the study of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. For the past 5 years, she has been involved in an ethnography of the uses of mindfulness meditation in therapeutic and insight buddhist contexts in France and the US. Julien Mallet is an ethnomusicologist at the Institute for Research and Development (IRD, URMIS, Université de Paris). His studies focus on tsapiky, a musical tradition practiced in the region of Tuléar in Southwestern Madagascar. He has published Le tsapiky, une jeune musique de Madagascar, ancêtres cassettes et bals-poussière (2009, Karthala).

x

Contributors

Nicolas Puig is an anthropologist at the Institute for Research and Development (IRD, URMIS, Université de Paris). He works on cultural issues in urban societies in the Arab world. He has published Bédouins sédentarisés et société citadine à Tozeur (Sud-Ouest tunisien) (Karthala, IRMC, 2004) and Farah. Musiciens de noce et scènes urbaines au Caire (Sindbad, Actes Sud, 2010). He is the author of many articles in anthropology of music and sound in Egypt and Lebanon. Guillaume Samson is an ethnomusicologist and works as the observation director for the Regional Center for Popular Musics on Reunion Island. His research adopts a comparative approach to the musics of the Reunion Island and Mauritius, with a particular focus on the practical and symbolic modalities of the cohabitation between musics with powerful historical roots and musics with more recent adaptations. He is the author of several articles on the musics of the Mascarene Islands. Gabriel Segré is an associate professor at the Université de Paris-Ouest-La Défense and a member of Sophiapol. He works on the fans and the contemporary forms of construction celebrity on telereality shows. He has published Le culte Presley (PUF, 2003), Loft Story ou la télévision de la honte (L’Harmattan, 2008), Fans de . . . Sociologie des nouveaux cultes contemporains (Armand Colin, 2014), and 2001. L’odyssée du Loft (Presses Universitaires de Paris Nanterre, 2018).

Acknowledgements

This project would not have seen the light of day without the trust of the individuals who give it substance. We offer our deepest gratitude and friendship to Ahmad Wahdan, Andrea Rubinstein, Catherine Berbessou, Cristóbal Guerra, Damily and Yvel Mbola Anjarasoa, Federico Rodríguez Moreno, Javier Cabrera, Jim Phillips and Christy Leichty, Julien Reymond, Linda Castle, Lori Henderson and Tom Pierce, Madeline Powers, the Méndez brothers, Missy Maloney, Olivier Araste, and Tino Galán. We give homage to these individuals in the pages of this book. We also extend our thanks to all of the musicians, dancers, and cultural promoters who gave so generously of their time and enriched these life stories. Some people remain in the shadows but have nevertheless played a key role in the orderly unfolding of our meetings and the administration of our team during the four years of this project. We are particularly appreciative of the assistance of Camille Amat, Mathieu Beaud, Flavie Jeannin, Lorraine Karnoouh, and Ulrike Zander. Our acknowledgements also include Nicolas Barreyre, who generously created our online bibliographic database, to Flavie Jeannin for having made our web presence a reality (http://musmond.hypotheses.org/), and to Nathalie Sternalski and Pidz for their images. At the School of Advanced Studies in Social Science (EHESS), the Center for North American Studies (part of the research unit Mondes Américains) hosted our meetings and collective seminar series beginning in 2008. The researchers who joined us for a one-day colloquium on June 8, 2010 at the Maison Suger each helped us to sharpen our theoretical and methodological tools and to broaden our horizons by devoting themselves to the occasionally uncomfortable exercise of sharing their perspectives on a research area remote from their own. Thanks go to Michel Agier, Thomas Bukhalter, Marie Buscatto, Aurélie Chêne, Catherine Choron-Baix, Altaïr Despres, Pascal Dibie, Aurélien Djakouane, Jocelyne Guilbault, Christine Guillebaud, Odile Hoffmann, Deborah Kapchan, Bernard Lahire, Philippe Le Guern, Josiane Massart-Vincent, Damien Mottier, Marc Perrenoud, Lionel Pourtau, Christian Rinaudo, Pierre-Emmanuel Sorignet, Gilles Suzanne, Damien Tassin, and Mahamet Timera. Finally, this research project would not have been possible without the financial support of the French National Research Agency (ANR).

Introduction

This project compares the life stories of seven musicians and dancers from around the world. We believe that sharing a methodology based on life stories among the seven members of our research team has greatly enhanced our ability to compare highly diverse research fields and participating performers in order to investigate and attempt to the circulation of music and dance. Unlike monographs that focus on a specific genre or artist or edited volumes that assemble various case studies, we have sought to streamline our approaches to enhance the explanatory power of our collective inquiry. We believe that this uniquely coherent approach has resulted in a comparative, cross-disciplinary transnational that represents an important contribution to the field.1 The project explores global processes by closely examining these musicians’ and dancers’ life stories. These processes include geographical and social mobilities, changes in scale and status of music and musicians, and power relations in contemporary music and dance practices. Our collective project reveals patterns of mobility and change “on the ground” because of our proximity to the contextualized trajectories of our participating musicians and dancers. These life stories are a shared methodological tool that enabled us to describe, compare, and understand how individuals, objects, and aesthetics circulate, evolve, and transform themselves.

1. The life story of the volume Like the life stories at the heart of this project, this volume is the fruit of a long journey. Our team came together in the 2000s around the shared idea of exploring major themes in contemporary anthropology through the prism of music and dance. Trained in different disciplines and specialties that range from urban anthropology and the anthropology of religion, tourism, dance, and sociology to ethnomusicology, our geographical research fields are similarly diverse, spanning the Americas, France, Egypt, and Indian Ocean islands. We have developed an approach that attempts to weave a cluster of coherent analytical strands around our diverse backgrounds and fields without limiting the scope of musical genres, contexts, or categories of our research.

2

Introduction

Our focus on complementarity has been accompanied by a transnational perspective that is the defining characteristic of our MUSMOND project (Globalization, Music and Dance: Mobilities, Transformations, Power), which was made possible by funding from the French National Research Agency (2007–2012). Underlying our team-based and individual explorations are the following questions: 1. How do musics and dance circulate in the contemporary world? 2. What are the elements that trigger the geographical mobility of musicians and dancers? 3. To what extent is this geographical mobility linked to social mobility, and in what way does it alter their status? 4. What is the significance of these movements on the musics themselves, and what transformations or adjustments cause these changes of context? These kinds of questions have guided our thinking as we have consistently pursued fieldwork centered on individuals and their itineraries. Through this often-intense contact with musicians and dancers from seven countries, we have identified patterns of circulation and transformation. These life stories are embedded in our long-standing relationships and extended proximity to our interlocutors and their environments and the extensive, in-depth study that our approach demands. This methodological choice has helped ensure the coherence of our work while directing our collective critical gaze toward processes tied to globalization, both in terms of the micro-features of the actors’ trajectories and broader forces at work. During monthly meetings and seminars at the Center for North American Studies at the School of Advanced Social Science Studies (EHESS) in Paris, we have developed our approach and compared our experiences while sharing our doubts and discussing the obstacles that we faced as we constructed our life stories. Our exchanges, having unfolded over a long period and included guest scholars who do not necessarily focus on music or dance, deepened our perspectives on the reach and coherence of our methodology. Beyond writing the life stories, our collective thought process has required a multi-authored writing process that contrasts with more typical edited volumes. This was a deliberate choice to work together and confront our differences, which was crucial in identifying logics and patterns outside of the scope of our individual research fields. This book is a singular testament to this collective commitment. Coordinating this volume was all the more gratifying because of this poly-vocalic approach and a powerfully creative environment of camaraderie and trust. The introduction, “The Life story as Method,” emphasizes the heuristic value of the life story as a methodological tool. Reconstituting itineraries gave us deeper access to the ways in which individuals, objects, and aesthetics circulate and enhanced our ability to analyze changes in scale and status among individuals that they both witness and personify. Part I, “Seven Singular Itineraries,” assembles the individual and/or networked trajectories that connect musicians’ and dancers’ worlds to other spheres of their social lives. The life stories reveal these participants in all their complexity. The reader follows the life narratives of a Reunion maloya musician, a Malagasy tsapiky performer, French-Louisiana music fans, promoters of “afro-Cuban”

Introduction 3 music in Veracruz, Mexico, a wedding musician in Cairo, an Argentine tango dancer, and a French rock bass-player. Part II, “From Singulars to Plural,” uses the life stories as a basis for comparison, attempting to tease out common patterns of circulations and transformations without betraying differences. The chapter highlights geographical and/or social mobilities, whether they involve status or contexts. It describes the adjustments, negotiations, and transformations of the musics and the ways of playing, composing, collaborating, establishing, and maintaining hierarchies that grow out of compromises as much as conflicts.

2. The life story as method2 This section explains why we adopted the life story or life narrative as a shared methodology in order to combine our diverse fields and research subjects into a coherent project. Because constructing life narratives often involves exclusive relationships with “privileged informants,” the approach has obvious limitations. Certain colonial situations come to mind when symbolic violence between the researcher and the object of research made anthropological relationships deeply suspect. Religious anthropology has also been known to experience these and similar obstacles to detached inquiry and open communication. In a study of Dogon masks and the ways in which they are staged for tourists as a modern-day expression of an ancient “ethnological situation,”3 Anne Doquet (1999) approaches this question by critiquing Marcel Griaule’s approach. She notes that Griaule focused his entire attention on a single village, even a single individual – Ogotemmêli, with whom he conducted thirty-three interviews in a climate of “permanent suspicion.” (op. cit., 68) She further notes the trap of attempting to valorize indigenous cultures using the cosmology offered by an interlocutor: “In this case, to disengage a new image of the Other, the ethnographer devotes more attention to what he says than to his behaviors.” (op. cit., 79) Studies exploring the epistemology underlying Afro-Brazilian have criticized previous research that was limited to a handful of chiefs of the Salvador de Bahia cult, resulting in a tidy, narrow vision of practices that actually unfold amid deeply unstable environments. Stefania Capone’s book reminds us that such errors are byproducts of the interaction between ethnographer and informant/s: “In this way, if a model of a tradition is privileged with respect to other traditions, it is not solely the responsibility of intellectuals, as Dantas (1988) argues; the members of the candomblé, whose political skills I have attempted to call attention to here, have been very adept at manipulation in order to achieve their purposes” (1999: 302).4 Frequent – and sometimes humorous – discussions in the social sciences have focused on the risk that researchers can be manipulated by their informants, leading them to over-interpret data (Barley, 1994, 1983). Even prominent researchers have become embroiled in high-profile controversies, including Margaret Mead (1928), who was accused of being misled by her informants and ascribing unwarranted truth value to their discourses. Influenced by the “Western myth of Polynesian sexuality,” she allegedly heard what she wished to hear. The controversy

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Introduction

reviewed by Derek Freeman (1983) and Serge Tcherkézoff (2001) summarizes the errors in the anthropological relationship that should be avoided, including the use of pre-conceived notions, over-interpretation, too-rapid field studies, excluding data that do not support pre-formed arguments (in this instance, sexual freedom). In “L’illusion biographique,” Bourdieu warns researchers against the dangers of life narratives or biographies. He stresses in particular the “inclination to become an ideologue of one’s own life by selecting [. . .] certain significant events” and “artificial forms of meaning creation”5 (1986: 69). We are fully aware of such debates and methodological complexities, but we are thoroughly convinced that a critical approach based on life stories makes it a useful and even original tool for studying the circulations and transformations of music and dance practices in the context of globalization. Our use of the life stories is not based on a “linear, unidirectional displacement,” formulation as criticized by Pierre Bourdieu but instead on a trajectory identified by a “series of positions that are successively occupied by the same agent (or the same group) in a space that itself is in the process of becoming and is submitted to incessant information.” (1986: 71) This trajectory is the result of our interlocutors’ narratives, despite the fact that we are their authors. Bernard Lahire has several strong insights concerning the question of representativeness, which is inevitably pertinent in inquiry that seeks to observe the individual level in order to understand social processes. This tendency to be suspicious about the validity of the singular or individual level – as opposed to the collective and therefore putatively generalizable – is also common in the field of anthropology. Lahire advances a strong argument in favor of individual case studies because they “teach us things well beyond the cases in question. And this is the basic reason that grasping the singular requires a broader understanding” (2004: 17n1). His scholarly goal – understanding the inter- and intra-individual variations in cultural practices of French informants who belong to the same social group – led him to promote individual portraits as a powerful methodological tool. Lahire contends that sociological assumptions “operated to the detriment of understanding the social complexity (of singularity) of individuals (and particularly of their individual heritages of incorporated dispositions) who compose groups or categories.” He also maintains that individuals are never bearers of a single general property but are instead each the product of a multitude of “general properties, which create his or her complexity (and singularity), and it is this particular complexity that is in play in interactions with other individuals, who are themselves complex (and singular)” (2004: 720). We have endeavored to adapt precisely this orientation to our investigations of musicians’ and dancers’ displacements and circulations among and between the different frameworks in their social and professional lives. Through such frameworks, performers enter into contact with a wide variety of actors, including institutions, audiences, and peers, causing them to adapt by assuming different postures. To understand changes in their lives, we have documented their belongings – simultaneous or in alternation – to different social groups and socializing institutions in the course of their life stories.

Introduction 5 By contrast to a more personal, Western view of the relationship between artists – and audiences – and their art, an individualized approach reveals how categories, power relations, and networks are constructed and experienced and the extent to which personal experiences shape their relationships with others. The life story has a long tradition in sociology, often in combination with other techniques. It was among the fundamental research methods employed by Chicago School sociologists, and Robert E. Park, for example, refers to immigrants’ life stories nearly as often as he does social perspectives (Grafmeyer, Joseph, 2004 [1979]: 13).6 It is a truism to assert that an individual is simultaneously representative and singular: “It is precisely this type of research into the timely and the singular that greatly privileges neighborhood monographs and life histories” that are interesting because they are the opposite of autobiographies (op. cit.: 21–22). Similarly, the “coalized methods” recommended by Georges Balandier in the 1960s to explore the many dimensions of a given terrain are solidly grounded in life narratives or itineraries.7 Studies that Oscar Lewis and his colleagues conducted (1959) were able to use life narratives to reveal the finer-grained features of “post-revolutionary” social changes in two Latin American countries – Mexico in the 1950s and Cuba in the 1970s – as they attempted to eliminate poverty. Individuals experience transformations – and cause them – via their personal itineraries, whether they involve mobilities – from the countryside to the city, from a shantytown to a renovated neighborhood, or from a marginal to a politicallyengaged citizen – or are relatively stable. The methodology employed by Lewis, like our own, entailed intersecting life stories that shed light on complex social relationships but also on the gaps between informants’ perspectives, even those from the same location, socio-economic level, or family. For Anthony Cohen, thinking of a social group as “a collection of complex selves (complex because any individual must be regarded as a cluster of selves or as a multi-dimensional self)” provides a more subtle approach that avoids the problematic nature of the supposed contradiction between the self, one’s individuality, and the social sphere. By arguing that “individuals are more than their membership and participation in collectivities, and, second, collectivities are themselves the products of their individual members,” Cohen legitimizes anthropological interest in individual self-awareness, defined as individuals’ awareness of themselves and their ability to build their own environments (1994: 7; 133). For this project, which focuses on changes in music and dance as much as it does on social actors, the life story has allowed us to track changes in scale and individual status. The experience of an individual or several members of a network also allows us to observe and classify emergent phenomena of circulation and transaction surrounding esthetic conventions as they unfold. This in turn helps us perceive how actors orient themselves according to their specific ways of constructing and interpreting social environments.8 The life story can also reveal processes and events to which other methods do not provide access, in particular those with which we are concerned here – circulations, changes, and hierarchies. Clearly, it has also provided a shared methodological foundation – particularly critical for a comparative approach – for our

6

Introduction

diverse fields and specific research participants. We have also gained privileged insights into the kinds of external constraints and initiative and resistance at work in our respective research contexts because of this common approach. Finally, our respective life stories have guided the writing process as we have each labored to record our observations and analyses in ways that both document and reflect how they were constructed.

3. The life story as construction Respecting layers of sensitivity The anthropological relationship at the core of the life story unfolds across an elastic chronology that can involve friendship, intimacy, and complicity, but also distrust, hate, and bitterness, all against the backdrop of participant-observation, scientific analysis, and distantiation. It is customary for anthropologists to position themselves explicitly with respect to this proximity and the inevitable subjectivity that it induces into a study. We do not intend to join in post-modern critiques of the field, but we do derive some inspiration from interpretive anthropology as our research team has forged a collective sense of conceptual and scholarly discipline (Cohen, 1994: 20). According to this view, the distinction between Self and Other stems from an artifice that legitimizes difference, partitioning actors into their respective roles as anthropological objects. Anthony Cohen’s is brutally frank – “Anthropologists have to think about themselves if they want to think about how others think about themselves” (op. cit.: 135). This does not suggest that we should descend into the depths of the researcher’s subjectivity; as JeanPierre Olivier de Sardan (2000) reminds us, we must be careful to avoid abusing the “methodological ‘I’.” This type of reflexivity has proven useful for our project by helping us understand the connections between our own itineraries as researchers and our participants’ itineraries. Analyzing our own positionalities and their impact on our interactions with informants became as an integral element of co-constructed itineraries. In the intersubjective encounter between two itineraries, a researcher’s position within their professional field, private interests, and even desires and frustrations all become relevant. Emotions, representations, and experiences nourish the scientific process and should be made explicit and considered in every phase of a project (Cohen, 2002). We have learned that such forms of subjectivity pose particular challenges in music and dance because of the danger that our own value judgments – since several of us are also to some extent performers – impinges upon our scholarly detachment. This risk has called for increased attention to our own musical or chorographical practice while keeping the fundamental goals of our project firmly in mind. (Le Menestrel, 2006). Integrating positionings and subjectivities does not mean abandoning objectivity (Dubet, 1994: 257). For some members of the team, the commitment to anthropological inquiry is based on empathy that developed by sharing experiences with informants. The emotional and cognitive proximity inherent in an artistic activity such as music

Introduction 7 and/or dance may enhance our appreciation of sensitive and sometimes sensual aspects of these activities. This imposes a certain degree of constraint on the writing process, as we become aware of the limitations on verbalizing emotional experience. The limits of space do not allow more extensive development of the intricacies of the anthropology of art, but we have found it necessary to attempt to account for the sensorial dimension in order to bring us closer to a phenomenology of the body, i.e., to become more attentive to specific sensations associated with the actual activity of dancing or playing music. Each of us has also endeavored in our own way to reflect on and foreground our relationships with our participants, although these sensitivities are not equally explicit in every one of our itineraries. Several factors shape our relationships with those whom we study, each of which is associated with its inherent methodological challenges. Constructing a life story nevertheless tends to be associated with a number of problems. The first point problem concerns the roles inevitably assigned to “the researcher.” The relationship that grew after years of close contact between Olivier Araste and Guillaume Samson led to the joint publication of a biography based on the narrative developed from their interviews. Samson’s ambivalent status as a mainland French citizen who is a permanent resident of Reunion Island and their longterm relationship clearly contributed to this digression from a research-oriented relationship, transforming the ethnographer into a biographer. Shared interests between the researcher and the informant are a fundamental condition for sustained collaboration, but Guillaume and Olivier’s biography project represented a potentially problematic development in the construction of Oliver’s life story. Julien Mallet has been observing the itineraries of Malgache musicians for more than ten years, leading to long-term, research-based relationships that demand attentive management, particularly when they become friendships like Mallet and Damily. Damily’s life story changed dramatically when he moved to France, where he has labored to gain a foothold in “world music” networks, interfering with what and how he can communicate publicly or privately. Mallet has accompanied Damily not only in terms of research, but also as a partner in Damily’s musical enterprise, necessitating a balancing act between scholarly interest and friendship. Friendships with eventual informants can also precede working relationships. This was true of the friendships between Gabriel Segré and Julien and Christophe Apprill and Federico. Such relationships can sometimes allow a certain freedom for the research process, from data collection through analysis and writing. It can also encourage researchers’ independence and preserve them from defiance or manipulation. Close familiarity also encourages shared reflections that can transform performers’ involvement in the project to a kind of partnership and “provoked and accompanied self-reflection” (Bourdieu, 1993: 915). However, being close to participants demands constant epistemological vigilance, reflexive analysis, and close monitoring of the relationship as well as its effects. The status of the ethnographer ultimately falls along a situational continuum. Instead of being assigned a circumscribed status in her research context – which is the case for Kali Argyriadis, who was designated a “technical santería consultant,”

8

Introduction

Sara Le Menestrel is perceived as a peer by the “transplants” whose itineraries she followed because she is a fan of French Louisiana music who resided there for a period but with some differences because of her generally longer relationship with the region, the professional nature of her project – although this boundary is occasionally blurred – her status as a foreigner, and her broader set of networks, which includes locals who are not necessarily musicians or involved in the regional cultural scene. Her circles of friends and long-standing acquaintances, regular visits over a period of twenty years, and ill-defined position as both outsider and insider earned her the label “Cajun from France,” which reveals proximity and integration but also her “non-native” status. The first problem that arose with our performer-participants was the question of trust or, more accurately, the degree of betrayal that we were assumed to be capable of. This phenomenon naturally varies according to specific cultural and linguistic contexts, but researchers are sometimes subjected to close scrutiny of their slightest words, actions, and gestures. On the other hand, friendship with participants does not automatically translate into unconditional trust in participants’ discourses, or vice versa. These field-based friendships unfold according to their own internal logic, without necessarily including reliability or truth, even in relative terms, especially in the context of often gregarious and loquacious artists, dancers, singers, and musicians. Language circulates within the framework of the life story, which involves exchanges, interactions, and negotiations rather than monologues or question-answer. To some extent, the life story is a coproduction that the anthropologist and performer simply pursue together. Nicolas Puig and Ahmad Wahdan became friends before they explored the world of Cairo wedding musicians together. This shared history later forced their relationship to adjust, which also changed Nicolas and Ahmad’s respective expectations of each other – including Ahmad’s desire to achieve lasting recognition of his profession, which is locally of questionable repute. Including the testimony of musicians on Mohamed Ali Avenue was a vital feature of this legitimizing campaign. For Ahmad, being studied by an anthropologist offered an escape from the shadows of anonymous musicians who spend their lives playing music on weekends in the city’s poor backstreets. Ahmad also derived a certain personal satisfaction from the process, not to mention symbolic payback within the highly competitive, hierarchical Cairo musical marketplace. An act of public written recognition – not necessarily a biography – becomes critical at this point, of a written trace in Arabic, a manifesto that the musicians on the Avenue would be able to cite as a way of legitimizing the local scene. Although we occasionally attracted suspicion from the individuals we studied – and who to differing extents agreed to place their confidence in us – we systematically confront half-truths, dissimulations, and confabulations that they cannot utter openly and that therefore present complex analytical problems. How should we treat assertions that we know to be at best fictional? In what were they formulated? Dissimulation can involve several strategies, as part of the studied/studier relationship: 1. It can represent an element in how the individual/s being studied construct/s their image, i.e., the image that he or she reveals and that seems to

Introduction 9 him or her appropriate for the studier’s project (or at least the studied person’s perception of the project). 2. It depends on the cultural and social environment in which a performer’s life story unfolds, about which it can tell us a great deal if we are able to interpret and decipher the clues. Dissimulation is furthermore part of a far broader framework of the rhetoric of interviews and hence the entire process of reconstructing of musicians’ and dancers’ itineraries, including all of the challenges that are inherent in the process. Producing the life story “The major problem of the biographical approach for the social sciences is less related to the material [. . .] than to the method applied to this material,” according to Nathalie Heinich (2010: 423–424). She also cites Jean-Claude Passeron, who argues that “biographical material is historical material like any other and is often more complete that other information, and in any case is always organized differently; the question is knowing what to do with it” (1990: 10). We have attempted to follow anthropological conventions regarding informant discourse by not presenting the life story as a simple narrative. We have been attentive to the rhetorical and compositional strategies that each of us has used, guided primarily by deep knowledge and respect for our informants’ life stories. Nevertheless, we are the authors of these life stories,9 which synthesize vast amounts of data collected using numerous ethnographic techniques, including interviews with our informant-performers and other actors in their networks and fields, participantobservation, observation, document and archival analysis, oral histories, quantitative data, and musical and choreographical analysis. Interviews are nevertheless the backbone of most of our life stories. They provide the most direct way of learning about local contexts and practices and understanding and analyzing how individual trajectories unfold across time and space. These self-reports are a foundational element in what have been called “multi-situated field studies” that involve following performers as they displaced themselves geographically, like Georges Marcus (1995). Kali Argyriadis used her extensive familiarity with two separate research settings – Havana and Veracruz – to follow musicians and dancers in networks that perform and disseminate the “Afro-Cuban” repertoire in order to focus on two systems of signification and intersecting codes. Her primary purpose was to analyze variations in the sense of belonging of the members of a specific network, while also exploring the influences of these variations on power relations within “Afro-Cuban” reportorial networks. As Barfield contends, “[t]he way life experience becomes a life narrative is shaped by local conventions of narrative and communicative practices, by the encounter with an interlocutor, and by an individual’s own agency, imagination, and verbal skills” (Barfield, 1997: 288). The function of speaking thus resembles other data collection techniques using observation or written sources because it “imprints a distortion on empirical reality, it interprets it and provides representations of it” (Massard-Vincent, 2008: 10–11). Only deep familiarity with research contexts and informants can result in a credible, detailed trajectory while also

10

Introduction

making intelligible the various forces at work in the enunciated discourse and the significance of the trajectories studied. The preliminary work of the interview is followed by a second phase whose chronology varies depending on the subject, for example either having the life story begin early in a performer’s career or at the end of their career. This is also accomplished by adjusting the composition of the written life story to conform to our analysis of a specific trajectory, unlike a biographical narrative. As a researcher, one has the choice of either including him or herself in the life story or removing themselves from it, depending on specific features of the study and personal choices regarding writing and reporting. At one subjective extreme, researchers can foreground their own itineraries as determining elements of their approaches and the questions raised by the study, including shared experiences and access to sensitive, even intimate forms of knowledge. The two life stories – the researchers’ and the musician/dancer’s – are then blended in a kind of game of mirrors in which social roles and identifications can become confused. Within our research team, it is Christophe Apprill who comes closest to adopting this form of reflexivity by interrogating the corporeal dimensions of dance practices and reading his own trajectory into relevance with respect to the life story of an Argentinian dancer. Sharing the practice of tango with Federico after being one of his students and later a partner in the same dance company for five years, Christophe shares profound, multi-contextual knowledge with his participant that allows him to construct a perspective on the kinesthetic level, the verbalization of their times together, and the process of constructing a posteriori how these experiences fit within Federico’s life story. Because of “the immanence of the dance to the body” (Monnier and Nancy, 2005), and the problematic role of the body (Memmi et al., 2009) and the sensitive aspects of the research relationship (Laplantine, 2008), examining his own itinerary as a dancer helped Christophe construct Federico’s life story. For these reasons, the life story only exists as an a posteriori construction. The individuals who allowed us to accompany them extended their trust to us during long moments of their personal and professional trajectories. Our research methods and analyses are therefore shaped to allow the life story to emerge. This emergent approach is also the result of numerous adjustments and negotiations during the many phases of collective re-assessment that we often engaged in as a team. This long-term process of writing in successive phases caused some members of the team to modify their initial choices and even change individuals or institutions. Indeed, no ethnographic description is limited to a mere transcript of events. Whatever methodological tools are used, “the researcher produces more than he reproduces” (Ghasarian, 2002: 15). Terrain, analysis, and ethnographic writing echo each other continuously, and we endeavor in this collective research report to make the resonances of these processes and their significance audible. The purpose of our frequent use of interview excerpts is to increase the level of transparency with respect to every aspect of our research process but especially to give voice to our informants. Rather than extensive paraphrasing and reformulation of our informants’ discourses – although it is often necessary – we

Introduction 11 attempted to cite their own words whenever possible. Instrumentalizing informants’ discourse is unavoidable, however, and researchers face numerous constraints in recording and organizing findings and insights. This includes things that we refuse to record for deontological reasons, what we say ourselves because we were unable to have our informants say it, things told to us in confidence, and the writing strategies that lead us to select particular excerpts because of their compelling nature. The team decided not to use a pre-established framework in terms of how the itineraries were composed. On the contrary, we have tried to respect the diversity of our approaches, honoring individual decisions about the writing strategies and organizational choices that we considered appropriate for our specific fields and research contexts. Variations in the writing and reporting of the itineraries are therefore the product of thoughtful, deliberate choices based on specific characteristics of our research fields, backgrounds, anthropological relationships, and individual sensibilities. We believe that these unique itineraries intersect in important and interesting ways but that they also differ in significant ways, including the researchers’ different voices and positions and the levels of detail about specific research contexts and methods.

Notes 1 Among other works using life stories in a different perspective, see for example Guilbault (2014); Feld, 2012, Stokes (2010), Vaughan (2012), Aldama (2012); Zemp (1995). 2 Life story seems to the authors to be the best English translation of the French term “parcours.” 3 An ethnographic situation that generated what the author calls an “ethnologized society.” The term refers to “groups for whom ethnographers’ attention is unrelenting, and its mere mention automatically evokes the idea of specific traditions” (Doquet, 1999: 290). 4 For an analysis of this phenomenon as it relates to music and dance, see also Argyriadis (2006). 5 Bourdieu’s position has provoked considerable debate and has been extended, refined, and criticized by a number of researchers. See in particular Passeron (1989) and Heinich (2010). 6 This tradition originated in a celebrated book by Znaniecki and Thomas (1998) [1919]. 7 Balandier (1955: 10) uses a series of nine portraits that enable him to “demonstrate a multi-layer social lives based on living subjects, each submitted to different, often contradictory codes.” 8 The question of the complexity of the levels of contexts and relationships between scales of observation has been at the center of an epistemological schism via micro-histories. See, for example, Ginzburg, 1995 [1980]). L’ouvrage Jeux d’échelles, La micro-analyse à l’expérience, edited by Jaques Revel (1996), proposes a dialogue between microhistory and anthropology that questions the dialectic between the individual life story and social forces and questions the heuristic contributions of variations in scale. 9 Camelain et al. (2011: 16–17); see also Fabre et al. (2010: 16) regarding this idea of composition.

Part I

Seven singular itineraries

1

Olivier Araste Ancestors, memory, and a career as a maloya musician1 Guillaume Samson

Figure 1.1 Olivier Araste on stage at the champ de foire of Bras-Panon (Reunion Island), November 25, 2011, at the release party of Lindigo’s fourth album, Maloya Power

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Olivier Araste is a young maloya musician2 and the leader and co-founder of Lindigo, a group that has been popular since 2006, the year of their hit song “La kazanou.”3 The song attracted interest from local cultural institutions and increased the band’s sales. Lindigo is currently one of the few maloya groups that continues to play private shows such as weddings and family parties and in the island’s discotheques (which are usually limited to performers of séga, dance-hall ragga, and zouk). They also play regular performances in concert halls and popular festivals and abroad in such locations as Madagascar, metropolitan France, Switzerland, Brazil, and Morocco. Lindigo’s ability to be locally active and play internationally represents a significant achievement for what could be called a “neo-traditional “group4 that is attempting to maintain a degree of authenticity that is tied to the idea of ancestral and cultural memory. Olivier’s personal and musical history allow him to weigh the different factors, practices, and representations implied by the various frames of reference and performance faced by maloya musicians engaged in professional and semi-professional careers. His itinerary offers an excellent example of maloya’s status within the island’s music scene.

First meeting and shared interests I met Olivier in 2007 in a regional agency for popular music, the Pôle Régional des Musiques Actuelles (PRMA) on Reunion Island, where I am employed as a researcher. He came for a professional appointment and, after a brief, cordial exchange, gave me a copy of his first album. We later ran into each other a number of times, including at a Lindigo concert that I was filming with the ethnomusicologist Victor Randrianary for the PRMA. We became better acquainted during a sèrvis kabaré5 at the home of a family of well-known musicians in Saint-Benoît later in the same year. The organizers of the event had invited a number of popular maloya artists to their sèrvis, lending a show-like atmosphere to the occasion. Around midnight, Olivier sang a few songs. Lindigo already had an excellent reputation on the island, and the crowd greeted Olivier enthusiastically. We began to get to know each other better that evening. In July 2008, I conducted two relatively extensive interviews with Olivier about his personal and family history. Olivier showed interest in how I would use the recorded interviews, and the idea of a kind of autobiography or life narrative began to take shape over the months that followed. Our collaboration lasted until 2012, when his autobiography was published.6 Our relationship alternated between confidence and the more specific focus of publication. This relationship, which is founded on mutual interest, is methodologically significant7 because it helped me develop an understanding of Olivier’s itinerary and personality. On the other hand, it did not result in a neutral situation in which to collect data. Our plans to publish his itinerary altered the relationship, but it would be difficult to determine the effects of this process on the discourse that resulted from it.

Olivier Araste 17 Our relationship was not limited to interviews. Since 2008, we have seen each other regularly. I attended artists’ residencies, concerts, rehearsals, religious ceremonies, and press conferences, either alone with Olivier or with the group. I also frequented a number of Olivier’s collaborators, including managers and producers as well as family members. I also interacted many times with Olivier outside of interviews and formal occasions. To some extent, the diversity of our interactions has helped me situate Olivier’s discourse and life inside a broader framework than an autobiography project alone would have permitted. Why did I focus on Olivier Araste and not on a different maloya musician? One answer relates to the conditions that led me to meet him and Olivier’s desire to tell his own story. Another reasons involves Olivier’s position in the maloya scene and within the Reunion context at the time that this collective research project was beginning. When I first interviewed Olivier, he was already famous on the island. Lindigo had recorded a second album and performed frequent concerts. The group first toured Madagascar in 2007 with financial support from a Reunion Island concert hall. Olivier had not yet attained the status of intermittent du spectacle, but he was making a living from his music. Lindigo had also produced its first radio “hit.” Lindigo gave the clear impression of being an “up-and-coming” group, with Olivier as its leader and central figure. These factors created ideal circumstances in which my research project could help me understand the many dimensions at work in developing and maintaining a career as a successful maloya musician. Olivier and Lindigo appeared to represent several specific factors that I believe are critical to understanding the maloya scene, including the diversity of spaces where music is broadcast and performed, multi-layered musical and choreographic meanings, and co-existing motivations to express collective cultural commitment and musical individualities and relationships with cultural institutions. Unlike other musicians who are perhaps less organized and available, Lindigo also provided a powerful image of the characteristics and professional and musical approaches that I had observed previously. Olivier’s itinerary can therefore be interpreted as broadly representative, although obviously not in any statistical sense. A few other maloya groups8 are committed to a similar artistic process, but only Lindigo combines all of these factors so powerfully on the contemporary maloya scene.

Neighborhoods, ancestors, and cultural heritage Olivier was born on Reunion Island in the early 1980s and grew up in Paniandy, a small neighborhood in Bras-Panon in the eastern part of Reunion Island. Some residents are descended from Malagasy and African plantation workers. After ten years living between Saint-André and Bras-Panon (two nearby towns), Olivier was again residing in Paniandy, where he is well known. His parents and other members of his family also live there, and the family’s roots in the area date to

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the mid-twentieth century. Local roots offer clues to understanding Olivier’s discourse and creations. His memories of childhood and adolescence typically refer to the town and its important residents and elders. He stresses the Paniandy’s rural, historically poor: I grew up in Paniandy. After cyclone Jenny in 1962, which destroyed the old kalbanons,9 the inhabitants of Paniandy moved towards the island closer to the cane fields. In the 1970s, there were still bidonvilles in that area. After that, things got modernized and, in 1983, the family moved to the “new Paniandy” as people called it. This neighborhood is on the other side of the highway; it’s where my maternal grandparents lived before the cyclone. Because the family moved into a more comfortable house right after I was born, my father often says that my birth brought more light into the house. (Olivier, October 10, 2008, personal interview) Olivier’s deep connection to Paniandy is the locus of Olivier’s attachment to his family and ancestors. From Paniandy and his Creole ancestors (meaning those born on the island), Olivier’s family memories began with Malagasy and Comorian ancestors who arrived on the island as indentured servants in the early twentieth century. The names of some of these ancestral figures are featured in Lindigo’s songs. Lindigo’s first album,10 recorded in 2004, included “Mahavaly,” a song that referred to Olivier’s paternal Malagasy ancestors. Two songs on their third album (2008)11 pay homage to two other important ancestors, including “Pépé toulé,” his paternal grandfather and the son of Malagasy indentured servants and “Bakoko,” an ancestor from Anjouan who arrived in Reunion in 1902. Ou la donn amoin la vi Bakoko Mersi ankor Mersi ankor Bakoko

You gave me life Bakoko Thanks again Thanks again Bakoko

This kind of homage to ancestors reveals a twofold thread in contemporary maloya music. This song evokes powerful memories on two interdependent levels: 1) the Creole islander level and 2) the pre-colonial level of Malagasy and African ancestors. Olivier’s discourse about his neighborhood and ancestors are common themes in his music both explicitly – as in this song – and when he refers to this two-part memorial motif. With Olivier, however, recognizing and paying musical homage to his heritage are not situated on a primordial, ideological, and essentially mythologized level – as is the case with other maloya musicians – but instead are directly related to his immediate family and daily life. Recognition is part of a strong genealogical awareness in which ancestors can cohabitate while being artistically honored. This relationship with the elders and the places

Olivier Araste 19 where they lived extends to all of Olivier’s living relatives. His immediate family, particularly his father and several of his big brothers, are prominently featured in Lindigo’s project. His father (whose nickname is “Makok”) is a well-known character in Paniandy and a practitioner of popular Hinduism. As a member of the Lindigo Association that manages the group’s activities, he is actively involved in his son’s career and occasionally accompanies him to concerts and on tour. Lindigo’s success is connected for Olivier to a certain familial musical lineage. In fact, the Araste family involvement in popular music began when one of Olivier’s older brothers was the leader of Payanké, a group that played electrically amplified maloya and was moderately successful in the 1990s. Payanké’s career, which Olivier played with for a while before it disbanded, represents a kind of backdrop for Lindigo in the sense that Olivier feels he has continued his older brother’s musical and familial mission. Family involvement in Olivier’s career is also pragmatic: The Lindigo musicians are intermittents du spectacle, and Olivier and his brother “Dado” (who is also in the band) make their living off of music via this system of state subsidies for artists. The group’s success thus contributes to the entire family’s prosperity as well as its social status. References to neighborhood, ancestors, and family are prominent elements of Olivier’s musical project that help him make decision and choose orientations. Expressed musically, discursively (on stage, through the press, and in other reporting), and in Lindigo’s video-clips, such references determine how Olivier

Figure 1.2 Olivier and his father, Paniandy, 2009

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tells his story and how he situates himself inside a complex web of social and spiritual relationships. These webs in turn help him reconstitute and celebrate the past and assert his filiation in a deeply personal way: All of my music is in homage to my ancestors. I do not know if my great grandchildren will still have that desire, but as long as I am alive, I will continue to follow that principle. It’s true that you shouldn’t dwell in the past, and that people could accuse me of looking behind me too much. It’s also true that the past of my ancestors isn’t entirely pleasant. But if I am here today, it’s thanks to them. (Olivier, March 25, 2009) This position echoes a recurrent them in maloya that is illustrated by the text that follows, which became popular in the 1970s: Maloya la pas nous la fé Maloya la pas nous la fé Maloya la pas nous la fé Sa lété chanson konpozé12

It’s not us who made maloya It’s not us who made maloya It’s not us who made maloya It’s a song that already existed

On Reunion Island, the emphasis on transmission and cultural heritage of which the present generations are the bearers is articulated in the institutional level around a cultural revitalization movement that has long influenced maloya music. In religious terms, worshiping African and Malagasy ancestors means pleasing the ancestors with the music that they enjoyed while they were alive. This filial duty ultimately translates in the live show and music business through references to “traditional” and/or “world” musics (one of the “niches” in which Lindigo is involved). This overall framework of contiguity between memory, religion, and economic concerns sheds light on Olivier’s discursive and artistic identity. Olivier’s cultural background (like that of most maloya musicians) both surpasses and channels these various elements. This raises the question of Olivier’s validity as a “representative” of contemporary maloya in general. His itinerary, as well as Lindigo’s career, is part of the political, economic, and cultural framework of the musical heritage, ancestor worship, live shows, and cultural industries surrounding maloya music. But the problem that concerns us here is how to grasp the original character and particular makeup of this one group, whose esthetic choices elicited such varied reactions early on, ranging from approval to rejection. As is often the case in maloya music on Reunion Island, understanding Olivier and Lindigo solely in light of their collective cultural affiliation, heritage, and ancestor worship is problematic. It is true that Olivier has an acute awareness of his involvement with a shared “tradition.” He uses certain tools in order to accommodate this tradition and pursues particular modalities and aspirations, some of which may be quite individualistic in nature. To an extent that rivals his

Olivier Araste 21 connections to a web of social and spiritual relationships and ancestors, family, and neighborhood, Olivier’s career in a competitive musical environment also compels him to promote an original musical personality so that he can distinguish himself from competing musicians. At the same time, he must also nourish his legitimacy within the maloya scene, which is widely viewed as a common and shared cultural asset (Mallet and Samson, 2010).

Musical practices and learning: knowledge, homage, and legitimacy The social and cultural complexities of this context are revealed by Olivier’s presentation of the affiliations and influences that shaped his musical personality. In addition to referring to the importance of his ancestors, neighborhood, and family, he evokes a cluster of elders and cultural figures that he credits with his musical initiation and with launching his career. Among the many influences on Olivier’s early musical career, he singles out his two grandfathers. One grandfather encouraged his grandchildren to dance while he played harmonica, and the other, known as a “Chef tambouyé,”13 was also a celebrated card player who like to provoke his fellow card-players by singing. In fact, Olivier has reprised some of his songs: Pépé toulé had the habit of singing whenever he won at cards. He loved this song: Wiyawé! Dan fon Sainte-Suzanne Wiyawé! À Bois Rouge Wiyawé! Si toué néna gayar Wiyawé! Amont ton gaya

Wiyawé!14 In Sainte-Suzanne Wiyawé! To Bois Rouge15 Wiyawé! If you are strong Wiyawé! Come show what you’re worth!

He sang that while he was going home to show that he was proud of winning at cards. It was his way of showing the neighborhood that he was the “maestro.” Today, I have returned to this song on stage with Lindigo, changing it a little bit. I often sing it at the end of concerts to introduce the musicians. I promote them by connecting them to the city they come from. (Olivier, March 25, 2009) In addition to prizing the ancestral repertoire, being recognized as children and adolescents by the elders was an important dimension when Olivier referred to the Dalleau brothers’ orchestra, an “Orchestre lontan”16 that traditionally played for wedding balls and “senior citizens.” At the home of these neighbors of the Araste family in Paniandy, Olivier learned to accompany the dance-hall repertoire of the 50s and 60s on drums, including waltzes, pasos dobles, chanson française,

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and ségas.17 Even if they did not play the music that Lindigo currently plays, Olivier insists on the retrospective musical impact that the Dalleau brothers had on him. The use of the diatonic accordion in Lindigo, which, considering the general esthetic of the group, could be interpreted as a kind of return to Malagasy roots (cf. infra), is also framed by Olivier as an homage to the Dalleau brothers’ orchestra: It was with the Dalleau Orchestra that I was able to see an accordion from close-up. The accordion had fascinated me for a long time. As a child, I begged my parents to get me one. I wanted a “tinininyinyint” as I called it. One evening, my father came home with a small cardboard toy accordion, but I wanted a real one and I tore it up! It was only recently, during a trip to Madagascar, that I was able to buy a diatonic accordion. When my parents saw that, they were very happy. I finally had the instrument of my dreams! When I play it today, I often think of Monsieur Marius, the accordionist of the Dalleau Orchestra. (Olivier, May 24, 2010) Olivier’s father also focused on an entire musical body of knowledge of which Olivier proclaims his inheritance. The work songs that he sang when, as teenagers, he and his brothers were helping to cut sugar cane on the family land constitute another resource for Olivier’s arguments. The function of the songs was to animate and energize the cutting, and they were part of an ancient context that, because it was less and less experienced by the younger generation of maloya musicians, has symbolic value as a fundamental element of the socio-historical soil that nourished the development of the genre: Today I hardly ever cut cane. I do it “for the gesture.” Since I come from a milieu where cutting cane is important, when you stop cutting, you miss it. A part of my musical inspiration comes from cutting, in fact. When you see the canes onto the pile, when you hit the cane with the saber, when you clean the stalks, all of that has its own particular sounds and rhythms. And you sing during the cutting, when you start feeling the fatigue. We curse each other and answer each other among cutters through singing. My brothers and me learned to sing in the cane fields, with my father. (Olivier, October 10, 2008, personal interview) Olivier situates another part of his apprenticeship within his family’s religious itinerary. As the grandson of a “chef tambouyé” who practiced the popular Hinduism (“religion malbar”), he was initiated into ceremonial drumming (“tambours malbar”), as had been his father and his grandfather. This practice in a milieu descended from Africans and Malagasies can be explained by the family history and the maintenance (at times voluntary and at others “necessary”) of a cluster of musico-religious observances in which his paternal grandfather, who had

Olivier Araste 23 grown up near Reunionese Indian descendants (“malbars”), had been involved. The transmission of this “tradition” was considered important in the family and reveals musical knowledge that was rich but strict, whose mastery implied a kind of initiation: Pépé toulé had been a chef tambouyé. Just before he died, he asked my father to transmit this knowledge to me. That’s what my father did. Today, I know a lot of different drum rhythms from Malabar ceremonies and the divinities associated with them. To play correctly in the ceremonies, you have to know the name of all of the divinities and also know at what moment to play a particular rhythm. (Olivier, June 3, 2009)18 At the same time, Olivier was frequenting the singers of sèrvis kabaré in Paniandy and participating for the first time in providing the animation of Malagasy and African ancestor worship ceremonies. He did this initially without his parents’ knowledge, because they did not participate in these practices and had a relatively distant relationship with the Malagasy ancestors. The proximity of a few well-known sèrvis kabaré singers (“chefs kabaré”) in the neighborhood helped Olivier to enter into a decisive musical and personal phase. Olivier credits these male neighborhood figures with familiarizing him with the ancestor cult that has come to be so central in his life. His parents also became involved, developing their own ritual relationships with the ancestors. Learning the ceremonial repertoire of the ancestors19 is a powerful support for claims of legitimacy among maloya singers, because the sèrvis kabaré is considered to be the most important locus for transmitting “authentic” and “traditional” forms (Samson, 2008). In tandem with his familiarization with the sèrvis, Olivier’s “entry” into maloya channeled the knowledge of several key figures of the genre. Like other musicians of his generation, Olivier asserts that he acquired part of his reputation in the sèrvis by interpreting certain songs by the Rwa Kaf,20 a repertoire considered especially effective in the context of the ceremony. The fact that he was able to perform songs that pleased the ancestors (which translated into their “coming down” and revealing themselves through the “dance”)21 illustrates the link that a singer is able to establish with them. In fact, people generally believe that the ancestors approach when they hear songs they enjoyed when they were alive; the quality, power, and intentionality of the interpretation are considered crucial to the effectiveness of the musical performance: I ended up being known in the East as a kabaré singer. The gramoun22 like my way of singing. I knew the Rwa Kaf songs like “Naï na la alouza.” I sang them “with heart,”23 by focusing on the ancestors. The gramoun were happy and “dancing.” That’s how I started gaining a reputation as a maloya singer. (Olivier, September 29, 2008)

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Figure 1.3 Olivier playing the drum malbar at a march on fire in Paniandy, July 2010

Popularized through CDs and performances of the family group in the 1990s, the repertoires interpreted by the Rwa Kaf integrated several of what are considered the most “traditional” aspects of maloya, including instrumentation that is reduced to the most typical bob, kayamb, roulèr24 – and systematic alternation between soloist and a chorus, as well as a way of singing that did not aspire

Olivier Araste 25 to sophistication. Furthermore, it included songs that used Malagasy words (or words assumed to be Malagasy), conferring an element of cultural weight to the repertoire. As with other musicians, references to the Rwa Kaf helped bridge the sèrvis ceremony with a career based on live performances and recording. In order to fully grasp this phenomenon, the memorial dimension of maloya needs to be understood. This dimension is the cornerstone of Olivier’s cultural arguments, which also underlie – seemingly without contradicting his present artistic commitments – his participation in two folkloric groups as an adolescent: the Étincelles Panonaises and the Groupe Folklorique de La Réunion.25 As spaces for learning repertoires and musical and choreographic skills, these folkloric groups represented a different framework that derived its recognition from the reputation of several individuals on the island’s music scene considered to possess “authentic” knowledge. The folkloric groups also had sentimental value for Olivier because it was there that he first met his girlfriend, who became his partner in founding and developing Lindigo: I followed the Groupe Folklorique for two or three years after their tour in the United States. Lauriane danced with them. We had just met and we were following each other pretty much everywhere. Over there, I rediscovered the real rhythm of the Reunion Creole séga, well “pounded,” with a big drum, a “Charleston” drum,26 and a snare drum. That inspired me later. (Olivier, May 24, 2010) These two groups also enabled Olivier to perform several times off the island. One particular performance in Madagascar was especially influential in cultural and spiritual terms because it brought Olivier into contact with his ancestors’ geographical origins for the first time: In 2001, I went to the Jeux des îles de l’Océan Indien27 in Madagascar. Bernadette Ladauge [from the Groupe Folklorique on Reunion Island] had sent me with Lauriane to represent Reunion in the French delegation. We danced several maloyas and some ségas. I think it touched the Malagasies. We went on television. At the time, I hadn’t been to Madagascar yet. I had vaguely heard people talking about that country, and I had no idea how people there lived. Misery was the first thing that impressed me. I also felt something powerful like a sign of attachment to the country. When I was leaving, we missed the plane and had to wait a long time for seats on another plane. Once we got to Reunion, my father wanted me to leave and go to Antananarivo with him. He was affected by what I had experienced. But I didn’t want to return right away, so he went by himself. (Olivier, May 24, 2010) The familial, sentimental, religious, and musical dimensions of Olivier’s life are intricately intertwined determiners of how he learned to become a musician. His musical apprenticeship and way of describing it reflect a variety of influences and way of learning, his relationship to religious “effectiveness” and the legitimacy

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associated with it, important encounters, and travel experiences. These factors all shape a multi-dimensional cultural, familial, and professional narrative.

Creating Lindigo: a polysemic repertoire In 1999, Olivier, his girlfriend Lauriane, and his brother “Dado” founded Lindigo, whose name comes from a traditional medicinal plant: Right from the beginning, we called the group Lindigo. The idea of the name came from my cousin Damien and one of his friends. While I was playing with Lindigo, I was also playing with them in a band called Dan kèr. When we rehearsed, Damien sometimes called me by my nickname “Gogo” – “Hey Gogo! You are like indigo, you are refreshing!” Indigo is a “refresher.” It’s a medicinal plant, and Damien meant that I brought something good to the music. We liked it and took the name for our group. (Olivier, May 24, 2010) The belief that maloya “heals” or “is good for you” is directly linked the band’s name, but it has been promoted by maloya musicians both before and since Lindigo. This belief illustrates the symbolic bonds between the genre and the “therapeutic function” of ancestor worship (Dumas-Champion, 2008: 125–130). It is also tied to the “restorative” function of maloya lyrics as a way of remaining connected to the past and “producing a form of collective memory” that grew out of a “narrative about origins” (Gangama, 2007b).28 Until 2004, Lindigo’s repertoire consisted of Olivier’s early compositions along with covers of “traditional” songs and songs by musicians who had established recording and concert careers, including Danyèl Waro, Granmoune Lélé, and Zangoun. Lindigo sometimes performed for commercial gigs in supermarkets and more spontaneous street concerts or in public spaces in cites on the eastern side of the island. In fact, during its early years, Lindigo was only one of a number of Olivier’s musical activities. Olivier, Lauriane, Dado, and a few other early Lindigo members played frequently at sèrvis kabaré, which Olivier considered his “profession”29 at the time. He also played with other maloya groups such as Grinn do fé, Françoise Guimbert, Dan Kèr, and El Diablo as an instrumentalist. He traveled off the island a few times with these groups to such locations as Corsica and Africa. During this interval in his itinerary when he was playing in several bands, Olivier experienced a range of opportunities and professional involvements. On the one hand, he was called upon to balance his musical personality and his propensity to stand out with his desire to respect his commitment to particular bands. He benefited by becoming familiar with the systems and institutional networks involved in creating and diffusing music, while also assessing the (relative) competition between maloya groups: In 2003, I participated in an album by the group Destyn. I sang two songs and I did some musical arrangements. The group made it into the super-finals of

Olivier Araste 27 the Clameur at Bato fou.30 The band El Diablo, which already had a reputation too, was also competing. They were supposed to go on a subsidized tour in Africa. At the Bato fou, they spotted me and nicknamed me “Jean-Luc the monster.” I think that was because I had a huge puffy hairdo. One day, one of the El Diablo musicians called me. He said “Hello? Jean-Luc?” I thought he had the wrong number because my name isn’t Jean-Luc! This was some time after the super-finals. He was calling to tell me that I was invited to attend a meeting at the DRAC.31 That was my first contact with cultural institutions. I arrived the day of the meeting with my big hair! I didn’t care much about my appearance at the time. I didn’t know too many people in the capital. During the meeting, they asked me to participate in El Diablo’s Africa tour because they needed musicians. But we were supposed to play the super-finals at the same time, and I didn’t want to miss the concert. But because everybody was so insistent, I ended up joining El Diablo. (Olivier, May 24, 2010) It was during this period that Olivier started to compose music, and within a few years, according to him, he experienced two phases that helped him mature musically. His early texts are consistent with the “militant” cultural advocacy typical of maloya in the 1980s and 1990s and an early influence on Lindigo: Depui byin lontan Té tap si té joué maloya Jordi la évolué I vé pu èt komandé Parske zot la invant in lwa Té momon pou arèt joué maloya

A long time ago They beat people who played maloya Today things have changed We don’t want to be commanded anymore Because they had invented a law To stop playingmaloya32

These words illustrate the way in which maloya’s memorial facet and evocations of a shared past function explicitly as a vehicle for cultural advocacy.33 Although Olivier has not completely left this militant register behind, since 2003 and 2004 a number of Lindigo’s compositions adopt a different approach and a variety of registers of language that Olivier believes represent his “originality.” While he does not avoid themes tied to cultural advocacy and a collective past, Olivier’s lyrics have several distinctive characteristics that include using the Malagasy language, which was one of the trademarks of Lindigo’s songs until 2006–2007. Lindigo was not the first maloya band to incorporate languages other than Creole into their lyrics. The Rwa Kaf – whom Olivier cited as a major influence – and Gramoune Lélé, a maloya artist from the eastern side of the island, used a somewhat Creolized version of Malagasy language in their songs. Sèrvis include songs in ostensibly ancestral languages called langaz (Marimoutou, 2008: 163). Indeed, because of Creolization, it is often difficult to determine which specific original

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language or languages these songs refer to or include, and their precise meaning sometimes remains obscure even for the singers themselves.34 The most important thing for participants is that the songs are perceived by audiences as outgrowths of the “language of the ancestors.” This is precisely what drives Olivier to sing in Malagasy: In the beginning, I wrote in Creole. It was only after my trip to Madagascar for the Jeux des îles that I added some Malagasy sentences in my Creole texts. When he got back from Madagascar, Papa had brought me a Malagasy textbook because he wanted me to learn the language. He wanted me to be able to express myself in langaz like the ancestors. So I started to learn Malagasy with the textbook, but I didn’t really know how to pronounce it. First I memorized the days of the week, without going much further. (Olivier, September 29, 2008) Using the “language of the ancestors” is not systematic or exclusive, and, indeed, the wide range of sources of inspiration and references suggests a composition process that employs intertextuality and different levels of meaning as well as diverse linguistic and identity-based registers: When we recorded the album Misaotra mama, I was listening to the Malagasy singer Jaojoby a lot.35 He had a song that said “Misaotra mama yé ka, misaotra mamé. . . .” I didn’t understand what the text meant at first very well, but the words appealed to me. I developed a motif backed by a maloya tune, and I also started to use the word Zanahary, which means God in Malagasy. It’s a word that wasn’t very widespread yet. I used it in the song that was the album title (Misaotra mama). (Olivier, September 29, 2008) The “Malagasization” of Lindigo’s lyrics is paralleled musically through certain melodic constructions and the use of instruments that are atypical of maloya, including the kabosy lute, the diatonic accordion, and the valiha. This process of “returning to the source” enriches the musical and linguistic diversity of some of Lindigo’s songs: One of our musicians once asked a Malagasy if what we were singing was correct. She answered that our sentences were comprehensible. She also said that it was as if we combined sentences that weren’t directly connected to each other. That’s something that we find in maloya, too, especially with Rwa Kaf. In our own maloya, that’s just how it is. (Olivier, September 29, 2008) One of Lindigo’s most successful songs on the island, “La kazanou,” is typical of Olivier’s multilingual approach. The song was composed after a stay in Diego, and, according to Victor Randrianary (who transcribed and translated the excerpts

Olivier Araste 29 in Malagasy36 cited below), it alternates between a Northern regional variety of Malagasy with Creole expressions.37 Alô tsika Handeha Alô tsika Handeha La kazanou la Handeha La kazamoin la Handeha Ô la kazanou la Nome zaho Hidese Nome za toaka mena Hidese Nome za tantely Hidese Nome za rano Hidese Nome za robaka Hidese Nome za ronono Hidese Nome za ombilahy Hidese Nome za ro gisa Hidese Nome zaho Alô tsika Handeha Alô tsika Handeha Veloma veloma Hidese Veloma veloma Hidese Ousa ousa La kazanou la Ô Zazakely Doné kalou pilon Lakazanou la Ôzazakely ê (zazakele) Doné kalou pilon Lakazanou la

Let’s go On the path Let’s go On the path Our house Let’s go My house Let’s go Our house They gave me Hidese They gave me rum Hidese They gave me honey Hidese They gave me water Hidese They gave me cigarettes Hidese They gave me milk Hidese They gave me beef Hidese They gave me a goose Hidese They gave me Let’s go On the path Let’s go On the path (or: Let’s go) Good-bye, good-bye Hidese Good-bye, good-bye Hidese Where? To our home The children Let’s dance! Let’s dance! At our home The children Let’s dance! Let’s dance! In our home

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In overall musical terms, this song respects the archetypal forms of maloya that are particularly present in the sèrvis. They include short sentences that alternate between a soloist and a chorus, without obvious musical arrangements like sophisticated harmonies, breaks, or solos.38 The singers are accompanied by a small number of instruments that includes the roulèr, the kayamb, the pikèr, and a “Charleston”39 cymbal, and the songs rely on Olivier’s intense vocals and his gradually increasing “intention,” which energizes the performance. According to Olivier, the intention behind the lyrics, which Creoles cannot easily understand, is to evoke the sèrvis and the ceremonial offerings to the ancestors. The use of the first person in the songs functions as a kind of “symbolic possession” in which Olivier incarnates the voice of an ancestor who has received offerings: At the end of “Lakazanou,” I say in Malagasy “give me some rum,” “give me some honey,” “give me some milk,” “give me some water”. . . . It is like the offerings we make to the ancestors. And the song ends with “Véloma,” which means “Good-bye.” It evokes their departure after the offerings. (Olivier, September 29, 2008) Olivier presents his ceremonial homage to the ancestors as a central feature of Lindigo’s projects. Playing for the ancestors and paying homage to them through music, costumes, and scenography is thus an important dimension of his leadership of the group and his career. At first, his traditional orientation even competed with his pursuit of wider audiences: In the beginning, we went on stage wearing lambas40 that we had bought in Diego. I had that idea when we saw Jaojoby. At first, my musicians were reluctant. They wondered how that was going to be perceived [lambas were not worn much in Reunion]. I answered: “If you want to play with me, you have to do it ‘with the heart.’”41 For me, we were going to be playing first of all for the ancestors. We had to take our “roots” aspect seriously. Whether the audience laughed or not and whether they liked it or not wasn’t our most important problem. At first, when they saw us come on stage people thought we were Malagasy or Comorians. But no! We came from Paniandy, right next door. (Olivier, September 29, 2008) This close relationship between Lindigo’s stage performances and lyrics to the sèrvis kabaré raises the authenticity question. Indeed, like many other maloya groups, Lindigo has to achieve a balance between the practical aspects of performing such as albums, stages, and media and religious and musical references tied to ritual competences and communicating with their ancestors. Lindigo, like other groups that embrace the “Malagasy renewal” (Lagarde, 2008b), found itself accused of inappropriately performing “sacred” songs on stage, violating their connection to rituals and the precautions involved in communicating with the

Olivier Araste 31 spirit world. Olivier replies to these charges by drawing a line between two types of songs, one that he considers “sacred” and is systematically played during specific phases of the ritual (such as sacrifices, summoning the ancestors after placing offerings, the midnight procession, or the conclusion of sèrvis, etc.).42 These songs play a crucial organizing function during the ritual services and Lindigo never performs them on stage or records them. But according to Olivier, the sèrvis, which combine festivity with ceremony, also include a separate category of songs that, whether “sacred” or “profane,” are more flexible in terms of the practices, musicians, and contexts surrounding them.43 Because the primary musical goal of the ceremonies is to please the ancestors, the notion of sacredness as it is debated among maloya practitioners often appears somewhat porous in practice. There is a group of maloya songs used in the sèrvis that, although they play a ritual role in the ceremony, are nevertheless linked to recordings and stage performances. Because Lindigo’s compositions are closely tied to the ancestors and the roots, they are occasionally performed during sèrvis without reference to the question of “sacredness.” They are considered suitable for use during the ceremonies because they pay ancestral homage and employ a musical register that evokes the sèrvis and the ancestors: When I compose my songs, I usually write them for my ancestors. I sing for my Malagasy grandfather, my Malagasy grandmother. It’s a way to pay homage to them. So I have to sing “with the heart.” Sometimes, I even get shivers on stage. . . . But these are not sacred songs in a strict sense. (Olivier, October 10, 2008, personal interview) This point, around which centers the debate about the sacredness of the sèrvis within maloya, can also be seen from a strategic perspective. By valorizing ancestral language and music, Olivier asserts Lindigo’s legitimacy. By emphasizing his bond with his own ancestors, Olivier is arguably proclaiming his own authenticity, particularly given that maloya is considered a collective inheritance from the elders. This is consistent with the idea that the sèrvis and, more generally, communicating with the ancestors, are understood as the “source” of the maloya genre. When he celebrates his close connection to the ceremonial world in an artistically original way, which not every maloya musician is able to do, Olivier benefits from advantages that help promote Lindigo’s musical profile. Indeed, Lindigo’s stage performances have steadily expanded and diversified since the mid-2000s by channeling the “maloya of the ancestors.” The band has also increased its participation in collective albums and performances with well-known musicians from other genres, including electric maloya and Creole song (Didyé Kérgrin), as well as Reunionese, Jamaican-inspired music (Kaf Malbar, DJ Dan). Ancestral bonds can be somewhat less prominent features of these musical styles, which cultivate cultural claims. Bands that perform with Lindigo can indirectly enhance their own legitimacy because of his embrace of “tradition.” In return, Lindigo can enjoy increased visibility and ability to reach ever-wider audiences.

Figure 1.4 Olivier at a rehearsal at his home in Paniandy, with his band and the bassist Didyé Kérgrin (on right), November 2011

Olivier Araste 33

A musical career: fame and cultural advocacy Olivier’s cultural and spiritual commitments and the other factors involved in advancing his career are clearly intertwined. Since 2008, Lindigo has often been invited to participate in performance and recording projects as their prominence in the island’s musical scene has grown. The band is also among the four or five maloya groups recognized as “professional”44 on the island. In slightly more than ten years, Lindigo has expanded through three concentric “circles”45 of celebrity, each of which Olivier describes differently. The sèrvis and participating in neighborhood festivities is the first and innermost circle. The reputation that Olivier acquired by playing ceremonies contributed to the success of Lindigo’s first album, in particular by helping door-to-door album sales. In turn, the album’s proximity to ancestor worship probably helped increase its popularity in the sèrvis. The band sees it as an advantage to cover the entire array of musical performance contexts, from popular festivities to ceremonies and family parties, because they allow them to stay connected to “the people”: Some people like to see the artists up close. They want to see Lindigo live. They come to dance at a discotheque as a family, as a couple, or with friends. What they want is to dance to the music they’re used to listening to on CDs. I like the popular, family, convivial side. The audience at a wedding or birthday is not the same public as at a disco or concert. At a wedding, people invite us to play so they can surprise the newlyweds. Sometimes the bride cries. There’s so much emotion at such times! Sometimes we are like a present to the couple. So we wish them happiness and we sing so that they have a happy life. We’re popular today. If I didn’t do weddings, discos, and all that, we’d be a maloya group that plays only concerts and sometimes at sèrvis. After traveling and hanging out with great musicians, we’ve developed musical talent. But when we play a wedding, we have to play simple music that relates to the people. Today, we play with ségatiers,46 and I hang out with jazz, rock, and reggae musicians. That gives me a certain musical vision. But when people ask me to play a baptism, a communion, or a birthday, I just play simply. That way, I keep feeling what the people need. I bring maloya into that festive family environment. (Olivier, September 8, 2009) This contact with “the people” motivates Olivier to continue investing time and energy in popular and family events such as neighborhood parties, discos, weddings, communions, and sèrvis kabaré. This proximity seems to help him determine how he can respond to his audiences. Olivier’s success stems partly from his ability to connect with the people, and he is aware that experiencing popular performance spaces is crucial to his band’s cultural and identity-based emphasis. Olivier systematically voices his affection for this inner “circle” of celebrity, which he sees as an antidote to institutionalized “live shows” or a career in which

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success is measured only by one’s image. It is also true that popular performance spaces are more effective for seducing audiences because the proximity established during weddings or street festivals helps maintain a particular type of star status. The second “circle,” which Lindigo reached around 2003–2005, refers to the networks surrounding the island’s cultural and live performance scenes. Olivier describes his integration into these spaces and reveals what has been involved in building a career on the island and the steps that need to be taken to gain access to local distribution networks. Lindigo first started playing in amateur, club-like contexts like literary and artistic evenings at the University and charity concerts. Olivier emphasizes the messages of sympathy from cultural advocacy activists and other key figures on the maloya scene: We started getting known outside of the East after our first album came out. In 2003, we played at the march for Palestine in Barachois. Serge Sinimalé47 and his group Cimendef were there. There were other singers, too, who were succeeding at the time. After we went on stage, they came to congratulate us. While we were playing, Danyèl Waro was dancing in front of the podium, too. For us, that was a sign of recognition. We sang “Yélo” and “Madagascar.” We were a little intimidated because we were playing in front of well-known artists. After a few performances like that and after our first record came out, we were invited to play our first big stages at local festivals. (Olivier, September 8, 2009) This period, as Lindigo was scheduling an increasingly wide variety of gigs, laid the foundation for a transition toward improved management of the band. Up to that point, they had employed a series of amateur managers, but the begging of the transition into the third “circle” of fame that began in the mid-2000s – after a few large local performances (including the Nuits du Piton and the Festival Sakifo) and a tour in Madagascar with the Bato fou, a Scène de Musiques Actuelles (SMAC) from Reunion – necessitated professional management. The band hired a new manager with the twin goals of financially professionalizing the musicians and developing the band’s activities off the island. The move reflected Olivier and Lauriane’s high ambitions and coincided with obtaining intermittent du spectacle status. When the other members of the band also obtained intermittent du spectacle status, it helped boost their profitability because they could collectively accumulate more cachets (performance vouchers). This also encouraged them to begin to consider their musical production as an “export,” a central pillar of Reunion Island cultural policy for the past fifteen years. Olivier and his entourage belong to a new trend that is as much about management as it is about their status as members of national and international artistic, institutional, and collaborative networks. The administrative labor that this entails,

Olivier Araste 35 making artistic choices, mobilizing human, logistical, and financial resources, and developing the skills needed to advance the band’s career can easily become overwhelming. All of Lindigo’s collaborators – including tour managers, agents, and producers – have the authority to question the group’s project. Having surrounded himself with professionals from the island and from Paris who have seen the band’s “export” potential, Olivier can now lead wide-ranging discussions about musical choices in terms of style and format, stage presentation, and how CDs are packaged and distributed. Such debates often include issues such as target audiences and performance venues. Regarding the CD liner for the band’s third CD, which was co-produced by a Parisian producer, Olivier noted: We have a local view of things. But in France, they have another vision, and it’s a different public, so we had to create a CD liner that attracted them, too. We create for our country, but we also want to export. Either you want to export yourself, or you want to remain local, like in your neighborhood. It’s an important question. Since we wanted to cross the divide with the album Lafrikindmada, it became a question of the CD liner. We worked with a producer in Paris, and it wasn’t easy. It was a first for me. (Olivier, February 12, 2010) The Lindigo Association manages administrative details, with Olivier and Lauriane as local managers, while Lindigo also works with Helico, a Parisian firm that manages and produces tours. In fact, Olivier’s many collaborations allow him to mobilize important resources, evidence of a desire – and a necessity – for a sustainable musical presence that also preserves a certain degree of control and flexibility. Cultural arguments often return to the core question of maintaining intermittent du spectacle status. Since 2007, when Olivier and his musicians joined the Malagasy group Tambours gasy for a residency at the Albert Camus Cultural Center in Antananarivo, Lindigo’s has multiplied its contacts with foreign artists. In 2009 and 2010, the group participated in a joint “residency” with a group of South African dancers, Via Katlehong, which culminated in a musical and choreographic spectacle showcasing cultural ties between South Africa and Reunion. The project was supported by a choreographer who wanted to “tour” Europe and other places. They ultimately performed at the Cité de la Musique in Paris and in other locations in France as well as on the island. In February 2011, Lindigo also performed a number of gigs in Brazil, bringing them into contact with samba de roda48 bands in the Santo Amaro region. That tour was a follow-up to the band’s participation in the Festival da Arte Negra in Belo Horizonte in 2009. They were the focus of a report with the French-language title “Croisées métisses” (“Creole Cousins”)49 that stressed cultural connections between Afro-Brazilians and Reunion Islanders of African origin, a kind of Pan-African Creole diaspora. This discourse energized yet another identity-based angle for Lindigo that led them to another recent album project with the portentous title Maloya Power (2011).

Figure 1.5 Olivier on stage, Champ de Foire Bras-Panon, November 2011

Olivier Araste 37 This nod to the African diaspora had already influenced their Lafrikindmada album, which proclaimed three “roots” – Africa, India, and Madagascar. Continuing to pursue this triple focus led them to incorporate more West African (djembé, dum dum, balafon) and Brazilian (batucadas drums) instruments into their stage performances and recordings. They also included new musical processes that refer to these origins, including solos and polyrhythmic approaches. For Olivier, incorporating instruments and new techniques arises from his desire to continue using a “simple” style close to “traditional” maloya and the sèrvis for some of his music. While travel and new encounters have broadened the band’s musical spectrum, Lindigo’s musical “palette” also seems to remain close to older, more “authentic” forms. Lindigo demonstrates the fact that cultural and musical discourses cannot easily be dissociated from the frameworks surrounding their own early roots, even as each concentric “circle” leaves its mark on their sounds as well as their knowledge and skills. It has also become clear to me that participating in these expanding discursive circles has not been entirely driven by strategy and the pursuit of celebrity. However, even if the intentions behind the core message are cultural, there is a delicate balance involved in sustaining this sense of mission in the face of the practical constraints involved in maintaining and advancing one’s musical career. The necessity for a dialogue between different levels is the finer thread in Olivier’s discourse, in which he experiences and discusses the expansion of his artistic visibility as driven by his cultural and social roots. It is as though Lindigo’s value and success were proportional to the extent to which they pay homage to his ancestors, his “people,” and his “cousins.” Relating to the position of maloya’s place in the music scene on Reunion island, which is both institutionally prized and slightly marginalized by the cultural industry, the success of Olivier – and Lindigo – has established cultural and memorial “defense,” not solely as a form of struggle (in the sense of giving up the self in the name of the collectivity) but also as the key to a career and, more broadly, to a successful life, because it is “in tune” with “one’s people,” a people to whom one pays homage and a people whom one knows to be happy and represented in an original way.

Notes 1 I am especially grateful to Bertrand Le Mener for his assistance with the development of this chapter. 2 Maloya is widely understood as the product of African and Malagasy influences. The genre displays diverse musical forms that, while part of a continuum, generally fall into one of two categories on Reunion Island. Maloya that is considered to be “traditional” is noted for: 1) singing, generally in Creole, that alternates between a soloist and a chorus; 2) rhythmic accompaniment using a drum (roulèr), a rattle (kayamb), and idiophones (pikèr, sati, or triangle). The term “electric maloya” is applied to modern forms in existence since the 1970s. 3 “La Kazanou,” Lindigo, Zanatany, CD: LP0106, 2006.

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4 The term “neo-traditional” refers to a group of musical conceptions that, although they claim to be tied to local forms and practices considered to be ancestral or “traditional,” renew themselves by borrowing elements from external “traditions.” 5 An African and Malagasy ancestor worship ceremony. 6 Olivier Araste. Maloya Pli O, Editions de la DREOI, Saint-André (La Réunion), 2012. 7 In retracing Olivier’s itinerary, I am presenting the phases of his life and artistic career within the framework of his discourse about himself. Because this is also part of a separate autobiographical narrative, his discourse provides a mass of facts that are selected and presented within the context of an interview-based relationship. Because it is not neutral, our relationship is not one-way. For this reason, I have chosen to present Olivier’s narrative by citing his own reflections about his itinerary as often as possible. As a result, the presentation and interpretation of facts and events are as important as the facts themselves. 8 Of 315 active music groups listed by the Reunion Island PRMA in 2010, 115 explicitly associated themselves with maloya (source: Reunion Island PRMA). 9 Former housing for plantation laborers. 10 Lindigo, Misaotra Mama, Piros, CDP5340. 11 Lindigo, Lafrikindmada, CD: 138829, Cobalt, 2008 12 “Maloya la pa nou la fé,” Firmin Viry, Viry 1976, CD: 1 ZNK, MCUR, 2005. The translations of lyrics in this article was done by Carpanin Marimoutou (CD liner-notes, p. 17). 13 “Chief ” of a group of popular Hindu ritual drummers. 14 An expression of victory and joy. 15 Bois rouge is a neighborhood in Saint-André, a city in the eastern region of Reunion Island. The town is home to one of the two sugar factories currently active on the island. 16 “Old-style” dance orchestra. 17 A type of Creole song accompanied by modern instruments. 18 Regarding the function of drumming in cults devoted to the divinities of plantation temples, Jean Benoist (1998: 81) has written, “It has the role of communication with the divinities; it summons them, signals their arrival, divides time into phases that correspond to individual divinities’ presence, like the successive entrances of characters on a theater stage. Therefore, each divinity has its own rhythm.” See also (Desroches, 2000). 19 During sèrvis kabaré, the principal function of songs is to establish communication with ancestors and other symbolic spirits. They punctuate, encourage, and structure this ritual, festive performance. Singers and musicians thus play a critical role in the sect. See studies by Benjamin Lagarde and Françoise Dumas-Champion (cited in this chapter’s references). 20 A musician and storyteller, Gérose Barivoitse (1927–2004), named Lo Rwa Kaf (the Kaffir King), helped popularize a form of maloya considered “traditional,” particularly via two albums recorded in 1992 and 1995. Recognized for his “combat” “to valorize and transmit vernacular oral culture” (MCUR, 2009: 26), he was awarded the title of Zarboutan Nout Kiltir (Pillar of Our Culture) in 2004 by the Regional Council of Reunion. 21 During sèrvis kabaré, dances, framed by musical performances, represent manifestations of the ancestors: “By entering the bodies of certain participants, the ancestors’ spirits reveal their identity to the living through the dance that they then execute, the postures that they adopt, and the clothing that they wear. Everyone knows the code and readily knows which of the ancestors is presenting themselves. Some speak and offer advice, while others express their unhappiness” (Dumas-Champion, 2008: 157). 22 In Reunion Creole, the term gramoun collectively refers to the elders. In a ceremonial sense, it also describes the ancestors who manifest themselves through the trance (Dumas-Champion, 2008: 71).

Olivier Araste 39 23 With devotion and conviction. 24 The bob is a musical bow; the kayamb is a type of rattle also used in the Indian Ocean and East Africa; the roulèr is a single-skin drum typically made from a barrel on which the musician typically sits. 25 Founded by members of the Saint-Denis bourgeoisie in the early 1960s, the Groupe Folklorique de La Réunion is the oldest such group on the island. Its most active member is Bernadette Ladauge, a recognized authority on the Creole quadrille and Creole dances of European origin. 26 Hi-hat cymbals. 27 A multi-sport, inter-island competitive event that began in 1979 and is held every four years. The event includes competitors from the Comorian Islands, Madagascar, Mayotte, Mauritius, the Seychelles, the Maldives, and Reunion Island. 28 “It is out of therapeutic and restorative considerations that the texts bring up the same stories. Maloya texts are addressed to a collective we that is convinced about these ailments or that tries to cure the entire population of its ills, its suffering, the punishments that it has endured, by reminding it of the narrative of its origins” (Gangama, 2007b: 217–218). 29 Maloya musicians who play at sèrvis kabaré are sometimes remunerated. 30 A performance space in southern Reunion Island known for organizing music competitions in the 2000s. 31 Direction Régionale des Affaires Culturelles, a French state cultural institution. 32 Although maloya was never explicitly banned, its long-standing marginality and its ties to the Parti Communiste Réunionnais and the political struggle for autonomy on the island in the 1960s and 70s have contributed to its reputation as “forbidden” music. This remains a complex issue in that practices viewed as socially, culturally, or legally forbidden can take on a variety of forms depending on the context or period. 33 See Gangama (2007b), for further information on this subject. 34 Due to a lack of research, there are frequent hypothetical references to “Creolized Malagasy.” Teddy Gangama (2007a: 245), however, has emphasized the linguistic complexity of songs used during the sèrvis kabaré. Concerning the words of the ancestors expressed during the sèrvis, he writes that, “during the trances, there is a form of language used by the ‘possessed’ when they transmit the voice and words of the ancestors or when they address them. [. . .] There is such a powerful mix of Creole and other languages (Malagasy or Tamil) at that precise moment that the discourse cannot be considered to be constructed or coherent. The utterances consist of words, turns of phrase, fixed expressions, and unintelligible forms of the languages used. There exists, however, a possible interpretation of the discourse, and although it can be interpreted, it is rarely discussed.” Regarding langaz in the production of maloya texts, Carpanin Marimoutou specifies that, “The different studies conducted on the sèrvis kabaré [. . .] demonstrate how the maloya is tied to practices that establish a relationship with another dimension of the real and how it enables the constitution of ancestral figures and the renewal of the link between ancestors and their descendants. The continuous (re-) creation of this link implies that the languages of the ancestors and the spoken word, in one way or another, inhabit the spoken discourse of descendants in the same way that descendants’ language is inhabited by the ancestors, becoming what is called langaz in Reunion Creole. The langaz of the ancestors, reproduced by their heirs (or ostensibly reproduced in their re-representations of its enunciation), incorporates the ancestors into the present. This descent of the immaterial is therefore highly concrete; not only does it engage bodies and memories, it also materially constructs the language of maloya and its enunciative and rhetorical practices; it produces the maloya text” (Marimoutou, 2008: 163). 35 Jaojoby, who played many times in Reunion between 1990 and 2000, is considered the “King of salegy.”

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36 This translation by Victor Randrianary was complemented by several elements supplied by Olivier. 37 Personal communication with Victor Randrianay. 38 Victor Randrianary also sees an affinity with the jihé rhythm in Southern Madagascar in the instrumental accompaniment (personal communication). 39 Hi-hat cymbals. 40 Traditional Malagasy bolts of cloth. 41 With sincerity. 42 See Lagarde (2008a) and Dumas-Champion (2008) for descriptions of sèrvis kabaré that describe its musical aspects in some detail. 43 The clear distinction drawn by Dumas-Champion between “ritual” maloya and “profane” maloya (2008: 155) is called into question, even contradicted, on this point by Lagarde’s analyses (Lagarde 2008b: 151, 2011: 95–96), Marimoutou (2008: 163), and Samson (2008: 83–84)). 44 Lindigo’s recognition as a “professional” group by cultural institutions on the island is the result of the group’s musical skills and the fact that most of its members are intermittents du spectacle (an officially subsidized status for intermittently-employed cultural workers). 45 I have adapted the notion of “circle” to the Reunion context (Mallet, 2009: 215–240). Julien Mallet has used the concept to describe what he termed the “tsapiky system” in Madagascar. 46 Séga is a form of Creole popular singing. 47 Serge Sinimalé (1940–2008) was a militant advocate of Reunion culture. As leader of the group Cimendef, he was widely known for his profound knowledge of maloya and Creole culture in general. 48 A traditional variety of samba from the Bahia region that was recognized in 2005 by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage. Maloya was awarded ICH status in 2009. 49 Croisées métisses, portrait de Lindigo au Brésil (“Creole Cousins. A Portrait of Lindigo in Brazil”), filmed and produced by Valentin Langlois, Laurent Benhamou, Paris, 2011 (52 minutes), HD.

References Benoist, Jean. Hindouismes créoles, Paris: Éditions du CTHS, 1998. Desroches, Monique. “Musique et identité culturelle des tamouls de La Réunion,” in Au visiteur lumineux. Des îles créoles aux sociétés plurielles. Mélanges offerts à Jean Benoist, PetitBourg, Guadeloupe: Ibis Rouge Éditions, GEREC F/Presses universitaires créoles, 2000. Dumas-Champion, Françoise. Le mariage des cultures à l’île de La Réunion, Paris: Karthala, 2008. Gangama, Teddy. Maloya la pa nou la fé, Unpublished Master’s Thesis, Saint-Denis: Université de La Réunion, 2007a. Gangama, Teddy. “Écrire le maloya: un discours du ressassement,” Francofonia, n°53 (Autumn 2007b): 205–228. Lagarde, Benjamin. “Du lontan au koméla: deux disques pour un avenir réunionnais,” Faire savoirs, n°7 (December 2008a): 93–98. Lagarde, Benjamin. “O sa sèrvis alala kisa sa? Ethnographie d’un rituel réunionnais,” in L’Univers du maloya, Saint Denis: Éditions de la DREOI, 2008b. Lagarde, Benjamin. “Le maloya, entre religions populaires et nouveau syncrétisme,” in Religions populaires et nouveaux syncrétismes, Sainte-Clotilde: Université de La Réunion, Surya Editions, 2011. Mallet, Julien. Le tsapiky, une jeune musique de Madagascar, Paris: Karthala, 2009.

Olivier Araste 41 Mallet, Julien, and Samson, Guillaume. “Droit d’auteur, bien commun et création. Tensions et recompositions à Madagascar et à La Réunion,” Gradhiva, n°12 (2010): 117–136. Marimoutou, Carpanin. “Poétiques vernaculaires et modernités. Le maloya en textes,” in L’Univers du maloya, Saint-Denis: Éditions de la DREOI, 2008. MCUR, ZNK. Zarboutan Nout Kiltir, Saint-Denis: Région Réunion, 2009. Samson, Guillaume. “Histoire d’une sédimentation musicale,” in L’Univers du maloya, Saint-Denis: Éditions de la DREOI, 2008.

2

From Tulear to France Damily – a tsapiky musician from Madagascar Julien Mallet

Figure 2.1 Damily at the Bar du Marché in Montreuil © Flavie Jeannin

From Tulear to France 43

Introduction Tsapiky is unusual among modern music genres because it is in part a product of commercial exchanges (concerts, sales of cassette tapes, and, more recently, video-clips), and in part because it plays a central role in local ritual ceremonies such as weddings, funerals, and circumcisions.1 The link to rural contexts is an important key to understanding what I describe as the “tsapiky system” that links rural and urban spaces in a circular relationship. Most tsapiky musicians originate in rural areas and join urban orchestras in Tulear, where the “orchestra chief” (who owns the instruments) who recruited them is responsible for providing them room and board. This is the first phase in their move from the Madagascar countryside to the city. After orchestras have built a reputation, often by producing a cassette recording, they become sought after in rural areas. Depending on how famous they have become, they are invited to play at ceremonies in a reverse move back into the countryside. Tsapiky is closely associated with the region around the city of Tulear, although it has a growing presence in the capital, Antananarivo. The increasing popularity of tsapiky inside Madagascar and abroad is largely due to the influence of a small number of musicians. This narrative account focuses on the itinerary of one of tsapiky’s central figures – the guitarist Damily – whom I have had the good fortune of becoming acquainted with and following for a number of years. Some tsapiky musicians, including Damily, have chosen to combine efforts to carry tsapiky beyond the borders of Madagascar. Damily himself never worked as a musician in Antananarivo, instead making the direct leap from Tulear to France thanks to his marriage to a French woman. It is this phase of his life path that concerns the present narrative. His itinerary before he came to France is the subject of an article that I published previously (Mallet, 2002). Some Background about Earlier Events: From Tongobory to Tulear to France2 Damily was born on November 17, 1968, and unlike three of his five sisters and two brothers, he never knew his father. He was raised from a very young age by his grandparents, and his grandfather, a mpitaha (healer), was a key figure in Damily’s life. From a young age, Damily’s life has been profoundly affected by local beliefs: My mother delivered a baby boy before me who died [. . .] on the day I was born, and my grandfather said that my hair should not be cut before I reached the age of six. [. . .] This is a Malagasy belief, because my grandfather he thought ghosts had killed the little boy. To protect me from the ghosts – because that means that my mother had no luck with boys because she had delivered a lot of girls and when she had a boy he died – so my grandfather told her: “Let his hair stay long so that he resembles a girl to trick the ghosts.” So when I was ten, my mother cut my hair, and after that, it was OK,

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Julien Mallet I was allowed to play with other boys. Because at the time it was difficult, for example if you arrived at our house, you don’t touch me you know, because if you touch me you’ll pay. We say that it is mifaratse, atrambo, only my mother and my grandfather and my brother and sister were allowed to touch me, but not the others. (Damily, March 21, 2001)

In addition to being a healer, Damily’s grandfather was an ombiasa, a person who masters astrology and the art of divination. At birth, he gave Damily his anarambinta (“fortune name”), Mbola. The name corresponds to the sign for an ear of corn or a virgin as well as the sixth Malagasy month, asombola.3 The name Mbola (“more”) is also given to a child when a previous child has died or had a grave problem. The attribution of a name to a child can influence the individual’s fate, like Damily’s second name, Anjarasoa (“good fortune,” “the lucky one”), which his mother gave him. When he was twelve, Damily went to school, but he was soon expelled after repeatedly clashing with the school principal. His mother then sent him to the Lutheran School in Tulear, but Damily quit his studies after a few years. His subsequent integration into the social world of Tulear involved developing new associations and participating some in marginal activities, like delinquency and gangs. When the situation became critical and he had to take a break from the Tulear scene, Damily returned to Tongobory. Next: I went back to Tongobory, but my mother didn’t want me to stay with her: “OK you are going to go back to Bezaha,” because that is where rice is grown, so she thought that if there’s no work there, I can grow rice, I had a sister who did that there, and she wanted me to go do the same thing so I would settle down, because she thought money was leading me astray. But I was happy to leave Tulear, because things were going too far. Ok, so I went to Bezaha. My little brother, Rakapo, was there playing drums with a group called Bazary sy groupe. Rakapo told the man who owned the instruments: “So, if you want, my brother who is here can play the guitar.” [. . .] So I tried out and the guy liked it, and he accepted me in the group. (Damily, March 21, 2001) Damily did not find that urban living conditions suited him. However, his mother’s suggestion that he earn a living by working in agriculture, considered to be the “school of wisdom” and a return to a normal life, was no longer a possibility. Music provided Damily with a middle-ground that allowed him to turn his back on the no man’s land that his life had led him into: At the time, when I was still in Tulear and hadn’t left for Bezaha, I was going downhill. [. . .] It was music that saved me, which is why I respect music, because it saved my life. (Damily, March 21, 2001)

From Tulear to France 45 Learning music also involve learning a powerful discipline that is chosen instead of imposed. Choosing music involves a number of sacrifices, but one also gains forms of personal recognition and changes the nature of one’s marginality. These differences are valorizing, particularly because in both rural and urban areas tsapiky is a shared cultural asset. Thanks to his brother’s connections, Damily began his career as a professional musician at the age of nineteen. A new era of mobility began, leading to a series of different connections and belongings, and, in 1990, Damily joined a new orchestra called Safodrano. His new professional affiliation led him to Tulear again, this time as a member of the tsapiky orchestra system. The “owner” supplied the instruments and provided the musicians room and board. In return, they were expected to remain at his disposal. Damily remained in this “structure” for seven years. It was during that period that he met Naivo (his current drummer) and Ganygany (his singer) and first played with Claude (his current male singer). Feeling increasingly exploited by his “boss,” Damily left in 1997, playing with the Masoandro orchestra for a year before striking out on his own. Damily gradually became fully independent. His reputation from performing in ceremonies and recording cassettes that included several regional “hits” allowed him to end his connections with other orchestras. Later, when he met Yvel, a new phase of his life began: So, afterwards, I stopped playing the ceremonies in the countryside because I was tired. So I told the musicians: “If you find somebody who wants to play with you, go for it! But me, I am stopping because I am tired.” So everybody except Naivo left. After that, Naivo played with Rakapo, my little brother. After that, I met Yvel, you know, in 2000, and I agreed to live with Yvel, so we got married in Madagascar on June 2, 2000. (Damily, March 21, 2001) Marginality, networks, and mobility are the defining traits of Damily’s itinerary. The circle in which his itinerary developed widened, multiplying both limitations and opportunities.

Damily and Yvel 2001–2011 The ten-year period between 2001 and 2011 represents a critical phase in Damily’s itinerary because he moved to France and began to construct his life project. After marrying Yvel in Madagascar in 2000, he joined her at her home near Angers. Since then, his itinerary has centered around their couple. Yvel “manages” the band and plays an important role in Damily’s professional career. Yvel and Damily became parents during this ten-year period, and Damily obtained French citizenship (2004). They returned to Madagascar twice, recording two commercial CDs and performing over fifty concerts during one or two tours per year. During this ten-year period, the geographical scope of Damily’s career gradually expanded to include not only France but all of Europe and the United

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States. He was also landing increasingly “prestigious” or “prized” contracts on the world music scene, including a performance at the Quai Branly Museum in Paris, in the Place de la Bastille on July 14, and at Womex4 in Copenhagen. Between Maine-et-Loire and Tulear: struggling to become settled After arriving in France and a period of adaptation and settling, the couple began to feel the need to make money. For a while, life centered around odd jobs and their vegetable garden, but the mechanisms of chance and their networks helped a musical project take shape. Aie! The apples. The apples, the vineyard, et cetera, et cetera, for maybe three months in all. And then we stumbled on a sound engineer who wanted to record us. We must have met him sometime in October 2001, something like that, at Anne’s house, a friend of the family who lives in Alfortville. [. . .] In fact, Anne had heard us play when she came to the house and she told us: “When you come to Paris, I’ll invite him, too. You have to meet him,” and then, there we were, in her kitchen we played a little bit and he said “Well, OK, yeah, I’m interested in recording you guys!” and that was it, you know. It was like three weeks later, boom, we were in the studio. The studio belonged to a good friend of his who had high-quality equipment, and who he could eventually partner with to make CDs, like this one, that were in fact kind of projects with no backing, more for pleasure than anything else, without knowing either what we would do with them afterwards, but (Damily and Yvel, December, 15, 2009).

DAMILY: YVEL:

The guitar and voice on the CD were acoustic and were not edited. The recording did offer the opportunity, to develop a duo set with Yvel that would prove useful later and that motivated them to create new songs, which were edited and included in a cassette (the album “andao tsika hitsinjake”) the following year, when Damily and Yvel returned to Madagascar: Y:

When we got to Madagascar, we had this just-cut CD with us that we brought really just to listen to with friends and family. [. . .] And then, in fact, there are a lot of songs on “andao tsika hitsinjake” that come from it. Damily had composed songs for a year and a half thinking about Madagascar, and then on top of that he had continued to compose a lot – it was quite a period, wow, full-tilt composition, you know? [. . .] and almost the entire project we did with the sound engineer was redone in a tsapiky version in Mada [. . .] (Yvel, December, 15, 2009)

Madagascar as hope/Madagascar as a battleground (October 4, 2002/March 21, 2003) Damily and Yvel returned to Madagascar on October 4, 2002:

From Tulear to France 47 Y:

D: Y:

D:

We hadn’t left saying to ourselves that we were leaving permanently, we will not be coming back to France, but we were heading there to build something without knowing at all what it would be except that we’d start with the cassette and just see, and if it worked out, I don’t remember really what we had dreamed up together before leaving but in any case our dreams were rapidly dashed. Well, we did manage to realize some of them. No, no, but before heading there, we’d said to ourselves, alright, we’re going to make a cassette, but what had we planned to do if the cassette had worked out well and we had plenty of money and all that? Buy some land [. . .] build a house and a room to practice music, do shows, dances, on the land, to make the music live, and it didn’t work out (Damily and Yvel, December, 15, 2009).

The first step was reconstituting Damily’s band and recording a locally selfproduced cassette. For a year and a half, composing, talking about it, taking some distance from his itinerary and so on, he (Damily) said to himself oooeee, that’s Ganygany (the female vocalist), that’s Claude (male vocalist), that’s Naivo (the percussionist)! [. . .] And then when we got there, that was the first thing. J: How long had it been since you’d played together? D: With Claude, it was since the first album in 96, after that album, we had broken up, the two of us. Naivo was with me until the end, he didn’t leave me from the time we first met until. J: And in Tulear, the objective: finding the group – how do you go about doing that? D: Claude, well, his family has land right next to Lorette’s,5 he was there. I proposed a plan, he agreed to it, and I said: “Where’s Ganygany?” Ah, she’s not here, she’s . . . you know, in Ilakaka [. . .], in Antsoa, so I paid Claude to go find Ganygany [. . .] she was selling fish and then she had stayed over there because it was the time of sapphires, so things were hopping everywhere, so she stayed over there.6 [. . .] Claude left, and I had no doubt she would say yes. Claude told me when Ganygany saw him and said “Yaaahoooo!” [. . .] and right away, bam, she packed her bags, right then, you know, direct! So yeah, we had some meetings, and they were in agreement. Lava (the bass player) was already there, too, since he lives in Tulear (Damily and Yvel, December, 15, 2009). Y:

Although the cassette project was completed, Yvel and Damily encountered serious problems by staying in Madagascar: D:

We rented a little cabin to sell the cassettes, like everybody else does, you know. In Sacama, we took turns, Yvel and me and the musicians. [. . .] There

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were clashes over money. [. . .] For example, on New Year’s Day, Yvel and me had to go to Tongobory to spend New Year’s with the family, so we left the musicians in charge of sales. Everybody takes a turn, that’s how work is. So (laughs) they kept all the money in their pockets (laughs). J: How many cassettes? D: Oh, a lot, hein! Y: We don’t know, because some they had to copy directly, too, but they also sold some originals, a bit of everything. J: And why do you say it was a screw-up? Y: Well, we didn’t sell many, or at least we didn’t recover the money we had invested. J: How much would you say you had invested? Y: Oh, I don’t know . . . we hadn’t made a budget or anything, nothing, you know, it was like there has to be something, we pay, and then. J: But that’s what, about 1,000 euros? 5,000 . . ? Y: Oh, no, no, no. No more than 1,000 euros,7 but that was huge for us at the time We didn’t have anything like that. And more than that, this deal with the musicians, it floored us because we realized that we had been played, you know, olay, olay. [. . .] Anyway, that we’d forgotten a little what life was like in Madagascar. [. . .] Leaving for France for a year and a half, we thought it was logical, that everybody would respect each other, that everybody would have a cool head with money, and in fact, not at all. [. . .] And then, well, on top of that, this deal with the musicians degenerated completely with Lava (the bass-player), it went pretty far (Damily and Yvel, December, 15, 2009). Damily and Yvel had brought a bass guitar from France to use with the group: D:

And Lava sold the bass. [. . .] Luckily, there was an interview, I was invited to talk on the soa talily radio. [. . .] And I went. And during the interview, I announced that: “I’m sorry, friends, because you, you’re all my friends, everybody, rich and poor, so my bass guitar is out there somewhere. My friend brought it back, so if it’s you who bought it, well [. . .] or if somebody offers to sell it to you, refuse.” In fact, someone had already bought it. (Damily, December, 15, 2009)

In the end, Damily got the bass guitar back – for a while. A few hours after he got it back, Lava, pretending he was returning it to Damily, took another direction: D:

So, he left. I don’t know, after about a hundred meters from where we were, directly in the direction of Andaboly,8 at Toussaint’s9 house. He resold the guitar. (Damily, December, 15, 2009)

A formal meeting was organized once Lava, who had vanished, was located:

From Tulear to France 49 D:

So we did kabary.10 Toussaint’s mother didn’t agree with Lava coming alone to his house and taking the guitar. Lava had to bring the entire family to talk about that. [. . .] So Lava left to get his parents and I brought back my big brother and my little brother and we were all three there, too [. . .] and so we did the kabary [. . .] it was hard because [. . .] his father was mean, you know [. . .] and I told him straight out: “You, you’re like my father, too, you know, and your son is my friend, but what he did is not legal, so Papa, you are just going to have to figure out how to reimburse what your son took, you know.” And then I said “Give me my guitar, Madame, because I have no other business here. It’s not Lava’s guitar, so figure it out with Lava.” So I took my guitar and I asked my two brothers to leave. So Lava’s father sold a small plot of land to pay me back. And after that day, well, Lava and me are finished. [. . .] Because that’s not what I’m looking for. That’s not a friend. So there you go [. . .] sorry for him, hunh, he’s the one who wanted things to be like that. (Damily, December, 15, 2009)

One problem that needed to be settled was Damily’s prolonged absences and the rumors that were being spread about him: D:

Before I got to Mada, there were rumors circulating that “Damily is dead, his body they put it in a coffin full of ice, he’s at the clinic hospital in Tulear” [. . .] I died in France. And afterwards, France sent the body in a block of ice. [. . .] And then at one point, Rakapo went on the radio to say “Tell the truth that Damily isn’t dead at all but is in France!” So as a result, things calmed down. So when I got to Mada [. . .] I had already heard about that rumor and I saw, you see the people, it wasn’t like before. Before, I saluted everybody like that, without hesitation, you know. Here, the look has changed. [. . .] Because they said bullshit in fact. [. . .] As a result, they didn’t know who started that rumor in Tulear. Everybody hesitated do say that is wasn’t him who had said it. [. . .] The radio invited me to talk about it. So I explained: Why is some guy capable of inventing all of that? I explained all of that, that it was because of jealousies. “We know life here in Madagascar. It’s the strongest who wins in the end, but I am alive. I’m here, don’t worry, one day I will do concerts in Tulear for you. But I’m here. And then you all from Tulear, there you go, don’t worry, I know that you are my friends, so it’s my friend who invented that, but it’s no big deal, voilà.” (Damily, December, 15, 2009)

Finally, on a more immediately material level, there were problems associated with Damily music that had remained in Madagascar even if he had left for France. Before he left Madagascar, Damily had recorded an album in 2000 (Mihetsiketsike, self-produced with Yvel). He realized when he returned that the cassette had been pirated and sold everywhere, with the same contents but the title

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Figure 2.2 From left to right: Ganygany, Claude, Rakapo, Naivo, and Damily © Flavie Jeannin

“volume II.” Unable to find a solution locally, Damily and Yvel brought the affair before the OMDA11 in Tana, where, after a series of episodes, they were only able to obtain an improvised, unsatisfactory arrangement. Damily and Yvel experienced their return to Madagascar as a failure that ended on a sour note: Y:

After that, we continued selling the cassette anyway, me and Naivo [the drummer]. It wasn’t selling well at all. January, February, nobody had any money, things were dead. It was super-hot and everything. [. . .] We weren’t even able to eat for a day on proceeds from sales (laughs). We couldn’t even sell a single cassette a day. It was [. . .] voilà [. . .] a very morose ambience [. . .] I mean, like Tulear in January and February. It was. [. . .] Everybody was hungry: piolalitsy12 [. . .] it was a bit of a descent ooooooph, and there, that’s when we said OK, well, how are things here going to end up? (bitter laugh) OK let’s go – let’s go back to France [. . .] voilà [. . .] return to France. (Yvel, December, 15, 2009)

From Tulear to France 51 France as home base? When they first got back to France, they devoted their time to the first months of taking care of their infant son. Yvel and Damily lived from minimal welfare payments and their vegetable garden. During that time, their plans became refocused on France: D:

Y:

That was when we decided to really start doing music in France. Well, yeah, because in the beginning, we thought Mada, my whole plan was for Mada, you see, and we did it in Mada but that was nothing but trouble. So as a result, there was no point in continuing like that up to the end, because it’s [. . .] you won’t get there, you know? So therefore, voilà, since we came back to France, what are we gonna do? Well, me, I said, if we really want tsapiky to make it to France, we have to bring the band anyway. But who? Because in fact, there were a few problems with the band, you know. I said OK, never mind, we can leave Lava (the bassplayer), and we put Rakapo (Damily’s brother) in his place, and then the other three, there is no problem: Ganygany and Claude and Naivo haven’t caused any problems. OK, well, they ate the money, but I didn’t hold it against them. And then afterwards, well, you were the one that brought out the compilation13 (in late 2004), so that helped smooth things out at home, too [. . .] and it woke us up a little bit, too. So we kept a pretty close eye on what was happening with the compilation. Through the compilation, if you will, we were trying to see maybe what might be the possibilities. What? How? We didn’t really understand much at the time about what needed to be done. I think we were more and more angry without knowing why or what to do about it. Angry that we weren’t getting ahead, weren’t getting there, not in the music, not making any music [. . .] that nobody was coming to find us, in fact. And then, in 2005, it seems to me that I started sending out more stuff left and right saying to myself [. . .] and anyway I had already thought of promotional material, a kind of brochure. We’d written a text about the band and we thought – now we have to bring the musicians back. But I don’t know how. I don’t know who’s going to bring them, or what, and then [. . .] after your compilation came out, as a result, we had some contact with Valentin.14 The year before the musicians came, I called him, like in September, and I told him I wanted to bring them over and he wanted to take advantage of the occasion to make the record. You’re the one who gave me his contact. And I sent him a few brochures, and in January 2006, we got an answer from a guy in Lille who wanted to hire the band for a festival for a decent price. So we said alright, well (whistles), let’s do it ourselves, you see. [. . .] The concert in Lille was what triggered our decision. Then Damily was saying too, well, OK, now (whistles) we gotta (laughs), we gotta do it. So as a

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Although they lacked adequate resources to reimburse the costs of bringing the musicians to France, Yvel and Damily decided to consider it as an investment and to act rather than simply waiting for something that never seemed to arrive – funding to cover all of the expenses. Above all, they needed to break with the vicious circle of the music market in France. To become well known, you have to play; to play, you have to be known or at least to be able to present a CD or concert videos to reassure producers. In addition to the Festival de Lille (a city in Northern France) and the CD recording project, they were able to schedule a VIP15 residency in Saint-Nazaire that would conclude with a concert,16 all of which was made possible by a contact named Marco, with whom Yvel and Damily had remained in touch since their stay in Madagascar in 2002: Y:

Marco was there in fact when we were living in Tana to make a cassette. In 2002, we met him. [. . .] In fact the vazaha in whose home we slept became very good friends. Marco, PM, were working at St-Nazaire at the VIP. He was a bartender there. [. . .] And so, yeah, he had mentioned it several times and finally when I got the Festival de Lille, we said to ourselves, hey, it’s a sign, yeah, let’s go for it! With his help, because he had already done some work [. . .] he had organized a good number of concerts, so he was a good bit more in the know than I was about contracts and all that. [. . .] It was Marco, and Mica, too, who followed the entire project from A to Z, the visa applications, things, details, he really took charge of the whole dossier. (Yvel, December, 15, 2009)

The residency offered the musicians their first exposure to the “human and material mediations”17 of Western stage and performance practices, including how the stage and amplification system, monitors, and lighting are organized and the role of sound engineers. Y:

We didn’t know too much at the beginning, the residency was more. [. . .] For us, it was to become technically trained on French equipment and then come out of there with technical skills. [. . .] The VIP, in fact, were lending us the hall and their engineer for three days, and at the end of three days, we did a free concert at the VIP, but it didn’t cost them anything, in fact. (Yvel, December, 15, 2009)

The decision to bring over the musicians involved learning about all of the regulations, administrative procedures, and management problems related to the bringing a band to France. In addition to the costs of travel, housing, and other needs of the musicians, they had to be paid, if only so that they could obtain work visas. Not having enough cachets for this first tour, we had to arrange to pay them in

From Tulear to France 53 rehearsal costs. To do this, Damily and Yvel used the association they had founded in 2001, Bal poussière. But because they were not licensed to produce shows, the association could not employ musicians, so they had to use an external association that did have a license. In exchange for a percentage of the contracts, this organization applied to government Labor Ministry for permission to bring the musicians to France and employ them. In February 2006, Damily returned to Tulear to bring the musicians back. Yvel joined them in Antananarivo to take care of administrative matters such as visas and accompany the group back to France. Damily stayed for three more months. This visit, as we will see later, was also an opportunity for him to organize an important ceremony in honor of his late grandparents. During this first tour, between May 17 and July 8, 2006, in addition to the VIP in Saint-Nazaire and the Festival in Lille, the group gave a concert at the festival “La Goutte d’Or en fête” in Paris and another at the New Morning (with Valentin Langlois), a showcase performance at the Fnac Forum, and two performances at La Guillotine, an alternative space in Montreuil that organizes dances during which several groups play all night on stage in a large space.18 They also made their first CD recorded in France, which was produced by Hélico,19 a crucial step in building their new career. The album was recorded in their home and was a powerful moment when the entire band collaborated with a common goal: D:

Y:

We installed everything in the basement, all of the equipment and everything, the drums in the other basement with the bass. And I was upstairs, Théo [the sound engineer] was in the other cellar with all his equipment. [. . .] We brought out the album, and it made us feel good, you see, so everybody was happy. I also think that for once, we were in a situation where you had all of the musicians you wanted to have for an album, whereas before, in Madagascar, it has always been. [. . .] One time, everybody’s there but there are no drums, so it’s the rhythm box, another time Claude wasn’t there anymore so it was thingamobob or whatchamacallit or whoever (Damily and Yvel, December, 15, 2009).

In 2007, Damily and Yvel were unable to assemble enough money and gigs to pay for the musicians’ travel. In addition, the CD début was not scheduled until October 2007, and most of the accompanying concerts and promotional events (radio, press, etc.) were contingent on the CD. Not being able to bring the musicians from Madagascar, they temporarily and partially refocused on their duo; Yvel and Damily performed a concert together at La Bellevilloise.20 Beginning in 2008, the geographical area in which the band performed continued to include not just France – Marseille, Nantes, Bordeaux, Paris – but also Reunion Island, Morocco, Portugal, Switzerland, Denmark, the Netherlands, and the UK.21 The band gradually passed into the circle of “rites of passage” (like the Womex) and became increasingly visible in terms of prestige and audiences. They

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Figure 2.3 Damily on stage at La Bastille, 14th of July dance, 2009 © Flavie Jeannin.

played a concert at la Bastille on July 14, and at the Paléo Festival de Nyons,22 and the Festival Musicas do Mundo in Portugal. In 2011, their second CD,23 began to open up additional possibilities in the United States.

Meaning and existence in France Mediations, adaptations, alternatives For Damily, leaving Tulear to go to France also meant leaving anonymity behind and exchanging a system that he fully understood for one that he had to learn to decode from scratch. This entailed mastering a completely new system of organization within the small world music universe, whose rules and criteria – esthetic, ideological, economic, or marketing-related – are sometimes opaque or ambiguous. Damily’s itinerary exemplifies the contradictions, tensions, misunderstandings, and possible synergies between the market, networks, the inner workings of the world music circuit, and the musical ambitions of a musician with a powerful musical culture that is extremely remote from mainstream markets and audiences. Damily has never considered organizing a band with other musicians than his own, who reside in Tulear. He is neither a “musicos”24 nor an ambitious figure attempting to join international or cosmopolitan music trends such as jazz, hiphop, or electronic music. He is “a tsapiky musician,” and his “musical capital”

From Tulear to France 55 resides entirely within this one musical style, which is little-known outside of Tulear. It is a style with its own codes and a highly specific “grammar” and “vocabulary” unknown by musicians outside the tsapiky world. As a consequence, producing his own music requires Damily to fully finance the musicians’ air travel, an expense that is only viable if he is able to sign major contracts. A more typical schedule involving small regular performances throughout the year and varied networks is not viable under these circumstances. The band’s concert schedule needs to be relatively compressed into tours that take into account such matters as the dates on which the musicians’ work visas expire. As a kind of intern in the world of tsapiky music, Yvel, who speaks Malagasy, is able to mediate between the band and the various agents, middle-men, and institutions on world music circuits. She makes every effort to function as a “manager” but without necessarily mastering every aspect of the trade. Over time – and because she fully supports Damily’s musical ambitions – she has come to oversee a wide array of mediations and negotiations. For example, whenever they interact with sound engineers either on stage or during recording sessions, Yvel acts as translator and attempts to keep the focus on esthetics that she believes are appropriate to tsapiky, Damily, and the rest of the band. Understanding and mastering professional vocabulary, difficulties making themselves understood, and distinguishing between technical and esthetic issues are among the problems that must be confronted. Sound engineers act partially based on musicians’ preferences but also in part on constraints of space, equipment, and “formats.” Successfully avoiding being swallowed up by the logic of commercial production requires constant vigilance. It is the kind of tension that is expressed in relationships between musicians and producers. Even although they are friends and their work relationship based on trust, Yvel and Damily do not always share the same goals and idea for realizing them. Y:

I told him it was really hard, for us musicians, to feel [. . .] I mean that we were obliged to endlessly contort ourselves to fit the mold, and that it wasn’t always easy to take. [. . .] He was saying “No but listen” (he was speaking about the distributor), he wanted to find a new distributor and he was saying that sometimes distributors impose a condition, I mean if you send them the disc proposal, they say “Yeah, it’s not bad, but then the order, you gotta put it like this.” Sometimes, it’s just a piece of advice, and sometimes is a flat-out condition for bringing out the disc you know [. . .] so without being closedminded about it, I told him “But that’s just crazy! It’s crazy, you know, in fact, it’s the distributor who” I told him: “Do you have any idea of the number of stages we had to get through to get something we are finally happy with? Between the recording, the balancing, mixing, you, the mastering, we don’t know what the result is gonna be, the editing, the distribution, and then there’s the cover.” (Yvel, December, 15, 2009)

Shortening songs, adding effects, incorporating sound elements that were not part of the original arrangement, or adding and/or transforming sounds are “recipes”

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that reassure different players, like proof to some of them that a product will be viable, while worrying others, because such changes tend to erode the original esthetic emphasis of a given project. Playing for a burial ceremony, a concert in Tulear, or on a Western stage are very different experiences. There is no question of reproducing the conditions of original performances identically, a fact of which Damily is well aware. He has adapted to audiences that are unfamiliar with his music, new codes and “formats,” and a new production environment that he must learn to cope with in order to practice his music. The adaptation process is not necessarily conscious, and when it is, it is not necessarily experienced in negative terms. Indeed, on the contrary, Damily has included songs in his repertoire that, although they have influenced tsapiky are not tsapiky, as well as compositions that depart from tsapiky style, such as acoustic pieces in a duo or with his musicians. Unlike playing for or with musicians from another musical genre, this “compromise”25 can be reconciled with his musical plans and his way of being a musician. Adapting also means reworking the band’s sound, as Damily put it when discussing a concert for the VIPs of St. Nazaire and the residency that preceded it: D:

In fact, we thought the tsapiky sound, Tulear tsapiky, but [. . .] Frenchified a little, you know, meaning with equipment from here, you see, to rediscover the sound of down there. So yeah, there you go, we worked on that to really find a sound that was going to correspond to our music. So we found it, voilà, and that’s why the evening was a success. (Damily, December, 15, 2009)

Before he came to France, Damily had already worked on his music using an acoustic guitar given to him by a vazaha friend. When he arrived, he decided to keep this kind of instrument for his concerts and recordings. When I asked him why, he said: D:

At the level of sound, in fact, the electric guitar from Madagascar, with speakers mounted on poles, and the sound of electric guitars in France with French equipment, is not the same at all. And plus, I think that we’ll never manage to get the same saturation, in fact, so I said to myself, I have to continue with the acoustic like this [. . .] for me, the acoustic sound corresponds to the equipment here. So there you go, I have continued with the acoustic, and I dropped, well I didn’t abandon it, but I have left aside the electric guitar for the time being. (Damily December, 15, 2009)

I have discussed elsewhere (see Mallet, 2008) interactions and aspects of performance related to tsapiky. Since 2002, either live or on his CDs, Damily has constructed his performances according to new contexts and interactions, while also seeking to maintain performance time-frames that are respectful of the kilatsake,26 which unfold over time and continuing to respect the genre’s specific characteristics that have defined the way it has been played for many years.

From Tulear to France 57 Negotiating the transition from Tulear to France – from “dust-balls” to Western stages – also involves changing the nature of the mediation between music and “audience,” as well as shifting from being a “player” in the “tsapiky system” to being a “ambassador” or “spokesperson.” When he communicates with people who know nothing about his music, its codes, or the context in which it arose, Damily becomes the bearer of a musical “tradition” that is his area of expertise: Madagascar tsapiky, from Tulear. This change in positionality projects a different idea of the music, the interactions, the repertoire, and how it is represented. For Damily, this means sharing what is unique as well as what is universal about his music, a balance that helps him capture – and captivate – while initiating new audiences and (re)discovering new pathways of exchange. Damily and Yvel have developed a duo performance formula in tandem with the band, a strategy for adapting to his distance from the musicians but also a way of committing himself to a creative project with Yvel: D:

Music is a part of our lives, so I’d like to share that with Yvel [. . .] like eating together. So little by little, you know, we rehearsed at home, we composed and all that. And also, the system is not to sing like Ganygany or like a French woman, it’s really so that we can create our music ourselves. So Yvel on her voice creates her melody along with the melody of the guitar, and it really produces something new and, you know, it’s something we made. So we started doing that just the two of us. (Damily, December, 15, 2009)

For numerous reasons – financially, materially, and in terms of imagination, hope, trust, recognition, and self-representations as well as the notion of “career,” Damily, Yvel, and the band’s other musicians all need big performances on established circuits in order to construct and maintain the band’s identity. Although they aspire to participating in the world music scene and basking in those bright lights (especially the musicians, who have never completely left behind the Tulear scene), they are concerned that that kind of life may be out of reach. Since the beginning, the band has been devoting part of its musical energy to alternative musical circuits like dances where musicians take turns playing nonstop all night in vast open spaces without stages. Yvel and Damily have also scheduled private concerts in apartments and gardens, which allows them to increase their number of performances but is also driven by choice of a performance model that they want to develop as an alternative. In fact, festive spaces actually provide the musicians with the freedom to play their music under conditions that they think of as better adapted to their approach to music – they are not too limited in terms of time, there is powerful interaction with the audience and no formal stage, all of which encourage fervor and effervescence and an unfettered atmosphere like the one that develops around Tulear at “dust-balls” and similar ceremonies. Even if they are only modestly remunerated for playing these large festive concerts, whenever they play them in France, the musicians express pleasure in playing under these circumstances and their willingness to do so more often. There is

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Figure 2.4 Dance at La Guillotine, Montreuil, 2006

also the question for Damily and Yvel of developing a long-term relationship with anonymous audiences at single-evening festival performances. They depend on a network of friends from the Saint-Nazaire region – PM, Marco, and others – to organize these rave-like gigs. Their friends impatiently await the opportunity each year to share a festive moment for a single night – some tsapiky time of inebriation and hypnotic kilatsake, informal events in living rooms, fields, or under tents that rally ever-larger every year by word of mouth. Madagascar seen from France: new gazes and new mirrors Mobility and changes in status transform relationships with those left behind that are sustained by their memories, projections, and perceptions. Damily and Yvel’s first trip to Madagascar in 2002 was complicated and disturbing. Rumors circulated about Damily and his conflicts with the musicians and with the OMDA. Such perceptions and rumors can be perceived as parts of what Damily was attempting to leave behind, and they remain a driving and/or legitimating force after the fact in his explanations of his departure. They are also consequences of that departure, which, by distancing him from his origins, created an exterior perspective that he increasingly perceives in that way. Damily now believes it would be dangerous for him to return to Madagascar. Beyond the country’s deteriorating economic and political situation and the increased misery and insecurity faced by

From Tulear to France 59 the population, the fact that Damily left the “ground” has changed his image there. He left for France, married a vazaha, and to them he seems to be a wealthy, successful expatriate. Return trips are complicated, despite the fact that Damily and Yvel have maintained good relationships with close friends and family members, and many relationships have changed: D: Y:

People look at me like that, far away. In fact, I exist but I see the distance. People take me for a vazaha in fact. We arrive from France, it’s over, they’re in a completely different positioning with respect to us. [. . .] You could see it immediately that they were not in good a state of mind towards us and that we belonged more to their lives before. We were already too far away for them and showing up here again like this, in their midst, it was [. . .] well there you go, you know, they were expecting us: ccccrrrr [. . .] like that, you know? (Damily and Yvel, December, 15, 2009)

Powerful mechanisms of self- and hetero-designation, exclusion, and (re-)integration around the borders of the “we” are blended with attitudes and reactions that are directly related to poverty and different forms of jealousy. In a general sense, musicians who have left the Tulear circuit often have difficulty returning to the local ceremony circuit. Organizers fear that their price and requirements are too elevated, and they may also think that musicians who have moved so far away no longer reflect local expectations.27 By removing themselves from the system, they have opened themselves up to rejection, almost like a defense mechanism. Further, when they return, in addition to considerations specifically linked to their departure, this same mechanism is often perceptible in the attitudes and actions of locals. These demonstrations of a belief that “when someone distances themselves from the other, they have to be brought back” or else excluded exhibit the power of the collectivity to seek to control individual success.28 Matters became openly tense on several occasions during Yvel and Damily’s first return trip and during Damily’s solo return trip in 2006. Friends and family openly referred to the danger they felt and the fact that, in their eyes, Yvel and Damily no longer have a place in Tulear. One day, the friends who provided housing to Damily, who are like family, even said to him “Go back to France, Damily. There are rumors people want to attack you and to attack ‘us.’” Damily’s new status (living abroad, rich and being a “vazaha”) appears to represent a danger not only for him but for local residents close to him. After much hesitation and hand-wringing, the thought of moving to Madagascar was abandoned. Alternating between two countries – and universes – did not seem possible, either. Neither Damily nor Yvel abandoned Tulear, however. In the long term, they feel strongly about returning from time to time under better circumstances. Y:

I would nevertheless like to [. . .] have a little place over there, be able to buy some land, you know, that was really big, where we could have everybody,

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Julien Mallet [. . .] the extended family, friends, that there could be at least [. . .] why not eighty people and for us to be able, when we came to Tulear, we know that’s where we’re going, we’re not at anybody else’s house, not bothering anybody, it’s natural, we’re among family. (Yvel, December, 15, 2009)

Regarding his career in Madagascar, Damily explains: For the moment, no. I am leaving my name hanging down there like that [. . .] the name is already, I mean, I was already a musician in Madagascar, you know? So there’s no problem in fact. When my name is still living, people continue to think that [. . .] I continue [. . .] to make music, you know. And then, I’ve already worked in Madagascar [. . .] for a long time, a really long time, you know? I gave everything to Tulear. J: But for example, is that among your objectives, to one day return to do a concert in Tulear? D: Yeah, well, that’s one of my goals, anyway. Putting together a show, just once, in Tulear, you know. For Tulear, voilà! Especially me, I keep bringing out albums, and they’re still tsapiky, so I haven’t changed. It’s important for Tulear, the return of my whole itinerary, after Tulear, in fact, to show that to Tulear, show them, here you go guys, here’s what I did after I left you. I have that project in my head, but I don’t know when it’s going to happen. (Damily, December, 15, 2009) D:

Damily does not want to be perceived as a “show-off” when he returns, unlike some Malgache expatriates. A solution that he does envision would be to return for an important concert to perform music he has created in France as “a present for Tulear.” Although he is physically far away, Madagascar is ever-present in Damily’s thinking, and he regularly exchanges telephone calls and makes frequent Western Union transfers, doing what he can to maintain his social position and family ties. Although they have adapted to his new living circumstances, he reinterprets these altered bonds with a touch of humor as appropriate for Malagasy families: D:

Well, OK, yeah [. . .] in Malgache culture, the big brother is the spokesperson; the little brother, he carries the baggage, so I’m in the middle and I don’t do anything, voilà! (laughs). So my role is to help them. I help them, I watch, I didn’t abandon, I always keep on going, even andafy.29 [. . .] I send money. (Damily, December, 15, 2009)

A variety of families require his input and support. He feels responsible for the financial and medical circumstances of some of his family members, as well as the occasionally turbulent social relations that his departure may have exacerbated. One cousin demands the right to reclaim the family land where Damily’s mother lives, for example. Damily’s mother inherited the land from his grandfather, who

From Tulear to France 61 had been given the land by the cousin’s father. The cousin now insists on being paid 20 million30 in exchange for her retaining the land. Damily sees this as a blatant attempt to take advantage of his improved material circumstances. Damily has left the country, made a fortune, and is now perceived as the family’s “deep pockets.” After long consideration, Damily tells his mother to relinquish the property. She located a new piece of land where Damily will someday “answer” his cousin by throwing a huge party. Damily is also responsible for his musicians’ expenses in between tours. They live in extremely modest circumstances and face jealousy and tense social relations because of their frequent travel abroad. Tulear is part of Damily’s daily life and occupies an important place in his career as a musician: D:

Because me, I was there, and then I left Tulear, but without abandoning it, you know! I bring it back [to France] with me because that’s what I present to the entire world, look: “Madagascar Toliara!” (interjections sent out to the audience at concerts), you see, it’s not “Damily! Damily!” no, what’s inside is “Madagascar Toliara,” which means that I carry Madagascar and Tulear with me. (Damily, December, 15, 2009)

Tulear remains a powerful reference for Damily, and his presence there has remained strong, if only via the frequent comings and goings of his musicians, as well as music and concert videos that circulate widely in rampantly pirated copies. Although he does not encourage pirating, Damily does not object to the fact that his musicians distribute the music after returning home from a tour. He is aware that this provides a modest source of income and helps keep the music and his name in local circulation. In the end, the relationships – real and perceived? imagined? – that Damily has managed to maintain with Madagascar are constructed on elements that are powerfully anchored in his memories. He sees his grandfather Revary as an especially key figure in his development: D:

My grandfather, he was like my father, he adopted me, he raised me, he transmitted his entire culture to me, you know. So I say that he’s my father. He’s my father, not my grandfather. He helped me, he saved my life. I am always thinking about him, always, always. (Damily, February, 12, 2010)

Revary died at a time in Damily’s life when he was completely committed to the “tsapiky system.” He was unable to attend his grandfather’s burial because of a series of commitments to play at ceremonies. During a visit to Tulear in 2006, ten years after his grandfather’s death, Damily organized a memorial ceremony for his grandparents in Tongobory. D:

I called the family from here [France] before I left and asked them “Do you all agree for me to do this in the village?” My mother told me “Yes, it’s not just

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Damily has been steadily inspired by the powerful, recurrent figure of his grandfather in order to refine and (re)build his identity and sense of self. As mentioned earlier, his grandfather assigned him his anarambinta (“fortune name”), Mbola, which corresponds to the sixth Malgache month (asombola). While we were discussing his heritage from his grandfather and the reasons why Damily did not follow his grandfather to become an ombiasa (diviner-healer), Damily explained: D:

Well, he was “Monja” [. . .] “Monja,” it’s a name you get according to the day of your birth. “Monja” can make ombiasa, Mosa can make ombiasa, Soza too, but “Mbola” can’t, he is already masina (sacred), so there is no point in becoming ombiasa. [. . .] Masina, the day of my birth was really masina. I am masina. So everything I do, without the ombiasa objects, it works, with my words, my fingers, everything I do, you know. (Damily, February, 12, 2010)

He later continues: Why didn’t he transmit it (his knowledge of ombiasa) to me? Because my generation in fact, is really a generation that has nothing to do with this knowledge. He never went to school, but I went. For him, somebody who went to school doesn’t want to become Ombiasa. He’s going to become a teacher or a doctor or something like that. So, vazaha you know. [. . .] And anyway, my name, Mbola, for him it’s “vazaha.” He’s the one who said “you are a vazaha.” [. . .] “Vazaha, that’s the sign of “Mbola,” in fact, vazaha, a person who is vazaha. So, vazaha is not in the white sense and all that [. . .] He transmitted his culture to me and he showed me: “Here’s my culture,” “But since you are vazaha, you can’t do the same things as I can, but you are masina, so everything you are going to do, it’s going to be masina like what the ombiasa do.” I trust his words. [. . .] He told me: “You, you are not going to become ombiasa because your birthdate is not right for the ombiasa, you are already masina, so if you keep making your music you’re going to take care of people with your music, like I do when I care for people with my gris-gris.” That’s what he told me. [. . .] For you, the vazaha, here [in France], music is for listening to or I’m not sure what, but for us, the Malgache people, music is really about suffering. It removes suffering. So my role is to take care of people who suffer. [. . .] I take care of people with music. [. . .] I have thought about that for a long time now, ever since my grandfather told me “You are going to take care of people with your volohazo (the wood that the ombiasa scrape).” So my volohazo, that’s my guitar, I mean it’s made of wood. I always, always keep that in my head, that even when I’m playing on the radio, I’m taking care of people. (Damily, February, 12, 2010)

From Tulear to France 63

Figure 2.5 Damily, portrait, Maine et Loire, 2011 © Flavie Jeannin.

A figure of globalization When Damily discusses his itinerary, he often returns to key childhood moments, even his birth, to justify and illustrate his strong individualism. These include Damily as “vazaha” – unique and sacred. Such thoughts help him give meaning to his departure for France and his role as a musician. Damily’s way of mobilizing a range of registers to support his self-definition offers interesting food for thought regarding processes of identity formation. It would be tempting with respect to Damily’s itinerary to opt for an analysis in terms of “cultural conflict” such as that critically described by Michel Giraud in his article “Mythes et stratégies de la ‘double identité’” (Myths and Strategies of ‘Double ‘Identity’). “Uprooted,” caught between two worlds, between two identities, Damily would thus be, according to this view, a “marginal man.”31 But, as we have seen, from early on Damily was in many ways already marginalized from his own culture. In a previous article (Mallet, 2009), I described tsapiky musicians as “internal marginals” who find themselves at the intersection of values and codes belonging to several different orders. Through tsapiky, Damily’s ability to cross boundaries was confirmed very early, as was his capacity to use different levels of networks and relationships, from familial and social to ethnic and commercial. Even inside his own group, tsapiky musicians, Damily gradually individualized himself by becoming well-known and via the discourse that enabled him to

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distinguish himself from other musicians, as well as the fact that he left Tulear for France. Damily was separate from birth and explicitly categorized as different, mifaratse, atrambo (“untouchable,” meaning that no one had the right to touch him other than family members). He is also masina (sacred). Along with another key element of his childhood among memories of his grandfather, these are among the “tools” with which Damily builds his sense of identity as unique but also as a full-blooded Malgache. From Damily’s early age, his family called him “vazaha,” a term typically applied to foreigners that can also designate Malgaches who have achieved elevated social status or have left the country. As Papinot has shown (1998: 117), the term can also be used to “stigmatize a fellow citizen who, in the sphere of modernity, occupies a higher social position than the speaker and whose ways of being and doing deviate from group norms and from the group’s principle of fundamental cohesion (fiahvanana). The concept therefore serves to signify symbolic exclusion.” In addition to the fact that he left Madagascar, Damily was already “vazaha” according to his grandfather, the stars, and tradition. The fact that he was considered singular even by his own culture may also motivate him and give meaning to his self-conscious discourse concerning itinerary. Indeed, Damily’s powerful sense of individuality is constructed and mobilized to explain, justify, or legitimize his individuation. But it has also enabled Damily to construct his singular itinerary via a self-concept as a unique individual that has allowed him to cross boundaries and penetrate past borders. Damily’s itinerary, personality, and knowledge of the context that he left behind support Giraud’s idea that the individual is not constructed through group belonging but instead that collective identities are only the material used in the “fabrication” of individual identity. It is the individual-subject who is ultimately the artisan of this “fabrication,” and every collective identity is, according to Devereux32, a “tool” . . . that simultaneously actualizes and implements the unique model of his personality.³² The identity of the individual is never completely imposed on him or her from the exterior by the existing The individual’s identity is never totally imposed from the exterior by those who already exist among whom he makes his own place. (Giraud, 1987: 62) Instead of becoming involved in the difficult negotiation of a “dual identity” or a “cultural conflict,” Damily tinkers with the “tools” that are available to him to respond to a situation, while at the same time participating in its construction; one does not define an individual identity with reference to the origins of the cultural attributes that form the basis of its development. [. . .] The individual who proceeds from two different cultural traditions is thus lead to recompose, synthesize, reinterpret, and therefore transform the different traditions, by appropriating them to create a new reality that is not a simple addition from

From Tulear to France 65 them but a syncretic identity, original, that can be identified neither with any particular feature of his origins nor with his origins taken as a whole. (Giraud, op. cit: 63) Where some scholars speak of “dual identities,” it is necessary then to see in fact original cultures as distinct entities, new syncretistic cultures, in which one can also live as well (or badly, depending on one’s choice), as in the cocoon of identities claimed to be “simple” or “pure” (Giraud, op. cit., p. 63). According to this view, Damily is not a prisoner of his past or tradition but is oriented toward an open future that is permanently under construction, an itinerary that is in the process of becoming even as it relies on pre-existing elements as well as limitations and multiple interactions. The aspirations of all of the actors – his band members – Claude, Ganygany, Naivo, and Rakapo, who are from Tulear and who reside and repeatedly return there – for Damily, who is from Tulear but lives in France and for Yvel, who was born in and lives in France but is familiar with Madagascar – their aspirations, their ways of understanding present and future and how things function, their way of conceiving the group as a project are different. But beyond the specific content and complex interactions between and among these individuals, they all revolve in some way around Damily, with the shared goal of enabling the group to live and progress.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

For more on the ceremonial functions of tsapiky, see Mallet (2008). Parts of this chapter are based on a previously published article (Mallet 2002). A lunar month (the Malagasy calendar is moveable). Womex: The World Music Expo www.womex.com/ Damily’s ex-wife. The discovery of sapphires in the region caused a gem-rush at the time. A lot of people left their jobs and homes and moved into improvised villages like Ilakaka. After considering her estimate further, Yvel recalled a sum closer to 2,500 euros. A neighborhood in Tulear. Group leader and owner of the instruments of the tsapiky group “tsodrano.” Formal speech. The Malagasy copyright office. (Literally “catching flies”), a dead season between the end of December and the end of March, the rainy season and the hottest time of the year, during which there are few ceremonies and therefore few “contracts.” Audio field-recording CD: Tsapiky, panorama d’une jeune musique de Tuléar, Arion, ARN646612005. After working for Editions Arion (a world music label) and publishing my compilation on tsapiky created Hélico, Valentin Langlois created an independent label. The meeting with Damily and Yvel took place through an intermediary, Valentin, a childhood friend. The VIP is a SMAC (a stage for contemporary musics) subsidized by the Ministry of Culture. See www.les-escales.com/scene-musique-vip/qui-sommes-nous.asp For an excerpt of the concert video (filmed by the author), see www.youtube.com/ watch?v=wBngItazIdo Regarding the notion of material mediation, see Hennion (1993). Dances are no longer held in this space, which suspended evening musical events. www.helicomusic.com/ www.labellevilloise.com/

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21 For tour information, see Damily’s site: www.damily.net/actualite.html 22 Excerpt of video: www.dailymotion.com/video/xe4yss_damily-paleo-festival-nyon2010-con_music (site du festival: http://yeah.paleo.ch/fr) 23 “Ela lia,” Hélico/L’Autre distribution, April 2011. 24 Regarding “musicos,” see Perrenoud (2007) and the chapter by Gabriel Segré. 25 Cf. the diversification of the repertoire as a typically Western phenomenon. 26 The second segment of a tsapiky piece, kilatsake, is a moment of peak intensity that establishes a strong progressive energy that is associated with accelerating tempo. When the piece includes singing, this part is reserved for the “soloist” (guitarist). 27 Regarding the “us” used in the tsapiky environment and its creative processes as they are related to music, see Mallet and Samson (2010). 28 For an analysis of this type of process in another context, see Sayad (1999), particularly the section “Les trois âges de l’immigration,” p. 53–99. 29 Literally “Country on the other side of the seas” (in this case, France). 30 Approximately 1,600 euros. 31 Giraud critiques, among others, the ideas of Roger Bastide (1965: 190), who “wrote about the migrant that two men live inside him who are going to fight each other in the depths of his soul” (Giraud, 1987: 59) and Everett Stonequist (1937: 2–3) through his use of “cultural marginality” and “marginal man” to define “dual identity” (Giraud, 1987: 60). 32 (Devereux, 1972: 162).

References Bastide, Roger. Sociologie des maladies mentales, Paris: Flammarion, Nouvelle Bibliothèque Scientifique, 1965. Devereux, Georges. Ethnopsychanalyse complémentariste, Paris: Flammarion, 1972. Giraud, Michel. “Mythes et stratégies de la ‘double identité’,” L’Homme et la Société, n°83 (1987): 59–67. Hennion, Antoine. La passion musicale, une sociologie de la médiation, Paris: Métailié, 1993. Mallet, Julien. “Histoire de vies, histoires d’une vie, Damily, troubadour des temps modernes,” Cahiers de musiques traditionnelles, n°15, Ateliers d’ethnomusicologie, Georg éd, Genève (2002): 113–132. Mallet, Julien. “Asio elany ! le tsapiky une jeune musique qui fait danser les ancêtres,” Cahiers d’ethnomusicologie, n°21, Ateliers d’ethnomusicologie, Georg éd, Genève (2008). Mallet, Julien. Le tsapiky, une jeune musique de Madagascar, ancêtres cassettes et balspoussière, Paris: Karthala, 2009. Mallet, Julien, and Samson, Guillaume. “Droits d’auteur, bien commun et création. Tensions et recompositions à Madagascar et à La Réunion,” Gradhiva, n°12, La musique n’a pas d’auteur (2010): 117–137. Papinot, Christian. “‘VAZAAH – L’étranger’: de l’origine extra-territoriale à l’exclusion symbolique,” Journal des anthropologues, 1998, [En ligne], 72–73, mis en ligne le 01 janvier 1999. http://jda.revues.org/2703. Perrenoud, Marc. Les Musicos. Enquête sur des musiciens ordinaires, Paris: La Découverte, 2007. Sayad, Abdelmalek. La double absence. Des illusions aux souffrances de l’immigré, Paris: Seuil, 1999. Stonequist, Everett. The Marginal Man: A Study in Personality and Culture Conflict, New York, 1937 (published by Russel Land Russel in 1961).

3

Lori, Linda, and Andrea The journeys of three French Louisiana music transplants Sara Le Menestrel

Figure 3.1 Andrea (foreground), Lori, jam at the Baudoins, September 15, 2008 © Dominic Cross

Newport Folk Festival, Rhode Island, 1964 In 1964, Dewey Balfa, the first Cajun fiddler to be featured at the celebrated Newport Folk Festival, received a standing ovation alongside Joan Baez and Bob Dylan. This moment has been described as a major turning point in the historiography of French Louisiana music. Indeed, Balfa’s performance for a nonLouisiana audience represented a moment of redemption that ended a period of denigration of French Louisiana music as obsolete and dissonant “chanky-chank” and of its rebirth as a folk music tradition that was worth preserving.

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A tribute to Cajun music, Lafayette, Louisiana, 1974 On the strength of this newfound success and with the help of folklorists, academics, and local francophones, Dewey Balfa started a movement to revitalize French Louisiana music. He helped to organize a concert to pay homage to Cajun music that was so successful in mobilizing the local public that it has evolved into one of the region’s major annual music festivals, now called “Festivals acadiens et créoles.” Ever since French Louisiana music began to be recorded by national recording labels in the late 1920s, the diffusion, validation, and promotion of the French Louisiana repertoire have involved a continual dialectical movement in which the local music scene responded to outside pressures that have in turn stimulated local interest. Academic and cultural institutions have played important roles in this circular process, under the influence of folklorists, including both nationally known figures such as John and Alan Lomax and Ralph Rinzler and regional specialists such as Lauren Post and Harry Oster.1 Other important players have included film producers and directors as well as musicians and dancers. The process has required collaboration between a wide range of individuals and groups, leading them to influence each other and ultimately defining how the French Louisiana repertoire has evolved and changed. After earning a place in the national music scene and reclaiming its place of honor in the tastes of regional inhabitants, French Louisiana music began to generate interest among “folk” music fans. Across the United States, groups formed to celebrate and promote Cajun and zydeco music through courses, dances, concerts, festivals, and websites. The most extensive fan networks developed in the San Francisco Bay Area and New York State.2 Beginning in the early 2000s, a number of members of these networks decided to move permanently to the Lafayette area. Mostly in their fifties, they tend to belong to the urban middle class, some having retired early with comfortable incomes and others with portable professions. Within the space of only a few years, this circle of transplants had expanded to forty to fifty people whose itineraries and webs of interactions illustrate circulation processes and some of the repercussions of such circular patterns. This phenomenon of reterritorialization has supported the development of new social hierarchies while contributing to how French Louisiana music has evolved and to its configuration both locally and nationally. Gare d’Austerlitz, Tuesday, September 29, 2009 Lori arrives in Paris at 7:10 a.m. after a 22-hour train ride, leaning on walking sticks and wearing only a small backpack after completing the pilgrimage trail to Santiago de Compostela in Spain a few days earlier. Neither a walker nor an athlete, Lori is a curvaceous fifty-two year-old who, like most Americans who live in rural areas, travels nearly everywhere by car. In spite of this, she has just walked nearly 450 miles in six weeks. She was passed every day on the trail by fellow pilgrims, but she progressed at her own deliberate pace, falling in with other solitary pilgrims for a time before continuing on alone. She did not speak

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Spanish and had no telephone, books, or music, and she chose not to join any of the numerous large groups of pilgrims she met along the trail who would have been happy to include her. “You find what you need on the camino,” she explained. Once, musing that she needed something to read, she was offered a book by a young German pilgrim, The Philosopher and The Wolf. Lessons from the Wild on Love, Death and Happiness. An essay on the meaning of life, by Mark Rowlands. “You remember at Ashokan, when I was depressed because didn’t feel part of the clique?” she digresses, referring to one of the most popular traditional music workshops in the United States, held each summer in New York State, which we attended together along with a number of other transplants during the summer of 2008. “Ashokan is where my camino started.” She explains that the pilgrimage has helped her realize that she doesn’t need to be a member of a group. “I don’t need to worry about what people think about me, or how they’ll judge me, or whether I’ll be invited to that party.” “Transplant community? I belong to it, sure, but I’m not defined by it. I don’t let it limit me. I don’t let it dictate what I do.” Lori observed that in simply going from one party to the next within the same circle, some people risk missing certain aspects of the culture around them. “I’m living in this culture, I don’t want a subculture to tell me what this culture is about.” Although she is aware that she is perceived as a pillar of this “expatriate community,” she prefers not to be limited to it at the expense of her individuality, which she deems all the more important because of her profession as a graphic artist.

Joining the dance Lori has moved repeatedly since she was a child, when her father worked in the aerospace industry. Early in our first interview in Louisiana in the winter of 2008, she made a point of emphasizing her exposure to rodeo, beginning when she was eight years old. Her first record album was by Eddie Arnold, a famous country singer. When she first decided to move away from her birthplace on Long Island, she scrupulously listed the locations in the US where she would be willing to live, in a country that she describes as a collection of “foreign countries,” many of which pique her curiosity. As an adult, she has remained faithful to this peripatetic vision, regularly moving between Florida, the Northeast, Colorado, and California and crisscrossing the country on business trips that also took her to Asia and Europe. The single mother of a daughter by the age of twenty, Lori specialized in echocardiography and had a complex career working for different laboratories and later for Hewlett-Packard. My daughter is now 13 and I’m 33, and I’m now getting exposed to all kinds of things. New York City has like the No. 1 country music radio station. So now I’m like tying it back being 10 years old again, cause I’m like going back to my rodeo days. I’m like really into country music. My company sends us to Texas for a conference. And we get to dance with these cowboys. It’s like, it’s kind of like a trail ride, a company-sponsored trail ride. We go and

70 Sara Le Menestrel there’s country music, cowboys, dressed with the cowboy hats, the belts and the boots. And I’m like in heaven. I learn how to two-step dancing around a fire, with my company, with my job. I was using that quick-quick, slow-slow as my mantra. I wanted to learn to dance so bad. But I’m still really focused on my career. So the dancing, it started a spark, but I didn’t really pursue it. I have a 13 year old I’m trying to raise, and a career, and my marriage isn’t doing good. (Lori, March 12, 2008, personal interview) Lori focused on her career and raising her daughter, devoting half of her narrative to the different jobs, activities, and business trips that preceded her move to San Diego, where early encounters Cajun and zydeco music drastically changed her priorities. There’s this huge dance scene in San Diego. So I get involved with swing dancing almost immediately and I’m learning to swing. I’m taking East Coast Swing, West Coast Swing, Lindy Hop, and then I got really involved with Scottish Country Dancing. [. . .] In the meantime, all this whole Scottish country dancing and my feet hurt, there’s this other dancing, this Cajun/ zydeco thing and I was like, “Wow! What is that?” I show up, I kind of figure out it’s from Louisiana, I didn’t know quite what it was, but I had seen a Pepto-Bismol commercial and it was like, that looks really good. The decisive moment for Lori was her first trip to Lafayette: I think the first festival I came to, it was a combination of Festival International and Crawfish Festival. I was 38 [. . .] and it was like, that was all over for me. It was like this is where I want to live. Right away. I just knew. I’m there it was like Mecca to me. It was whenever I was coming here, I was so excited to come, I did never want to leave. The musty smell when you get off in that airport in Lafayette, it’s just like, “Ahhh, heaven. Home.” (Lori, March 12, 2008, personal interview). Among the many places she has lived, she chose Louisiana as her home even before moving there permanently. My daughter is already grown up and ready to be on her own. So I’m going to move from San Diego to the Boston area. And my yoga teacher says, “If you move to Boston, I’m going to go to Lafayette. I’m going to go home” cause her mother was kind of sick and she wanted to be closer to Thibodeaux and she was also into the Cajun/zydeco thing. So she moves here to Lafayette and I move to Boston. So now, I have somebody that’s really a dear friend of mine that lives here and I have a job where I’m traveling all the time. [. . .] But what was really great is that they didn’t care as long as you saved them money on airfare. So, at every opportunity, I was staying over the weekend

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in Lafayette. So people here thought I lived here for years and years before I ever lived here because I was here all the time. If I had to go to Texas, I’d come to Lafayette first and go to Texas, come back over the weekend and fly home. So I was here all the time. Here for festivals, here before festivals, here not for festivals, just here. (Lori, March 12, 2008, personal interview) Like Lori, Linda was also about thirty when she discovered French Louisiana music. Unlike Lori (and most Californians), though, Linda has long-standing ties to California, where her family has lived for five generations. Linda was not a dancer, but she grew up listening to Benny Goodman and other big bands with her father, an amateur musician who played guitar and trombone. He was really into big band stuff and Benny Goodman, clarinet, all these big band guys. He also played a lot of Hank Williams and Kingston Trio and the guy that yodels, Jimmy Rogers, so a lot of folk-style music. No black music, though. I think the only black music he was familiar with was, which I always find interesting, was, like Louis Armstrong and stuff. But, you know, he listened to all this music that had all these black roots, but he never really talked about black musicians that much. And I’d gotten familiar with them with my music stuff so I thought that was kind of interesting. (Linda, Hidden Hills, June 11, 2008, personal interview) As if to distinguish herself from her father and what she seems to perceive as a gap or contradiction in her narrative, she explains that she was initially a zydeco aficionado before switching her loyalties to Creole style (both music styles are associated with Louisiana Creoles, which in the Southwest refers to the Frenchspeaking black population). Linda’s father became a more prominent figure in her life after her mother died when she was young after a long illness. Her father was an engineer who encouraged her to focus on the hard sciences when she began college. “I was just so serious. I studied. You know, again, influence from my dad, I think. He would try to get me in a good career.” She graduated with a degree in biochemistry and took a job with a company that manufactured equipment for genetics laboratories, a position that she ultimately kept for seventeen years. She often traveled to conferences and was amazed by the dizzying array of musical groups and styles during a business trip to New Orleans. She started to recognize tunes that her father had played for her and soon afterwards attended a music festival in California that initiated her into what was to be her new passion: It was 1993 and I went with a friend to a big thing they used to have in the Bay Area called New Orleans By the Bay. This is just a big thing Bill Graham put on, kind of a mini-Jazz Fest. They had like four stages and four bands a day and it would be like for two days. So, we went for like two days. I remember standing in line with her, she was kind of really cute, Kay, and there was this guy standing in front of us with a little bag, a little duffle bag

72 Sara Le Menestrel and he kept turning around, he was clearly hot for my friend, so he kept trying to make conversation with us. He’s like, ‘I’m going to dance and I got like my extra T-shirts in here.’ He’s got a water bottle, and it’s like, ‘Who is this geek?’ I had no idea what he was talking about and then we go in. And later in the day we go to the big stage where they have a lower stage and an upper stage where the band is and on the lower stage, I think it was BeauSoleil or somebody playing, I don’t even know, I didn’t know who the bands were in those days. And there’s all these people dancing on the lower stage and they’re partner dancing and they’re having the time of their lives. I’m just like, I’m feeling like, I don’t know. I’ve got so much energy running through my body watching this and I just knew that this like was something for me. I was so excited. I waited ’til the guy came off the stage and just sat in a chair to rest and I said, ‘I’m going down there and I’m gonna to go talk to him.’ I made a Bee-line down there and I’m asking him all about the dance, how did you learn and what is this and so he’s telling me how there’s lessons in the Bay Area and there’s this huge dance scene and they dance to live music and it’s really fun and I should go to these dance lessons. And then the music starts back up and he wants to dance and he actually asks me if I want to try it, which was, in hindsight, unbelievable since I’d never done it before. But, it’s easy for me to dance. It’s really easy for me to dance and I pick up things really easily, so I did OK. I knew my life changed that day. I can’t even emphasize it enough. It was like a magical day for me, I was so excited. So, as soon as I went home, I’m looking up the dance lessons and all the dances and I’m getting on the websites and I’m like, “Oh, my god.” In the San Francisco Bay area, there were probably eight bands playing this style of music Cajun-zydeco. There’d be three or four hefty dances a week and then there were festivals going on and, so it’s like, “Oh, my god.” So I just dove in headfirst like a lot of people do when they get the bug. I got really fanatical. The first couple of years, I had to go to every dance and I had to dance all the time. [. . .] How old was I? My mid-to-late 30s. And a lot of my friends at work were getting married and having babies and I wasn’t doing that, I was living the single life. So, this was a place I could plug in, there was all kinds of people who were available to, as a community, of single people, or people who wanted to socialize that way. Their kids were grown, or they’re divorced, or they’re [. . .] there’s tons of recovering alcoholics there. There’s all kinds of people who are on their second life kind of thing. So I made a lot of very good friends in there. Huge community. I met my husband in there. (Linda, June 11, 2008, Hidden Hills, Arnaudville, personal interview) Lori and Linda belong to a circle of fans – mostly single women – whose social schedules enabled them to become deeply involved in networks of dancers who develop strong bonds and see each other frequently, deriving intense pleasure from

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this shared passion. Several years passed that were punctuated by various adventures, balls, parties, and pilgrimages to Louisiana to attend festivals, festivities, and workshops – the Festival International in April, the Zydeco Festival in September, the Festivals Acadiens et Creoles in October, and Mardi Gras in the Spring. Joining this network meant acquiring a new status that was entirely separate from their professional identities. Linda and her husband often hosted parties for several hundred people that became very popular, while Lori became an accomplished dancer, bringing new dance steps back from her trips to Louisiana to share with her group and later teaching zydeco dancing at Ashokan. Their activities had psychological benefits, too. Lori, a “woman of substance,” as she put it, discovered that she had unexpected seductive power over Louisiana Creole men. “Here, you know, the more you got, the more they like it and you feel very accepted and cherished and admired. So it was like, I had never had that experience where your abundance is like, ‘ooh.’” After eight years of frenetic dancing, Linda developed an interest in playing music, although she recognized that dancing was fundamentally therapeutic. Danny Poullard, a Creole fiddler who moved to California in the 1970s, was highly supportive of her new interest. Over the years, Poullard has played a prominent role in the early careers of a series of musicians by mentoring fans. His former students unanimously praise his unflagging encouragement and skill in supporting their passion for learning to play.3 My husband passed when we were in California, he died. And after he died, like I said, Danny [Poullard] had played at our wedding, Ed and him were pretty, they didn’t hang around all the time, but they were tight. Danny was really great. I don’t know, I felt like he was being one of my big brothers, at that time, because it was pretty hard for me. And I wasn’t going out to dances and things like that. So, he would start coming by my house, like just drop by. Like on his motorcycle to see if I wanted to go out for a ride. Or, he’d like, him and Gary Thibodeaux was another friend of ours. They’d be, “C’mon. Come to the dance with us.” They started to pull me out and Danny was really great that way. He was genuinely concerned about me and he took the time to call me, or just stop by, or just pull me out back into life again. [. . .] But playing music, I started playing at a really hard time in my life. Like I said, I had a lot of loss and things like that and just a lot of, “What am I doing?” and a lot of doubts about where I was and what I was going to do. Playing fiddle is so hard. You have to concentrate so much just to get one note right. It used to take me right to the present moment and I would forget about all of my worries. And it really has helped me that way. It saved my life. The fiddle saved my life. I know that. (Linda, Hidden Hills, June 11, 2008) She confides this, weighing her words and gazing into the distance with a serious expression. Dancing and French Louisiana music became indispensable sources of energy that helped lift her out of isolation, pain, and turmoil.

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Forging a circle of transplants The plan to settle in Southwestern Louisiana came together after several years of round trips and encouragement from relationships that developed over the years with other fans. For some fans, the move was made materially possible by lucrative professions, while others were able to relocate because they sold property of greater value than what they could purchase in Louisiana, and still others either changed professions or brought their professions with them.4 Most permanent moves took place in stages, often following increasingly frequent out-of-season visits to become familiar with daily life. After several relationships with men who were also either regular visitors or residents in Louisiana, Lori met her future husband, a native of New York State, at a zydeco dance in Rhode Island. At the time he was working as an engineer at a naval facility and had been living in the same house for thirty years. Together, they made plans to take early retirement and move to Louisiana. The first step was buying a home in a gated community on the edge of a lake about ten miles outside of Lafayette, which they then rented out for four years before moving there permanently. Linda, for her part, was persuaded to take the plunge by a couple named Jim and Christy who had moved earlier and “planted the seed for moving down here in my head.” At first, Linda rented a small house in Louisiana and traveled back and forth for two years before finally deciding to move her possessions from California to Louisiana in March, 2004 and purchasing a house next door to Lori’s lakeside home. Adapting to local life was not without difficulties. The contrast with the California lifestyle is so striking that new residents often wonder if they will be able to adapt. Two distinct themes are particularly recurrent in their narratives – race relations and nutritional habits. Linda’s regular visits to dancehalls quickly led to the realization that, even in the mid-1990s, the white population still rarely frequented the region’s zydeco clubs, a situation that subsequently changed as tourism increased but that Linda found striking at the time. Andrea, who met Linda in California and began dancing at about the same time, was one of the earliest transplants to Lafayette. She expressed what many future residents experienced when they first encountered the local social dynamics: My first trip, I was aware of the racial differences. And I was just like [. . .] I didn’t know if I could ever come back again based on some of that whole cultural context, you know. [. . .] I was actually at the point of thinking, “Am I going to be able to move down here?” Not only is it a foreign culture and a tight family culture, it is a Catholic culture. And here I’m a nice Jewish girl from New York, what the hell am I thinking about coming down here, you know? (Andrea, June 24, 2008) Even after several years, the differences between the California and Louisiana lifestyles are often mentioned, including the change from a sunny, dry, temperate climate to five months a year of stifling heat and the quality of the food:

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California is the organic, health food capital of the world. And here, you know, they never saw a green vegetable they ever liked. So, it was like, what am I going to eat here? That was really a question, what am I going to eat here, and whom am I going to talk to here? The value system underlying these differences stems from New Age alternative practices that are widespread in the San Francisco Bay Area. The French cultural anthropologist Christian Ghasarian explored how the idea of possibility is at the core of the New Age system of logic. Four interrelated aspects of everyday life are systematically referred to, including spirituality, personal development, natural health, and global change (implying both social and environmental change). This system of meanings is rooted in the idea that “if it is impossible to change the world, it is at least possible to change one’s own life. [. . .] Everyone can involve him- or herself in a process of transformation in order to find his/her ‘raison d’être’ or inner peace” (Ghasarian, 2015). The New Age world of meanings opens up a whole range of possibilities, including well-being and health, inner strength, forming a community, (re) connecting with nature, mixing ancient wisdoms and modern science, developing spirituality beyond religion, exploring the unknown, and developing one’s feminine side. It is precisely this cluster of possibilities that inspired a number of transplants to undertake their moves to Louisiana, because while some aspects of daily life in Louisiana seem to distance them from New Age processes (rich food, pollution, corruption, the lack of environmental policies in spite of rampant erosion that exacerbates vulnerability to hurricanes), other elements are consistent with them, including promoting cultural traditions and music, which are perceived as a form of energy in the same way as food and vitamins. In this way, they are able to integrate the Louisiana lifestyle into a New Age lifestyle, and choosing to move permanently represents, through significant life change and migration, a sought-after personal transformation and a quest for well-being (regardless of what initially triggered the move, their general dissatisfaction level, changes in profession, and the attendant personal dramas). In San Francisco, I had really great food and great restaurants and world class entertainment and I had season tickets to the opera and then my cousins were there and you know, there was certain stuff that was there and the weather was gorgeous and I still love San Francisco. [. . .] As of here, yeah, I didn’t have the best food in the world, it got hot. But on the other hand, I had company all the time and if I got out of work and it’s 5 o’clock, I’m just going down to the Blue Moon and see who’s there. Or there were jam sessions and Sunday there was Louisiana Heritage or go up to Eunice, play there, and I was still doing a lot more dancing back then. And at that time, if I look at the people around me now that I hang around with, almost none of them lived here when I first got there. My friends, Jim and Christy weren’t here full-time, Linda hadn’t come here yet, Madeline hadn’t moved here, Woody and Clarity, Susan Keifer, hadn’t moved here.

76 Sara Le Menestrel [. . .] That was about 2002–2003, something like that. I knew Philip Gould and Sam was one of my buddies and dance people and, I mean mostly it was musician people. When I remember my first six months, I was like, “What did I do moving down here?” I had no old friends, everybody was new, they were friends but they were acquaintances more than friends. But there was just something about this place that just drew me to it, I was just like, “I want to do this.” (Andrea, June 24, 2008) For both Andrea and Linda, the decision to move to Louisiana was not easy, and their enthusiasm did not prevent mixed feelings. The fear that she would lack a sense of affinity with local residents prompted Andrea to form a discussion group even while she was still living intermittently in Louisiana. But frustrations with her life in California and the attractions of the Louisiana music scene helped dissolve lingering doubts. She was tired of driving for an hour to visit friends, and she found that the work that she did at home for IBM further isolated her. Her desire to move closer to her aging parents in Florida finally convinced her. Linda was crushed by her husband’s death, and her life was made still more difficult by other complications – she had serious health problems and quit her job, which was exhausting her, only to find herself alone in a large house several hours away from her friends, with a heavy mortgage payment and growing impatience with the competitive atmosphere in the area. “The stress was all piling up. It was all kinds of things. You know, what have I got to lose? It felt like I didn’t have anything to lose at that point. Maybe that’s what I needed to pull my roots up and go.” As new arrivals streamed in, the circle of transplants began to widen after the mid-2000s, alleviating concerns about the region’s prevailing conservatism that new arrivals systematically referred to. As the circle grew, its members started to refer to it as a community, a term with positive connotations for its members.5 In addition to a shared passion for dance and music, the members of the circle constituted an interactive network that provided practical help with moving (by helping locate housing or garage sales), sharing sources and supplies of organic food, helping locate services and activities for personal development and wellbeing such as yoga, chi qong, shaman consulting, Bach flower remedies, holistic health and beauty products cleansers, and ultimately maintaining connections with certain practices from their previous lives and supporting each other in their new environment.

Making connections In their search for a “community of friends,” transplants used regional musical events as opportunities to see each other and develop relationships with other new residents and locals.6 The Blue Moon Saloon in downtown Lafayette, one of the most popular local music spots, proved to be a major focal point. Combining a hostel with an outdoor bar presided over by a music stage, its rooms are often

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rented to tourists who are fans of French Louisiana music and often stay for long periods. Some guests ultimately settle in the area themselves. The numerous weekly jams in the area – a central feature of local music practices that play a key role in the assimilation of newcomers into networks of local interaction – are also particularly prized by transplants eager to learn to play the region’s music.7 Some new residents took the initiative of creating places to socialize that have played an important role in consolidating the transplant circle but also in opening the circle to local residents. This is the case with Lori and her husband Tom. They decided in January 2007 to launch a new music jam in Arnaudville, a small town fifteen miles northeast of Lafayette that has attracted a number of artists in the past decade, as well as an art school and a dancehall/art gallery for local arts and crafts. They purchased a workshop in the center of town, and Tom occupied one side with his fiddle-making activities, which he began before moving to Louisiana. Lori initially used the other half for her artistic creations, which range from stitched fabric compositions to puppets, before deciding to move her studio to their home. With the encouragement of the Ashokan coordinators, they decided to establish their Sunday afternoon jam in order to promote Tom’s fiddle-making activities.

Figure 3.2 Linda and Madeline on the fiddle, jam at Tom Fiddle & Bow, Arnaudville, August 3, 2008

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In small print, the sign hanging in front at Tom’s Fiddle and Bow also announces the workshop’s secondary function: “Organic Acoustic Jam.” The first people to arrive can be seen from outside, with players grouped in a circle around a cow skin rug and non-players seated on a sofa in an adjoining alcove. A mannequin of a woman sporting a wig and a shimmering gown with Mardi Gras beads greets visitors at the door by extending her hand in welcome. To the left, fiddles hang in single file from the ceiling. The walls are covered with Lori’s artwork: puppets made from baseballs and small, colorful birds on springs with long, slim legs made out of twigs, as well as painted fabrics, album covers, umbrellas, and brightly colored strings of lights. The people at the jam are a diverse group, a mix of transplants, local amateur musicians, and passersby who are musicians or simply spectators. On this particular spring day, a local accordionist is leading the players joined by fiddlers, a few guitars, and a snare drum. Waltzes, two-steps, and reels alternate in succession, and Linda and Madeline sing harmonies. From time to time, someone unstraps the stand-up bass from the back wall, and the rhythm of most songs is punctuated by the ‘tit fer (triangle). Other instrumentalists join in with essential instruments such as the mandolin and the banjo, and, when she is not playing the snare drum, Missy captures the movements of a musician using rapid pencil line drawings, one of her favorite activities. Beyond the front room facing the street, the studio continues back toward the bayou, and a small, improvised kitchen on the right holds a table loaded with covered dishes brought by jam participants. The menu today includes a white bean and pork stew, deviled eggs, stuffed bread, salads, and vegetarian pies.¹² People drift in to serve themselves whenever they are hungry. Further back on a screened porch overlooking the bayou, old-time, bluegrass, and country music players generally create their own separate jam. Rick, an experienced bluegrass guitarist, is often present, and this week a Danish dobroe player visiting the region for a few weeks has joined Rick on the porch while Lori is strumming her ukulele and belting out “Cold Cold Heart,” a plaintive country song. The concurrent jams, snacking, and conversation continue into the early evening. Andrea first began to play an important but still virtual role among French Louisiana music fans while she was still living in California when she created one of the first websites devoted to Cajun and zydeco music in 1995 (there are now hundreds of such sites). The site allowed her to establish warm contacts with the Louisiana musicians whom she promoted, including Sam, a well-known local guitarist (cited earlier) who later rented her a room during her early stays in Louisiana. After she settled permanently in Louisiana, Andrea announced that she would host a jam for string instruments such as the fiddle and guitar based on an e-mail list that gradually grew in size. Sam asked if he could post an announcement for her, and after other musicians also appealed to her with similar requests she decided to create a more extensive list to distribute daily announcements about concerts, workshops, performances, and benefit events,8 while also featuring other types of announcements including exhibits, miscellaneous for-sale items, real estate deals, and garage sales.

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Figure 3.3 Lori and Shane, a Californian who used to come on a regular basis in the area. In the foreground, Rick. Jam at Tom Fiddle & Bow, back porch, Arnaudville, November 1, 2009

The list’s reputation grew to the point that the region’s musicians began to systematically correspond with her to announce their schedules because they knew she was reaching a wide French Louisiana music fan-base.9 The high profile of her mailing list transformed Andrea into a key player in promoting regional dance and music and earned her recognition among musicians as a local music expert, information source, and resource for visiting fans and new residents. It also led her to play an important role in Linda’s itinerary during a long visit to Louisiana in April 2003. Andrea had just moved here, not permanently yet, but she was half here and half there. And so she had already plugged into the community and met a lot of people and her and I were not like hang out buddies before that. We knew each other, but we didn’t hang out all the time. But she said, “Oh, come on down, I’ll take you around.” She just gave me the red carpet treatment. She took me to the Blue Moon and introduced me to a million people and took me here, and we gotta go there, and you gotta see this. Just gave me the whole tour. (Linda Castle, Hidden Hills, June 11, 2008, personal interview)

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Like Andrea and Lori, Jim and Christy have devoted themselves to promoting local culture through their saloon/dance hall called the Whirlybird, where the couple periodically organize events.10 They directed a Montessori school in San Francisco, where they became closely involved in the Bay Area circle of fans before deciding to sell the school and establish a new one north of Lafayette, which opened its doors in 2009. In exchange for an optional donation, the Whirlybird also hosted other initiatives including concerts by amateurs or visiting musicians, theatrical events, and music video productions.11 Through the Whirlybird and their support for local musical creativity, Jim and Christy united several different circles – California fans based in the Bay Area, transplants, and Louisianans – functioning as mediators and facilitators and opening their welcome and networks of acquaintances to newcomers as well as residents and locals. In return, their connections helped them fund their school initiative through fundraising events and volunteer participation as well as financial gifts from residents. These funds allowed them to renovate old buildings on their property, install the necessary infrastructure, and pay for the training of three health teachers to help combat the region’s alarming rates of child obesity.12 Jim and Christy’s Stonewood website, which was inaugurated in the spring of 2009, provides a good illustration of the scale and significance of the network that they created. Within the initial ten days, over two hundred members, both residents and outside fans, had registered for the site and been grouped into clusters of friends based on invitations with forums, chats, event announcements, and discussion groups mostly related to music but also to other attractions and topics such as health, food, and the environment. Several months after this rapid beginning, the site began to lose steam, however, and it ultimately ceased activity, primarily because it was dethroned by Facebook, which many fans use prolifically (LinkedIn, a professional networking site, is in common use among these networks). It became clear that fans prefer to focus their interactions on broader platforms, which allow them to explore their commitments to the French Louisiana fan community without necessarily being limited to it. Jim and Christy’s rurally located Montessori school also suffered because of the difficulty of persuading parents to travel twenty minutes outside of Lafayette to take their children to and from school. Another factor was a certain skepticism (or lack of familiarity) with alternative education in one of the poorest areas in Southwestern Louisiana. One year after it opened, Jim decided to look for a new location for the school. Financial difficulties also prompted the couple to move the Whirlybird building onto land adjoining the school and their residence. Christy accepted a position as program director of the Cité des Arts in Lafayette, a highly active local arts center and theater center whose objective is to “connect cultures” through the visual arts, and Jim began organizing theater workshops and improvisation sessions and developing an artistic career as an actor, photographer, story-teller, and designer. Although fully aware of the culture gap between Louisiana and California, Jim and Christy did not anticipate the obstacles that gradually compelled them to modify their original plans. They also encountered

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problems mobilizing the Creole population, who rarely attended their events, a further indication of one of the fundamental limitations on sociability between different segments of the French Louisiana population. During the 2008 Presidential campaign, musicians from the group Balfa Toujours, led by the famous Dewey Balfa’s daughter, decided to record a song in support of Barak Obama, inviting a celebrated Creole accordionist to play with them. They made an agreement with Jim and Christy to film the clip at the Whirlybird and invited the entire network to attend.13 Within three days, the song “Oui on peut!” (Yes We Can!) – or “Zydeco Obama” – had been composed, filmed, and broadcast on YouTube, as well as showcased twice nationally on MSNBC by Rachel Maddow on her high-profile show. The film was virulently criticized by some Louisianans, who wrote letters accusing the songwriters (all except one of whom were Louisianans) of not representing local opinion, in a region overwhelmingly dominated by Republicans. Jim and Christy enabled an entire network of pre-existing relationships to become more firmly established by providing a wider discursive space. This expanded network prospered via interconnected lists and websites, creating interactive spaces at local, regional, and international levels and multiplying the circulation of information. Depending on the situation, the network constituted through this process unites several interconnecting circles that link transplants, Louisianans, and outside fans. Through their many initiatives, transplants have played a central role in constituting and maintaining these networks. Some of them tend to be more closely involved in the process than others, particularly those who aspire to a broader role in “community-building” than music fans. For example, Andrea named her website “A Transplant’s Guide to Acadiana”14 and her Google group the “Acadiana Community,” two names that focus on regional identification. Jim and Christy have become pivotal figures among fans and a number of the region’s musicians. They serve as the focal point of a network in which some connections can procure greater social prestige than others and which is supported by an array of well-known musicians who at times have functioned as mascots. This dynamic thus contributes to a process of hierarchization among both local musicians and transplants. While some transplants never miss a single event organized inside the network and aspire to gain the attention of a particular renowned musician or to become involved in the board of a particular workshop or festival, others seek to distance themselves from the established network to create their own. In our first interview, Lori tried to delicately impart to me the distance that she felt between herself and this environment, a year before undertaking her pilgrimage: I think my home people are the people that I know from Arnaudville, my good friend Missy. And it’s like they’re this support group, but they’re not like I’m really good friends with William the sculptor in Arnaudville and George and Miss Rita and Emily and it’s like for me, the Arnaudville people is like my connection more so than the other – I don’t know – I guess it’s equal, but I don’t consider it my only group.

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Shifts in status and authenticity: from fan to resident The fanatical dancer It was so exotic to us. It was so foreign and so beautiful in so many ways. Its funkiness was just beautiful, you know. [. . .] And we just we’d just go berserk and dance for three or four days and get completely exhausted and go home so happy. (Linda, Hidden Hills, June 11, 2008) New residents readily recognize themselves in their own descriptions of fanatical dancers. Linda recalls with a smile her early group trips, when she felt consumed by the urge to dance and repeatedly stayed up night after night in dancehalls. In becoming residents, however, transplants take on a different status that is defined by contrast with their previous roles as neophyte fans who had never been to Louisiana or had limited experience of attending a handful of festivals. Fans are also recognizable by their dance styles: The California style is distinguishable from the East Coast style, and each teacher leaves traces of their region of origin. Having practiced these styles themselves, transplants easily identify such visitors. Over the years, and after numerous trips to Louisiana, they begin to note and eventually internalize local practices. This is how Lori noticed that, unlike in California, in Louisiana zydeco dancing one does not spin one’s partner. She also learned from experience that the close-contact positions that she learned in the courses she took in California can cause misunderstandings in zydeco clubs in Louisiana: I was always being propositioned, but I didn’t know why. Then I realized that I learned to dance in San Diego and in San Diego, people dance with no dance frame. You were like thigh-to-thigh, you were like going for [. . .] and I didn’t have any dance frame. And now I’m realizing the people from down here don’t dance like that. [. . .] No wonder they’re thinking I’m want to go home with them or something it was like cause I didn’t have the dance frame. Lori had also learned only one dance technique for the Cajun two-step, whereas there are a number of variations in Louisiana. According to this style, which is based on a one-step that keeps dancers constantly moving up and down, arms are joined and separated, crossing and inter-weaving exuberantly, leading dancers’ bodies to face each other, dance side-to-side, or turn their backs to each another. This style is tied to the image of Cajun dance outside of Louisiana, and it is a feature of every tourist brochure and website. Lori expressed intense dislike of this dance style, however, which she describes as a “limping step with pretzel turns,” an opinion shared by a number of Louisiana dancers and musicians who deride this ostentatious dance technique in contrast with a rich variety of local dance practices. Esthetic practices and judgments thus evolve over the course of visits to Louisiana:

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After coming back from my first Zydeco festival, I went to Plaisance, I brought this new hip-hop, kind of new, double-clutching style back to San Diego. [. . .] I started to become this purist because I kept coming down here and I’m like “This is what they do,” Lori recalls. This is how one shifts from being an avid dancer to becoming an expert with authority acquired by experiencing local practices. A new interpretation of musical categories In tandem with changes in dance practices, transplants sometimes retain only rudimentary knowledge of the musical repertoire from their status as former fans. Dance is an obsession, and music is perceived as simply providing the support. Most of their narratives usually do not refer to the first regional group that they heard or the style of music or musicians but instead to the atmosphere, the dancers, and euphoria at discovering a new passion. They recall having begun to listen to the regional “top 10,” which they now perceive as “crap,” “commercial,” or “California-style.” Lisa, a South Louisianan who lived in California for over ten years before returning to her native area, underscored the ignorance about music that she has observed among dancers: It becomes a bit of a battle with the dancers because the people who really support the dance community are generally not Cajun. They’re from outside the culture and they just want the drums to be on time so that they can dance. So it becomes apparent to you that they don’t know the andouille’s missing from the gumbo and they don’t realize that it’s dried shrimp and not fresh shrimp. They don’t know it’s missing and well, as long as the drummer’s playing. (Lisa, February 11, 2008, Loreauville) Stylistic distinctions dissolve, and neophyte dancers learn Cajun and zydeco as if they belonged to a single style, a fact that becomes apparent when fans refer to “CZ bands” and “CZ community” (Cajun/zydeco). Again, their visits to Louisiana alter their perceptions: When we came here it was like, “Oh, now I get it.” Then that’s when I saw this is really zydeco and this is really Cajun. They’re very different, but we mush them together. So we would go home and it would be mushed together again. In fact, many non-Louisiana groups perform hybrid repertoires. When Lori, Linda, and Andrea first began to follow Louisiana dance in the mid-1990s, zydeco’s popularity surpassed that of Cajun music outside of French Louisiana, to the point that zydeco dancing dominated the dances, regardless of whether

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the music itself was Cajun or zydeco. This practice later spread to Louisiana, and certain characteristics associated with Cajun dance (like traveling the floor counter-clockwise) have fallen into disuse in several clubs. Many dancers can be observed – both outsiders and residents – using zydeco dance technique (dancing in place) to Cajun music instead of the Cajun two-step. Despite this observation, zydeco’s popularity does not affect the social dynamics between Cajuns and Creoles, which, at least in rural settings, often continue to be limited to professional or public spaces and other specific domains. Lori recalls being asked to teach zydeco classes by Arnaudville townspeople: They kept saying to me “you’ve got to teach zydeco.” I was like, “Why do you want me to teach zydeco? This is like your local culture. There’s like people that like grew up doing it here. Why do you want me?” The local white people want to learn zydeco from an out-of-towner, I think white person. Although dance practices in Southwestern Louisiana are able to transcend music categories in certain contexts through a phenomenon of reterritorialization, local musical distinctions between Cajun and zydeco musics remain deeply rooted. The blended interpretation of Cajun and zydeco that is practiced in California and on the East Coast is not widely accepted.15 Cajun groups do perform regularly with zydeco musicians, and they incorporate zydeco songs into their repertoires but without mixing them or claiming to be zydeco musicians.16 Exceptions – Cajuns who form zydeco groups, such as Horace Trahan and Travis Matte, have been the object of heated controversy. It is above all a musician’s identification as either Cajun or Black Creole that has determined the category assigned to their musical style, although some musicians contest these binary distinctions and assert claims to both styles (Le Menestrel, 2015). Controversial codification Whether it develops through musical or dance practices, fans’ deepening relationship with Louisiana becomes a badge of authenticity. The more time they spend in the region, the more remote they become from the broader fan network. Even before moving to Louisiana, Andrea perceived that this gap was widening: People would just go, “I don’t like this Louisiana stuff.” Or they’d listen to a band that came from Louisiana and it was like, “My favorite band is Tom Rigney” or somebody who’s playing popularized, Americanized, Californiaized version of music that is like, you know, well, yeah, it’s sort of Cajun but it doesn’t sound like what it’s supposed to sound like. I mean it’s fine, he’s Harvard educated and he’s a great musician, but he doesn’t sound [. . .] it’s not that [. . .] sometimes the best I could say, “Have you ever been to Louisiana?” and they’d say, “No.” I wouldn’t even engage in conversation because how do you explain some of that stuff ?. (Andrea, June 24, 2008)

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Moving to Louisiana confirmed Andrea’s break with the world of fans. Conflicts over authenticity became increasingly acute, and debates over the “good” way of dancing and of teaching dance became more heated. The strong codification practiced by the many out-of-town dance teachers is frowned upon by Louisiana residents (both transplants and Louisianans, particularly musicians), who believe that assigning names to every move and breaking each step into different codes is too “sophisticated” and contrary to the notions of simplicity and informality that are associated with the music. Despite her resistance, it was difficult for Lori not to acquiesce to her students’ pleas to codify her dance teaching at Ashokan, where she and a fellow transplant taught for two years. Here, she describes this experience: Everyone that takes a class basically thinks they’re more advanced than they are. They want the most advanced, newest moves. So essentially, everyone wants the latest here. So you’re always talking about what the newest trend is. And so last year [2007], I brought up the Cupid Shuffle because nobody had seen it. So you’re always thinking about what can you do that’s inclusive, what can you do that people can really learn and learn easily. [. . .] ‘Cause whether, what people want and what they can actually do is not always the same thing. And a dance camp experience has to be a good experience. While Lori felt more constrained at music camps, she takes a different approach in her classes in southwest Louisiana: I’ve learned all different styles. There’s all different styles – there’s no right way. This is an organic dance that changes all the time. This is like capturing a piece of time and then trying to bring it forward to teach somebody. Whenever I’m teaching a class, I always say there is no right way to do this. There’s an eight count, there’s four beats and there’s two four-beats in a phrase of music and that’s how zydeco music is played. And it needs to be danced with two holds. Where those holds go, it could be on two, you know, six, could be, you know, I don’t know. It’s all different. No way is the same and everyone does it different. She eventually decided to stop teaching during the winter of 2007. Adopting the role of zydeco dance teacher no longer suited her, and she answered requests from her Louisiana students to continue teaching by recommending zydeco courses in the area organized by the “Zydeco Ballers” that she attended at the time. The Zydeco Ballers Dance Program consists of a group of Creole volunteer instructors who range from ten to sixty-five years old and who also invite people to join their “Zydeco Ballers Fan Club” to support music bands at music events. “It’s a majority of Creoles. They’re teaching the Creoles their culture, their music.” Without dissecting the steps, she adds, because the goal is not to acquire perfect mastery but to dance for pleasure: If you don’t know how to do it, they come and stand by you. It’s not like a real lesson because if you’re screwing up, it doesn’t really matter. It’s just a

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Sara Le Menestrel great way to learn it ’cause you’re learning it like how they learn it. You’re learning how a Creole learns how to dance. They don’t go to dance lessons and they don’t have the boys over here and girls over here and left foot, right foot, touch, touch. [. . .] No. They call it out, you know. [. . .] People are asking me to teach again and I really don’t know if I want to teach. I don’t mind if I’m asked to teach at Ashokan, but it’s almost sacrilegious, you know, I really feel that this is not my culture, this is something that I love and I live in, but I’m a foreigner in a foreign land. And I’m, like, in awe of the culture and the [. . .] but I’m not one of them. And I’m not an expert. And that’s one of my pet peeves is people come down here and acting like they know more than the local people. (Lori, March 12, 2008)

From dance to music: hierarchies at work Andrea offers the following view of the transition from dancer to musician: You met all these people, like you know, local people. And then you’d walk around Lafayette and everywhere you’d go, you’d run into somebody from camp. You know, you’d see Courtney Granger on the street and you’d go, “Oh, hi! How ya doing?” and he’d give you a hug. I’m going, “Oh, my God!” You’d see Christine in the grocery store or, I mean, it just became like much more familiar than just passing through and going to the clubs cause you’d spend so much time talking to all these people when you’re at camp. And you also got to see the culture from a different perspective, particularly, as I was getting more and more interested in Cajun music and not just zydeco music. All of a sudden I wanted to play something and participate as opposed to just dance. (Andrea, June 24, 2008) Moving to Louisiana appears to prompt this transfer of interest from dance to music, which becomes an infallible distinction between fans and transplants. Each of these three transplants ultimately shifted their passion to learning an instrument. Andrea rediscovered the guitar, which she had abandoned forty years earlier. At the age of forty-four, with no musical background, Linda took up the fiddle. And Lori was inspired to learn the ukulele at Ashokan. They regularly attend weekly jams, and Lori and Andrea also founded their own jams. This change in tastes combines with their resident status to even further distance them from the mass attraction to French Louisiana dance, and they come to associate an exclusive focus on dance with superficiality. They continue to take pleasure in dancing when the opportunity presents itself, but they have become immersed in playing music, attending jams and organizing parties that focus on music and performance, while increasing the number of recordings of courses and workshops that they circulate among themselves and occasionally gathering to rehearse specific songs. In June, 2009, Andrea, Linda, and Madeline, another transplant from the state of Washington, performed as a trio called Lâche Pas for the first time (from the

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Figure 3.4 Lâche Pas at Nunu’s, Arnaudville, November 1, 2009. From left to right, Daniel Gayle (special guest), Linda, Andrea

regional expression “Lâche pas la patate,” meaning “Don’t give up” or “Hang on”). Well-known local musicians warmly encouraged them, and one offered to help them interpret songs and become established as a group. The Blue Moon, the most prominent local music venue in Lafayette, featured them seven months later, and the host of Lagniappe, a local radio show, invited them on the air to discuss their itineraries and play a few live songs. The reorientation of the transplants’ interests toward music and learning to play instruments has infused local music practices with new energy by encouraging well-known local musicians to give more group and individual lessons, encouraging jams to become more open to musical styles such as bluegrass and old-time, stimulating the production of instructional DVDs, and encouraging the growing trend toward seated concerts. Although the music continues to be experienced as dance music, it is also recognized as listening music.17 This process differs from fan networks that developed the 1960s and that initially focused on the musicians and later international (mostly European) folk dancers who integrated Cajun and zydeco into a diverse choreographic repertoire before forming separate groups. Although they existed in parallel, these circles did not interact, however, and they constituted distinct networks of shared knowledge. By contrast, in the current Louisiana configuration, the same individual

88 Sara Le Menestrel displaces his or her center of interest and moves from being a dancer to becoming a musician. Furthermore, while earlier networks of French Louisiana music fans were an outgrowth of the folk movement, 1980s fans came from many horizons, and both musicians and dancers brought eclectic musical tastes and experiences with them. Andrea, for example, was a Beatles and Rolling Stones fan, later developing an interest in Bruce Springsteen and Frank Zappa before discovering the Cajun group Beausoleil in the 1980s. The Balfa Camp and other annual music camps and conventions around the country18 play a vital role in this process and constitute sites of encounters and learning that are especially prized by fans and transplants, who continue to attend them long after settling in Louisiana. Linda recalls the first time she attended Augusta at Davis & Elkins College in West Virginia in August 2001. Encouraged by her mentor Danny Poullard, she attended with a friend and was “blown away.” “It opened up a whole new world of people,” she said, introducing her to another circle of fans who were devoted to learning an instrument instead of exclusively focusing on dancing. She attended Augusta for five consecutive years before enrolling in the Balfa Camp in Louisiana, and she has subsequently alternated between attending Augusta and Ashokan. She attends one or even several such workshops every year. The bonds that are formed during these events are maintained through workshops, festivals, and musical occasions (The Appalachian String Band Music Festival at Clifftop, Virginia, the Black Pot Festival in Lafayette, Louisiana), which are not limited to French Louisiana music but draw on fan networks of other styles. These intersections between genres in turn generate new interests, as Appalachian old-time music fans become enamored with the French Louisiana repertoire and vice-versa, fostering the discovery of more diverse styles of music and even creating converts, with one musical passion replacing another.19 These key events create a particularly intense nexus for interactions amid total immersion in musical activities over the course of a week that include group and private classes, jams, and practice sessions. They are complemented by evenings devoted to dances, concerts, and other jams that often continue into the wee hours of the morning, with interruptions only for meals and a few hours of sleep, as well as occasionally volunteering for the organization. Events like these unite a hundred or more people in a week of intense, nonstop interaction, year after year (and sometimes several times a year), often reliving past memories, exchanging information, meeting different Louisiana music groups, jamming, learning new songs and new styles, and creating new musical projects or even life projects involving moving to Louisiana. Experiencing the camps, rubbing shoulders with famous musicians, and being able to claim them as one’s teachers encourage plans to become a transplant or altering the status of individuals who have already moved. Transplants construct their legitimacy through these processes and exchanges, demonstrating the intensity of their commitment through their new commitments as musicians, a highly prized status on the Louisiana music scene. The shift in taste from dance to music is mirrored by another change, from zydeco toward so-called Cajun and Creole styles. Assigned to a single category

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Figure 3.5 Ashokan (New York State), Southern Week, August 2008. Jam with the Louisiana band The Red Stick Ramblers

until the mid-twentieth century – la musique française or French music – the two styles evolved from the repertoire of early French Louisiana music. While transplants’ passion for dance is primarily directed toward zydeco as it was made popular by Clifton Chenier in the 1960s, their heightened interest in the music causes their tastes to change. For Lori, Linda, and Andrea, zydeco was what “hooked” them into dancing. Although when she relates her early visits to Louisiana Linda relates how she and her friends were “enamored with every single zydeco musician. I mean, we just thought they were gods,” her register changes dramatically when she explains the shift that took place in her musical focus: “zydeco music is dance music, in my opinion. That’s it. It’s really not that great to listen to, most of it.” Without denying their earlier passion, all three transplants concur that zydeco, while it inspired them to move to Louisiana, no longer holds much interest in musical terms. The transplants thus reinforce a hierarchization process that is already at work between these two facets of the French Louisiana repertoire, contributing to another distinction between dancing and listening music. The stylistic evolution of zydeco toward hip-hop, rap, funk, and reggae has drawn criticism from supporters of the more “traditional” style. Their criticisms tend to accuse these influences of impoverishing “modern” zydeco and distancing from its precious rural roots. The exoticization of Blacks

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is a looming presence in this process that extends from the perceived sensuality of zydeco to the heartfelt, leaner style of Creole music. This is no longer embodied in dance but is applied to the music as well. Instead of evoking the sensuality and eroticism of zydeco dancing, aficionados now proclaim the “naturally” syncopated rhythms of Creole style, as well as its poly-rhythmic character and ties to Africa and the Caribbean. The distinctive character associated with Creole music echoes and legitimates the distinction within French music between Cajun and Creole music. In this sense, transplants and Louisianans seem to co-construct a shared racial imaginary. Regardless of which music style is under discussion, the repertoires are characterized by simplicity and rusticity that flow directly from the valorization of their rural heritages. These attributes are particularly observable in the ways in which the musics are taught. Workshops and retreats institutionalize a traditionally informal learning process that continues to characterize music jams. Transplants are especially appreciative of Louisiana musics’ accessibility and the generous encouragement of local musicians. Linda stresses her frustration when she was learning an instrument as a teenager: I was very envious of people who could play music and I always just thought it was the coolest thing. I just always thought I couldn’t do it. Yeah, I thought I kind of couldn’t do it, so I didn’t do it. (Linda, Hidden Hills, June 11, 2008) Later in her narrative, echoing this intimidation and describing the importance of Danny Poullard’s unfailing encouragement and how Danny’s brother Ed continued this role after Danny’s death, she adds: I’d see him a couple of times a year, but every time I’d see him [. . .] I could hardly play, he’d be “How’s that fiddle going?” Here’s this guy who’s like this incredible player, he’s like, “How’s that fiddle going?” [. . .] And he gave me nothing but encouragement. (Linda, Hidden Hills, June 11, 2008)20 After several years in Louisiana, she never misses an opportunity to accompany well-known Louisiana musicians like Ed or the accordionist Jessie Léger as solo fiddler in small concerts or at workshops because she derives intense satisfaction from the experience. The feeling of not being judged, the primacy of sociability over performance, and the professional musicians’ legendary accessibility have encouraged apprentice musicians to take steps that previously would have otherwise seemed virtually insurmountable to them. Other, characteristics of the music more specifically such as dissonance and asymmetrical structure that Louisiana musicians appreciate appear all the more attractive to transplant musicians because they add an air of marginality. A widow since her early forties and single with no children, Linda feels especially touched by Creole songs:

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I mean listen to Canray play. It’s so, it’s so, it’s just coming out of their feeling. It’s not, “Oh we do four beats, you know, here, and dit, dit, dit [. . .]” You know, it’s not, there’s nothing straight about it. It’s just coming out of the heart all the time, I think. It’s just oozing. And I love the dissonant sounds of it, like some of that Creole fiddling, you know. [. . .] That’s my love right there. They’re crooked, they’re slippery, they’re slidey they’re bluesy, they’re beautiful. I just love their inconsistency. It’s not inconsistency. I just love the styling. (Linda, Hidden Hills, June 11, 2008) Through the networks that they create and maintain, transplants play a central role in the renewal of musical practices at the local level and the diffusion of French Louisiana musics outside of Louisiana. Transplants participate in processes of hierarchization that alter music practitioners’ status, but they also contribute to the evolution of the music itself, including all of the different styles associated with the region. Lori’s, Linda’s, and Andrea’s trajectories, like those of their fellow transplants, demonstrate the ways in which their status changes them from fans into residents and from dancers into musicians. These itineraries also reflect their personal growth from fans driven by passion to being established residents with their own individual roots who can exist independently of fellow transplants.

Notes 1 In English, Cajun music is distinguished from zydeco. In Louisiana French, the music is described in writing as either “cadien” [kadzε] (ou “cadienne”) or “Zydeco” (or alternatively “zarico”). 2 This term describes French Louisiana music fans who have settled permanently in Louisiana and is used by some of these fans themselves. Its meaning refers to a plant that has been uprooted and replanted, but also to a medical procedure. The verb “to transplant” is synonymous with displacement and relocation, and the notion of a graft, whether plant or human, is a good expression of the physiological aspect of the importance of this change, the risks inherent in it, and the different stages of the trajectory, from uprooting to implantation to adaptation. 1 A member of the Newport Folk Foundation, John Lomax and his son Alan made recordings in Southwestern Louisiana beginning in 1934 as part of their travels across the country collecting traditional songs for the Folk Song Archives at the Library of Congress. Their initiative opened the way for the folk renewal. When interest in French Louisiana music was declining due to the burgeoning success of rock and roll after the Second World War, the folklorist Harry Oster also recorded a significant number of songs between 1956 and 1959 under the sponsorship of the Louisiana Folklore Society, of which he was a founding member. In addition, Ralph Rinzler conducted interviews and recordings in the 1960s and was the source of Dewey Balfa’s invitation to play at the Newport Folk Festival. 2 This circulation between Louisiana and California has been significantly stimulated by the waves of Creoles who migrated to San Francisco during the Second World War, and that continued into the 1970s in order to escape rampant racial discrimination and in search of employment opportunities with the naval and aircraft industries. Chris Strachwitz, who settled in Berkeley and founded Arhoolie Records in 1960, has also played a key role. His record label continues to record a variety of Louisiana musicians.

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3 See Blair Kilpatrick (2009), for whom Poullard played a critical role in learning accordion and singing. 4 The Bay Area, for example, is one of the nation’s wealthiest regions, whereas Louisiana alternates with Mississippi for the distinction of the poorest state. 5 Most Americans claim to belong to one or often several communities based on such identifying factors as age, sex, religion, “race” or “ethnicity,” place of residence, or leisure activities. An idealistic project based on shared common interests, the community provides the bond. The term has several meanings that range from a residential area to a sense of belonging to a political strategy. Joseph (2002) provides a critical analysis of the romanticized discourse surrounding the notion of community that she describes as based on processes of exclusion and practices of production of consumption that often legitimize social hierarchies. 6 The term “locals” designates individuals settled in the area for longer than transplants or tourists. It is a linguistic convenience, not an analytic category. 7 Whether they are organized in a café, studio, club, restaurant, or in someone’s home, jams are open to anyone interested in joining in, regardless of their proficiency or experience. They are typically led by one or two hosts who can invite special guests, one of whose roles is to kick off tunes, which are then followed by the participants who form a circle. The more advanced play the chorus together or take turns, while the others, sometimes beginners, play the chords and get familiar with the melodies. In French Louisiana music, instruments take turns taking the lead, in other words, usually playing the chorus in the following order: Accordion, vocals, fiddle (and other instruments). During the lead, in the context of a jam, the others commonly play the chords. The accordionist is the group leader and decides when a tune starts and ends and when to give the lead to instruments other than the most common (occasional amplified instruments like electric guitars, harmonicas, saxophones, banjos, etc.). 8 Benefits are frequent regional fund-raising events that are often held for individuals in difficulty (health, death in the family, fire, or a hurricane) or for public service initiatives. In Louisiana, they often entail concerts at which several popular musicians agree to play for free. 9 Initially in the form of simple e-mails, her list came to include so many members that she exceeded the authorized capacity of 500 e-mails per day. This led her to create a Google group that since 2009 has housed the “Acadiana Community” list. (“Acadiana” is the official name for a triangular region whose base is the Gulf of Mexico). 10 www.thewhirlybird.com 11 This was how in 2007 the clip “Made in the Shade” was recorded, featuring the Red Stick Ramblers, a popular group that plays Cajun, Texas swing, and traditional jazz. Directed by a young New York film maker with a stellar career who created music videos for U2, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, and REM and who has since settled in Louisiana, the video was later broadcast on the CMT (Country Music Television) and GAC (Great American Country) networks. 12 $5,500 was raised through electronic donations and fundraising musical events. 13 www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLvgwHGlpdQ 14 www.sfbayou.com/ 15 There also exist numerous white, non-Louisianan groups who describe themselves as “Cajun Zydeco groove” and who claim zydeco influence in their names, including Lisa Haley and the Zydecats. 16 The music that is associated with the label “Cajun” is characterized by a diatonic accordion (also called Cajun accordion although it is not specific to Cajuns nor to French Louisiana music), one or two fiddles, a guitar (classical or electric), and sometimes percussion (drums, petit fer); zydeco, which is associated with Black Creoles, includes a powerful rhythm section (electric guitar, bass, and washboard) backing up a diatonic accordion (one-row but also double and triple-row), and/or accordion chromatic piano accordion.

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17 David Greely, a renowned local musician, began to give seated duo fiddle concerts and later created an annual event called Fiddlers on the Bayou; he subsequently recorded a solo album entitled Sud Du Sud (2009 – Give and Go Records). 18 Ashokan Fiddle & Dance, in New York State, organizes a “Southern Week” devoted to old-time and French Louisiana music, The Augusta Heritage Festival in West Virginia offers a “Cajun and Zydeco Week,” and The Festival of American Fiddle Tunes in Port Townsend, Washington State includes workshops covering a range of traditional musics. 19 The term old-time music first came into use during the 1920s. Among American regional traditions, the Appalachian music enjoys the widest reputation. Although it shares its string-based instrumentation – fiddle, banjo, and guitar – with bluegrass, which arose during the 1940s, bluegrass is distinctive for the importance accorded to performance, solo, virtuosity, and harmonies. 20 Here again, Blair Kilpatrick (2009) documents a similar experience with Danny Poullard.

References Ghasarian, Christian. “To Live in a World of Possibilities: A New Age Version of the American Myth,” in Transatlantic Parallaxes: Toward Reciprocal Anthropology, edited by A. Raulin, and S. C. Rogers, New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, chap. 9, 2015. Joseph, Miranda. Against the Romance of Community, Minneapolis and London: University of Arizona Press, 2002. Kilpatrick, Blair. Accordion Dreams: A Journey into Cajun and Creole Music, Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2009. Le Menestrel, Sara. “The Color of Music: Social Boundaries and Stereotypes in Southwest Louisiana French Music,” Southern Cultures, 13, n°3 (Fall 2007): 87–105. Le Menestrel, Sara. Negotiating Difference in French Louisiana Music: Categories, Identifications, and Stereotypes, Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2015.

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The sense of belonging – or not – to a transnational network Performers and promoters of Afro-Cuban music and dance in Veracruz, Mexico Kali Argyriadis

Figure 4.1 The Orí troop performing in the Eco-Reserve of Nanciyaga, Catemaco, Veracruz, on the night of Friday, March 7, 2008. In foreground, the troop’s director, Javier Cabrera

The distribution of “Afro-Cuban”1 religious practices off of the island accelerated beginning in the 1960s, initially following the migration of Cuban exiles, particularly to the United States, before spreading throughout the Americas and Europe. Because initiations are open, these practices and the ritual bonds of filiation and alliance that are associated with them constitute a connection between individuals of every nationality and place of residence. In Latin America and Europe, the

The sense of belonging 95 practices are best known as santería or Regla Ocha, which emphasize Yoruba origins, while in the United States, the term orisha faith refers to the divinities who are worshiped, suggesting a desire to “return” to African “tradition.” The use of these terms denies a relationship between the orichas and the Catholic saints as well as the complementary practices of spirit and palero cults. The network of performers and fans whose repertoire is based on the choreographic and musical manifestations of these religious practices plays an important role in the transnationalization process. Previous studies have demonstrated (Argyriadis, 2006; Capone, 2005; Juárez, 2007) that these religious practices quickly developed transnational networks that provided the initial circuits by which they were spread by an esthetico-cultural vision in the 1930s. Another network of intellectual elites seeking recognition of African cultural contributions to national, regional, and global heritage and identity later joined forces with this earlier network. These two networks interact today with legitimation strategies of religiosos in their respective places of residence to maintain a collective, transnational, pan-African ideal. This idealized vision does not shed light on members’ actual sense of belonging to a multi-national, multi-lingual, multi-contextual network whose members are no longer necessarily of African descent and that incorporates musicians and dancers from highly diverse religious backgrounds. This study focuses specifically on the question of belonging by exploring an outpost of the network that is located in the State of Veracruz, Mexico. The study, based on fieldwork that I conducted between 2004 and 2010, describes the itineraries of several interconnected but not necessarily acquainted members of the Afro-Cuban repertoire network. Describing their artistic commitments and experience of membership in this network and analyzing their discourse and choice of vocabulary, the study seeks to contribute to a richer understanding of how these participants construct their identities as artists.

Ambassadors of Cuban culture And so those are the plans, for the next Carnaval, in February, this comparsa [group that participates in Carnival] has to be ready . . . in fact, maybe we can present it in Cuba. And also work on creating a Cuban salsa group. We call it salsa because it’s the term used here, but in itself, what we want to do is create a group that plays Cuban music, because salsa is commercial. No, Cuban music, clearly Cuban. Let people who listen to it identify it: Cuban music. Tino Galán, percussionist and Cuban dancer, priest (religioso) and cultural promoter in Xalapa. Interviewed on August 12, 2003 The “Afro-Cuban” musical and choreographic repertoire is now accepted as a legitimate and important expression of Cuban national cultural identity. Being accepted as part of the island’s cultural heritage was not easy. The process began with independence in 1898, and, after being labeled “infernal noise” and

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“lascivious, savage, anti-social dancing” (Ortiz, [1906]), it was eventually recognized as a well-preserved Cuban tradition of African origin transmitted to the non-Cuban public by professional artists who are also practitioners of “AfroCuban” religions. These artists undergo exhaustive training in such fields as reading music, harmony, orchestration, composition, and scenography as well as the Afro-Cuban repertoire, jazz, contemporary dance, classical music and dance, pedagogy, musicology, and anthropology at Cuba’s prestigious art schools. Like Tino, they generally consider their esthetic commitments as proof of the validity of their beliefs and their Cuban-ness. Their approach to teaching the “Afro-Cuban” repertoire is heavily influenced by this close relationship between artistic practice, religious practice, cultural practice, and identity-based practices (Argyriadis, 2001–2002, 2006). Many of these teachers see their roles as professors and initiates as missionary work, sometimes describing themselves as “cultural ambassadors,” particularly when they work abroad for local institutions under contract with the Cuban Ministry of Culture. These individuals are dedicated to representing their art as a complete universe of interconnected practices, explaining the history and religious and political-symbolic value of every rhythm and dance step. Their practices are grounded in the ideas of late twentieth-century Cuban ethnologists and musicologists that consider the dances of the santería (orichas) divinities and batá drumming as expressions of African cultural resistance to oppression – to slavery and colonialism and, later, to imperialism and American interference. These practices were also perceived as elements of a triumphal Cuban cultural identity that for the past fifteen years has become a common feature of revolutionary authorities’ representations of the island to outsiders. These teachers encourage their most motivated students to fulfill their apprenticeship by becoming initiates, a requirement for orichas dances and the rhythmic playing of the batá drums during ritual performances. A growing number of musicians and dancers in America and Europe have therefore begun to consider initiation as a crucial phase of their artistic development. Just as Cuba has long sent “internationalist” doctors to the Third World to illustrate the humanitarian value of its social system,2 athletic coaches, university professors, and art instructors are sent throughout the Spanish-speaking world as part of exchange and cooperation programs. In Mexico in the mid-1980s, particularly in Xalapa, the capital of Veracruz State, students of music and the social sciences who felt politically drawn to the Cuban government and were interested in the batá drums arranged for several Cuban professors to teach at the College of the Arts of the Universidad Veracruzana (see Map 4.1 and Argyriadis, 2009). As they put it, they created “a kind of a network for promoting Cuban culture in Mexico.” Although some of these cultural workers eventually chose to remain in Mexico, sacrificing their privileged status, they were profoundly influenced by their new professional setting. Tino Galán combines the positions of percussionist, Cuban dancer, priest (religioso) and cultural promoter in Xalapa. He started as a guest professor in the university town of Xalapa in 2002 and later settled there permanently, is an

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AÑOS 80 - 90 NACE EL MOVIMIENTO EN XALAPA A PARTIR DE ACTORES CLAVE

NEW YORK

ESTADOS UNIDOS DE NORTE AMERICA LAZARO CARDENAS ESTELA LUCIO TAUMBU SIMBO ABUBA

MEXICO LA HABANA

CUBA MORELIA

MEXICO D.F.

MERIDA

CANCUN

XALAPA VERACRUZ

Map 4.1 1980–90s: Beginning of the movement in Xalapa, key actors

interesting case of this mode of transplantation. Sometimes describing his activities in the first-person plural (as opposed to the third-person impersonal plural used by his local audience) and drawing on the revolutionary vocabulary of struggle3 and complete devotion to the cause, Tino explained to me – and to himself – the local success of the Afro-Cuban repertoire: It’s just that, unfortunately, they didn’t have the cultural level, from the point of view of dance. But there is something curious: Here in Xalapa, they celebrate the Afro-Caribbean Festival every year. And so they gave a festival in which each year Cuban folkloric groups came, that they liked, but they had never had anyone to teach them! So several came, beginning with the first festivals, brigades were created, and musicians from the National Folkloric Ensemble came with them, the Raíces Profundas brigade,4 and

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Kali Argyriadis they gave workshops. But they came only for two, three weeks, they gave an intensive course and then that was it. But starting with the time when we were able to reside here and maintain ourselves systematically, increasing numbers of people began to be interested. We have already participated in training several folkloric groups. In fact, my plan for next year is to celebrate a festival of folkloric music. There are a lot of projects in the framework of our cultural work, for example, forming a danzón orchestra, another one of traditional son, and a Carnaval comparsa. [. . .] And so we have achieved several activities in coordination with the Instituto Veracruzano de la Cultura and the UV (Universidad Veracruzana), and we have received good support from them [. . .] what they need to do now is just support us a little bit more! Any supplementary support is welcome; the results are there. As for the religiosos, the numbers of those joining this activity are increasing. Many of them are beginning to feel attracted and to identify themselves more strongly. (Tino, August 12, 2003) This politicized, intellectualized view of Cuban artists’ ostensible role with respect to foreigners and a quasi-missionary desire contrast with open contempt for local realities. Indeed, Carnaval has been practiced in Veracruz since 1925 and includes numerous ancient comparsas, each with its own style. The port of Veracuz was also Cuban music’s point of entry into Mexico in the early twentieth century, and local residents listened to Cuban radio and appropriated the danzón and the son (García Díaz, 2011). This time-honored process of transplantation and diffusion has helped these musical and choreographic styles to become symbols of jarocha identity5 (Malcomson, 2011; Rinaudo, 2011). Their local symbolism is sometimes even resented by Cubans, who think of son and danzón as aspects of their own identity that earlier movements that militated for a specific Cuban national cultural identity carry like flags, alongside the rhythms of the batá drums (see, for example, Carpentier, 1985 [1946]: 286). This clarifies Tino’s emphasis on the specialized training required for these styles, which he believes must be executed with precision, i.e., in the Cuban manner and not, as he phrased it, “in their own way.” This overtly nationalistic “we” fails to take into account the historically and culturally close relationship between the region and Cuba. Of course, this similarity is valued locally as a way of distinguishing the inhabitants, los jarochos, from the rest of Mexico. Qualities identified with regional identity include a penchant for festivities, a taste for dancing and music, and an irrepressible sense of joie de vivre (Flores Martos, 2004). These same characteristics are also denigrated as dangerous and contaminating when they are indulged in to excess (idem: 266; 406). Cubans are also targets of locals’ xenophobic, racist, and condescending attitudes that designate them as mere public entertainers. This is particularly true of musicians in the port of Veracruz, where musicians are seen as inexpensive performers paid by the song, as described later in this chapter.

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Figure 4.2 Comparsa Aerosalsa, Veracruz. Carnaval, 2009.

An evening during the 2008 Carnaval season illustrates this gap between reciprocal expectations and ambitions – between the “us” of one side and the “us” of the other. A well-known Cuban salsa and Latin jazz group, NG la Banda, was invited to perform, and the orchestra director, who was unhappy with the stage on a downtown street away from the main square of the malecón, was attempting to improve the sound quality. A few drunks began shouting and employing a local brand of humor that uses humiliation as a game in which “the one who gets mad loses.”6 They shouted “Go for it, you damn Cuban, play!”7 In response to what he perceived as vulgar disrespect, the orchestra director sarcastically addressed the public by saying “We came to bring culture, and the people of Veracruz deserve it.” He continued throughout the concert in this vein, emphasizing the African roots of the music and deliberately exceeding his allotted time to avenge himself against the event organizers: It is actually the people who are in charge. You believe that in Cuba, it’s Fidel who is in charge? Well no, it’s the people who are in charge! What do the people want – for us to continue? So we’ll continue as long as the people want us to. From his perspective, he was delivering a master class in African roots to his Veracruz audience as well as in pride in being cultured, in being a revolutionary,

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and finally, in being a Cuban. It was a lesson that many of the port’s residents responded to by shouting “What’s the use in being so cultivated? He’s going to end up like all the other Cuban communists, playing for peanuts” and “Poor starving Cuban.”

Transnational religious brothers and sisters People came to see me, recommended by somebody else, and that is how I began to have godsons. Currently, I have 22 ifá. Cubans and foreigners from different places. I have three over there in the United States, in Mexico, too, lots, and the majority are Cubans and Mexicans. For añá, it’s the same. I have an añá godson whose name is Enrique who lives in Mexico, who has a tambor de fundemento [drum inhabited by a spirit] that I made for him. And I have another godson whose name is Mario Martínez who also lives in Mexico and who also has a tambor de fundemento that was born from mine. In Miami, I have Fermín “Nani,” who also has a tambor de fundemento that I made for him. I have quite a few [. . .] Román Díaz Anaya, who lives in New Jersey, has a drum that is also born from my drum. Cristobal Guerra, percussionist and Cuban babalao, Havana, Interviewed on July 23, 2005 The overarching question of national belonging underlying many of the conflicts between Cuban musicians and dancers and jarochos is softened by another, intersecting attachment that derives from belonging to a transnational network. Indeed, in Cuba, participating in performances of the “Afro-Cuban” musical and choreographic repertoire is almost systematically accompanied by deep religious commitment. Further, the batá drum trio must obligatorily be consecrated in order to play during ceremonies.8 Consecration entails ritual preparation that contains Añá, the force or fundamento that endows them with the power to communicate with the orichas. Añá is inherited from “parent” drums and must be “fed” regularly, often with blood from animal sacrifices. Batá are never allowed to touch the ground, and only initiates – exclusively men called omó añá (sons of Añá) – are permitted to touch them. It is these practices that enable the creation of drum lineages, as well as intersecting lineages of drummers and guardians. Ritual santera bonds are also organized in a polycentric network of disciples, with each circle revolving around several godfathers and godmothers and able to develop into new ritual lineages and alliances (Argyriadis, 2005). Members of the ritual families are not blood relatives, and the rules actually forbid godfathers or godmothers from initiating biological children. Because of contemporary membership patterns, members no longer even reside in the same neighborhood or city. When they join, they may participate in a network with Cuban emigrés who live away from the island as easily as foreign godsons who travel to Cuba to be initiated, as well as respective ritual descendants of every nationality and place of residence. Becoming an initiate therefore means becoming part of a vast chain of relationships of sacred brothers, sisters, uncles, cousins, sons, grandchildren, and grandparents. The networks are transnational, but they also intersect with professional networks of musicians and dancers of the “Afro-Cuban” repertoire.

The sense of belonging 101 Like Tino, Cuban professors who teach, live, or regularly reside in Mexico have established their own ritual families that often span Cuba, Mexico, the United States, several Latin American countries, and Europe. Despite geographical distance, these Cuban artists and their foreign students and/or godchildren maintain close bonds and are in frequent contact with each other. They know each other well, and they remain well-informed about each other’s activities, circulating from one world and one location to another and frequently returning to Cuba. This way of living is grounded in a self-image as a member of transnational ritual and artistic networks and an “inhabitant” of a multi-territorialized relational space with mobile roots in which people and their respective positions function as points of reference instead of physical locations. This mode of functioning is particularly apparent in how omó añá and initiated dancers introduce themselves to their peers. Indeed, whereas in other settings, “introducing oneself” may involves referring to one’s “biological” lineage, original neighborhood, or nationality, in this case, opening salutations are accompanied by an obligatory, codified litany9 of each individual’s ritual ascendants, descendants, and collateral relationships, sometimes even to the third degree. These lineages also intersect with lists of professors, students, or regular work colleagues. It quickly becomes obvious during such introductions which elements of the two parties’ lineages overlap. This makes it possible for the interlocutors to “recognize” each other by identifying

Figure 4.3 Tino and other members of his faith playing in a palera ceremony in Veracruz, September 2, 2010

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shared relationships and connections and to establish their respective positions within this specific artistico-religioso relational space. A similar pattern is sometimes observed during interviews:10 Cristóbal Guerra is a percussionist from Havana. He is also a palero, babalao, abakuá, freemason, and omó añá who traveled to Mexico in 1997 with the Danza Contemporánea troop and stayed in Mexico for two years. He made his living teaching and performing and as a ritual consultant, conducting ceremonies tied to divination by Ifá, and conducting toques of sacred batá drums. He began describing his itinerary by specifying his position in a complex network of ritual relationships that I was able to identify because I was familiar with the names of some well-known percussionists who intersected with his professional network. These important names that he identifies in his account are alternate civil names and nicknames as well as ritual names: I became a santería initiate on March 30, 1990, in Guanabacoa, at Pedrito “Aspirina’s” house. And one week earlier, I became consecrated as an omó aña, on the drums, also at Pedrito “Aspirina’s” house in Guanabacoa, on Addo Fó’s drums [a celebrated maker and guardian of drums authenticated in the writings of F. Ortiz, 1995 [1954]: 75–76]. I am a drummer, I am an initiate into the drum of Addo Fó, even if I now have my own tambor de fundamento, which is the grandson of Addo Fó, because it was born from the drum of my godfather, Angel Bolaño, Añá Funmí. And Añá Funmí [. . .] in fact Addo Fó had given birth to Añá Funmí, which is my godfather Bolaño’s drum and Añá Funmí gave me [. . .] or rather gave birth to Obá Ilú (that is my drum’s name). That is how I started in the religion too; in fact I had been involved in drums for a long time, playing, until I became an initiate, you understand? I learned and then I became initiated into the drum and it was after that that I went through the stages and I produced a tambor de fundamento. [. . .] Two years later, I made ifá, two years and a little bit, that was August 1, 1992 when I was initiated into ifá. And the godfather I got, he’s over there – “Chiquitico,” now he’s over there in Europe. He has a lot of godchildren over there. His name is Arístides Estábile, Oddura Irá is his sign, we call him “Chiquitico.” I am his first ifá, the first ifá that he made was my ifá. I started to have godchildren in ifá right away, because a lot of my friends who knew me and knew I made ifá, came to where I was. (Cristobal, Havana, July 23, 2005) The fact that he used a complex vernacular terminology to name people during an interview as though I were an insider is a way of asserting his legitimacy as an “authentic,” respectable artist. He was also attempting to evaluate my point of view, qualifications as an ethnologist/interviewer, and my knowledge of the field. This episode of social control, which is all the more odd for not being territorialized (there are no fixed references to neighborhoods or cities, but instead only to a network of acquaintances), obliged me as researcher to remain vigilant in my exchanges and what I shared with my interlocutors. I was tested and closely

The sense of belonging 103 identified during each new encounter, including trick questions regarding previous contacts. They systematically attempted to determine whether what I knew extended beyond my familiarity with their names. They also sought to establish whether I was aware of events taking place inside the network, such as conflicts, reconciliations, or the current locations of network members. I often wondered whether someone had already spoken to them about me and whether they were consulted to verify my assertions about my research. To my surprise, they often anticipated this verification phase (perhaps with a deliberate touch of malice) by providing me with a summary of my connections and activities and identifying shared contacts. On the contrary, when they failed to “take me seriously” by exaggerating their positions as a religioso artist, they were surprised to learn that I could use my familiarity with the network to verify their stories. This was how I learned that the choreographer of the Cuban television ballet group, who was invited to Veracruz to spend a year training the dance troupe at the Kachimba cabaret, was passing himself off as babalao and being richly remunerated by local santeros for his services despite the fact that he was not initiated. In another case, I ascertained that a cultural promoter from the port was not an initiate, contrary to her assertion during a recorded interview. Neither of these figures had taken the precaution of inquiring about my own acquaintances. If they had, they undoubtedly would not have lied about their status like they had with interlocutors “outside the network” who lacked insider access (see the conclusion of the chapter for more on this subject). This reinforcement of the professional network by the ritual network is important for professional musicians and dancers who travel outside the island because it ensures recognition while also improving their access to information and services. Cristóbal Guerra, for example, reported procuring an ancient edition of a book on the Yoruba language by William Bascom: It was a babalao friend of mine who brought it to me, Osá Cuneya, whose name is Osvaldo Caballero, I am his father’s ayubbón [second godfather]. Osvaldo Caballero is my ecobio [ritual brother of the secret abakuá society], he is a babalao and his father is a mocongo [important abakuá ritual rank] of my lodge. They live in Miami, he is a mocongo of my lodge, and I am his ifá ayubbón. (Cristobal, Havana, July 23, 2005) The religiosos musicians and dancers immediately mobilize their network of ritual relatives in response to each new need. This allows them to benefit from the multi-functionality of each actor’s position within the hierarchy. The precise mechanisms of this system vary from one to another. Cristóbal, for example, is the ritual elder of his ifá friend’s father but his inferior in the abakuá secret society. This places them on theoretically equal footing, meaning that their relationship is reciprocal in terms of mutual assistance. Nationality appears to be unimportant inside the network, and foreigners who understand this can move easily within the Afro-Cuban performer network, which tends to be somewhat closed and Cuban-centric (see Tables 4.1 and 4.2).

Figure 4.4 Professional lineages

MEXICANOS (D.F., GUADALAJARA...) Y OTRAS NACIONALIDADES

NORTE AMERICANOS

AFRICANOS

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DANZA

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SEGUNDA GENERACION.

PRIMERA GENERACION DE INTERPRETES XALAPEÑOS DEL REPERTORIO “AFRO”.

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LINAJES PROFESIONALES CRUZADOS O NO CON REDES DE PARENTESCO RITUAL

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TAMBOR

PRIMERA GENERACION DE INTERPRETES XALAPEÑOS DEL REPERTORIO “AFRO” SEGUNDA GENERACION

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TERCERA GENERACION (ALUMNOS ACTUALES) ALUMNOS INICIADOS

Figure 4.5 Professional lineages intersecting or not with ritual lineages

A network of promoters of “Afro” culture in Veracruz state So here I am with Kali. I’m Javier Cabrera. I want to point out that I am not a santero, meaning that I do not religiously practice the activity of santería, even though I am very close to it because of my work with the drums; as a percussionist and as a promoter of Afro culture in general in Mexico. (Javier, Xalapa March 1, 2006) American, Mexican, and French researchers (Hagedorn, 2001; Knauer, 2001; Capone, 2005; Juárez, 2007; Argyriadis, 2001–2002; López Calleja, 2005) have all noted that performers in the “Afro-Cuban” network in Veracruz State, unlike in other regions, do not necessarily consider performing as being directly associated with deeper religious involvement. Artists who claim membership in what they call the “network of Cuban cultural promotion in Mexico” are primarily percussionists and dancers from Xalapa. Since the 1980s, their interest in the “Afro-Cuban” musical and choreographic repertoire has been influenced by African-American professors involved in Afrocentric militancy (see Capone, 2011). As mentioned earlier, well-known Cuban instructors were also later invited. These new arrivals joined the transnational

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network of artist-performers of the “Afro-Cuban” repertoire as specialists in batá drumming and orichas dances, among other roles. (see Map 4.2). Still, unlike Cuban instructors, their involvement remains exclusively esthetic, cultural, or philosophical/spiritual. They did not go through the initiation that is a prerequisite to playing the batá in ritual contexts, although they are often invited to perform the repertoire in santera ceremonies in Mexico City. They also develop activities and events associated with indigenous or “pre-Hispanic” music, as well as the son jarocho,11 Guinean music, and dance from the Congo and Senegal, where they travel regularly to conduct workshops. These individuals are deeply committed to promoting recognition of African cultural influences in Mexico through the creation of their own “Afro-Mexican” repertoire. These efforts are based on the idea that the repertoire was lost and/or needs to be recreated in order to prove that it existed, even if this process involves adopting elements of the “Afro-Cuban” repertoire (Argyriadis, 2009). Just as his “I” should be understood as the voice of an individual on a spiritual quest, the “we” expressed by the xalapeño percussionist Javier Cabrera, a classically trained drummer and a regional pioneer of the movement, should be understood within the context of this pan-African cultural movement. Javier describes his encounter with an African-American jazz percussionist who later became the first “Afro” percussion professor in Veracruz: It was a shock for me to know the drum, to play it without drumsticks directly with my hands, with the instrument between my legs, where the organism is involved, a different vibration. It was something that shook me, in my cosmic being, you know? Very powerfully. And since then, I have a tenderness and love for the drum and for what it implies. Now, as for my training, I trained as an anthropologist, and that’s where my respect for one of the great cultures of our humanity comes from: African culture, as a civilizing principle, a principle of humanity in itself. And I am totally dedicated to it, I consider myself a promoter of Afro culture, through the tenderness and respect that I feel towards a culture that has a great impact on the world, with everything that is associated with that influence, you know? The suffering, the pain, but also the joy that they brought to mankind. [. . .] And it’s incredible to see how, in our cultural reality, it’s a culture that always lives powerfully. I am talking about from a musical point of view – In any country of the Americas, you find more courses in African drumming than in pre-Hispanic percussion and instrumentation. And there are three very powerful and very representative blocks of African culture in America: One is in North America, with blues and jazz; another is in the Caribbean, with the entire basin of son, and a last one, also huge, is in Brazil, with samba and later, bossa nova. These are the three hotbeds, musically speaking, and importantly also all three have African roots. So from this point of view, based on this observation, I am a lover of this culture, and it is something that I have been promoting for years. I have a lot of relationships with Cuba, with Africa, and I went to work there, I’ve lived

XALAPA CORDOBA ORIZABA

EL TAJIN

Map 4.2 2000s: Xalapa, nodal location of the movement

XALAPEÑOS CUBANOS AFRICANOS NORTE AMERICANOS

MEXICO D.F.

U.S.A.

TLACOTALPAN CATEMACO SAN ANDRES TUXTLA STGO. TUXTLA

ALVARADO

VERACRUZ BOCA DEL RIO

AÑOS 2000: XALAPA COMO LUGAR NODO

CUBA

GUINEA SENEGAL

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Kali Argyriadis for a whole year in Cuba and have been there for shorter visits, throughout the island. [. . .] Thanks to a very good friend, Lázaro Cárdenas, the governor of Michoacán, we have started to create a kind of network for promoting Cuban culture in Mexico. Lázaro brought groups of artists over from Cuba and two or three of us supported him, having them circulate nationally, from Tijuana to the Caribbean zone to Yucatán, and also to Xalapa and Veracruz, and we started to develop a series of workshops with these professors. [Javier later cites the names of these prestigious guests in the order of their arrival in Xalapa, the most recent of whom was Tino.] And so currently, we can say that in Mexico and directly through Xalapa, an entire, very powerful Afro tradition has developed, principally Afro-Cuban. [He also cites the names of African professors who have recently been invited.] This movement, which was born when there were only a handful of us interested in it, has developed enormously. Today, there are, just in Xalapa, five or six Afro music groups. And at the moment, there are thirteen dancers and musicians here who went to Conakry, in Guinea. So that means there’s now a direct contact between Mexico and Cuba, between Mexico and Africa, between Mexico and Brazil (because there were also people who went to Brazil), and it’s a movement that just can’t be stopped now, isn’t it? (Javier, March 1, 2006)

Figure 4.6 Guinea dance class with Karim Keïta, Instituto Veracruzano de Cultura, Veracruz. August 26, 2009

The sense of belonging 109 Although Javier Cabrera refers to the mystical aspect of this encounter, it is limited to his personal motivations and interpretations. Javier notes from the start the distance between himself and the practices that he is familiar with after living in Cuba and participating in many religiosos. Although he considers the drum to be a spirit or god, it is always within an individual, quasi-philosophical relationship. As a result, he is not involved in a collective, ritualized set of practices but prefers to maintain a certain distance from these practices, even when performing in ceremonies at which he is in theory not allowed to play. Javier is a resolutely cosmopolitan individual who rejects the collective aspects of these beliefs, maintaining that a single shared feature – their African origins – creates the a parallel between religions and spiritualities. Javier’s sense of belonging to an international community of activists is entirely centered around this one criterion, which is an implicit reference to the Mexican movement of the “third root.” Since the 1990s, Luz María Martínez Montiel has been at the center of this movement, “Our Third Root,” which grew out of pioneering studies by Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán’s in 1946. The project investigates and promotes African contributions to Mexican culture, specifically the “Afrométisse” identity of key locations in Mexico that include the State of Veracruz. A program called The Slave Route, created in cooperation with such Cuban cultural institutions as the Fernando Ortiz Foundation of the National Folklore Ensemble, is linked to a UNESCO exchange program begun in 1992. Support for Afrocentric researchers has exerted a strong influence over recent research in the field in Mexico, a trend that has also been associated with some controversy (Hoffmann, 2005: 139–140). Before researchers arrived, a number of Afro activists came to Mexico specifically to encourage “Afro-Mexicans” to embrace their African lineage. One activist named Obafemí came into contact with Javier Cabrera in the mid-2000s. Obafemí, a Yoruba name, was initiated into the Ifa cult in Nigeria and was a percussionist who originally came from Louisiana. He lived for a time in Xalapa, participating in a series of shows organized by Cabrera. Mexican audiences tended to be confused by his frequent references to the African village ancestors of Veracruz and the “sacred culture of the Yoruba people.” One such incident took place during a festival to celebrate the “Day of the Sorcerers” in Catemaco in the Tuxtlas mountains south of the port. The festival, an important tourist attraction, falls on the first Friday in March, a time of the year when witches’ power is thought be at its highest due to the nature’s rebirth in Spring.12 For several years, the Orí troupe, led by Javier Cabrera, presented a spectacle following an “Afro-Cuban ritual.” Libations were offered to the oricha Eleguá, followed by an invocation to the “ancestors,” the “creator god,” and “mother earth” that were performed by Tino Galán. For Obafemí, African ancestors are more valuable than European or indigenous ancestry because they are the foundation of the transnational, Pan-African community. The majority of Veracruz residents, however, view national identity as more important and consider regional Jarocha identity secondary. Tino Galán is in permanent disagreement with Obafemí and rejects his ritual superiority and

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authority. Tino expressed his obvious disapproval by declaring himself first of all to be Cuban and certainly not African. Javier Cabrera maintains the more detached perspective that important questions have been raised, and individuals have successfully entered into contact with each other. This example provides a glimpse of how the transnational network of interpreters of “Afro-Cuban” music and dance operates. It also illustrates the variety of ways in which “Afro-Cuban” performers’ shared passions, circuits, and events involve the network. Just as different nationalities and belongings operate side-by-side during such events, different signification systems coexist.

A local circle of amateur percussion and Afro dance performers When I was six, I was already playing, and I played with my brothers. In fact, we pretended to perform and give concerts. I remember in the courtyard of my father’s house, which is very big, we made stages with wooden blocks used in freight elevators, we put about ten of them, and on top of them we put the instruments, instruments given to us by friends of the family, and we sang, what we heard at the time, Cuban music as well as Puerto Rican music that was starting to arrive with the records of la Fania and Tito Puentes and that we played only using percussion, singing. That is how we started out. Norberto Méndez, “el Yoruba,” a percussionist from Veracruz. Interviewed in Cozumel on February 29, 2008 The small circle of percussionists in the port occupies the most remote branch of the network. Because of its close ties with Havana until the 1940s, Veracruz was the “world’s port of entry into Mexico,” including Cuban music and dance (García Díaz, 2002, 2011). Veracruz is now a commercial transit port and summer resort for inhabitants of interior regions of Mexico attracted by the city’s abundant inexpensive bars and discos. Musicians typically come from modest socio-economic backgrounds, often working several jobs to survive. They are often paid by the half-hour and are typically forced to perform several gigs per night in dancehalls, bars, private parties, and night classes, even buses or outdoor café terraces in order to make ends meet. Their musical training in whatever style they specialize in generally takes place within small, male-dominated family businesses involving fathers, uncles, cousins, nephews, and occasionally friends. Members of these family bands replace each other whenever needed depending on who is available. Most have only on-the-job musical training and know how to play a small repertoire of popular songs that is often written down in a small notebook to show to prospective clients. Paradoxically, and despite the reputation of Veracruz as a party town, musicians and dancers – who are often suspected of being homosexuals if they are men or morally depraved if they are women – are at the lower rungs of the social ladder, just above prostitutes and other marginal social figures. Despite what might appear to be an unappealing professional setting, a large number of musicians and dancers who are passionate about the “Afro-Cuban” repertoire participate in this scene. They have remained in sporadic contact with

The sense of belonging 111 Cuban professors at workshops or during festivals. They are also acquainted with the performer network via other members from Xalapa, to whom they are linked by power relationships. Although thought of as belonging to the Veracruz network of “Afro” culture performers and promoters because they occasionally perform and give classes, they do not think of themselves as full network members. Their self-image is rather one of members of a smaller local or family circle. The case of the Méndez brothers illustrates this more modest sense of belonging. The oldest brother, Norberto – aka “el Yoruba,” is a percussionist from Veracruz. He often mentions his early attraction to the “Afro-Cuban” repertoire: So, my name is Norberto Méndez, and I’m forty years old. My beginnings in music happened like this: When I was young, maybe three or four, when my parents [. . .] at the time, they went out in the boats that brought sugar, rum, and coffee, and they went to get Cubans, and then they brought Cubans to the house and invited them to eat. In fact, it practically turned into a party every time they came back on weekends, Saturdays, Sundays. This was all because my father always loved music, all kinds of music, from classical to popular. But through a friend who started to play Cuban music for him, Afro-Cuban, my father started getting interested in those styles. And when they started looking for these people, it wasn’t just my family, it’s logical, there were other people who were friends of the family, they all met at the house and at other friends’ houses, but every time it ended up being a party, there were always people who brought out a guitar, a bongó, the clave, some maracas, or who sang or danced, and that’s how I got inoculated, you know? All of this music, and more specifically the percussion, that’s what attracted my attention. [. . .] One day, I came back to see my parents for Christmas, and they told me that the Veracruz Cultural Institute had opened. I stayed a little while longer and then I went there. They were in the process of preparing for Carnaval, and they had opened a dance school. The dance school didn’t have any musicians to accompany the Carnaval ballet, and in fact they hadn’t chosen a particular kind of music. So my brother and me offered to accompany both the classes and the comparsa, and in two weeks, they accepted. The classes were a little difficult, because we had to learn everything that dancing involved. [. . .] And on that occasion in fact, we didn’t play. It was the group Orí de Xalapa that played, Javier Cabrera and all these percussionists, excellent musicians, he came, we came, and they accompanied the troupe, and we stayed and worked at the Dance School, accompanying with our percussion, and that was something impressive for us, I believe, because [. . .] well, you have an idea what a dance class is like, you learn gradually with the students, you learn from the dance professor, but it was interesting because practically everything was improvised, you see? (Norberto, Cozumel February 29, 2008) The most striking feature of Norberto’s narrative is the contrast between his consistent and highly specific reference to blood relationships, from which he clearly

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derives a strong sense of identity, and his vague references to the Mexican and Cuban individuals who have influenced his career, with the exception of artists from Xalapa and Veracruz, which is the local matrix of his sense of belonging. In Cuba, such vagueness is interpreted as contemptuous, easily contributing to misunderstandings. His lack of clarity forced me to interrupt him at times to clarify whom he was referring to. Because my study focuses on networks, these references were important, but in his view, they were insignificant details. The somewhat simplistic way in which Norberto represents his musical apprenticeship is the result of childhood learning through imitation of the music he and his brothers heard at home on pots and pans. He eventually operated similarly on the radio before eventually committing himself to learning by doing. He systematically applied self-taught knowledge that he randomly absorbed from each new encounter. When he created a group called Lamento Yoruba with his brother and other friends, Luz María Martínez Montiel was moved by their “spontaneous” initiative. Montiel enjoined them to “take their mission of diffusing Yoruba culture in Veracruz seriously,” although they openly admitted that they knew nothing about it at the time. After Norberto had traveled to Cuba with a son montuno group, he expressed great admiration for the training that was available to Cuban musicians (“fourteenyear-old children playing on the level of any professional musician! Truly, it was incredible!”). To compensate for the vast lacunae in his own musical education and his doubts that he had “a good enough level,” he distanced himself from performing professionally, indicating that continuing to perform “would betray” the essence of his own practice. Music, he said, “was always a part of me, but not to exploit or sell; I have never considered it a trade. I took pleasure in it. I was modest.” This qualitative divide in professional motivations and practices was amplified in Veracruz by a division between musicians who were able to benefit from high quality training and those who scarcely finished primary school. Such distinctions further exacerbated an existing gap between musicians able to function inside the network who view themselves as stakeholders and master the rules and codes (even bi- and even tri-national) and musicians and performers who are forced to use these individuals in order to gain access to the network. Luz, a dancer who trained in Xalapa but was originally from Veracruz, was acutely aware of the implications of this problem of access. Luz, who was attempting to develop a small movement of people interested in Guinean dance in the port, referred to these gaps as based on a “concentration of power” in the hands of Xalapa musicians who had mastered the repertoire and possessed higher social status. These powerful figures functioned in effect as gatekeepers for access to the network. Norberto’s brother Manuel Méndez was equally aware of this hierarchy of access. His “we” should be understood in a localized sense that is territorialized in the port, while also referring to his biological family. Manuel explains how he caught the network “in flight” when it came to him, advancing by feel and systematically positioning himself as a disciple, even after he had earned the title “maestro Manuel” at the IVEC, where he taught Afro-modern dance. Like Javier,

The sense of belonging 113 however, but unlike his brother Norberto, Manuel’s approach was imbued with mysticism. His spiritual quest led him to join a group of “Aztec” dancers who belonged to a spiritual “Neo-Mexicanity” movement (see De la Peña, 2002). Similarly, and despite his Native American appearance, Manuel is sympathetic with the struggle to gain recognition of African slaves’ contribution to Veracruz culture. But his attraction to santería was rapidly squelched by his family’s powerful rejection, often a crucial obstacle in Mexico. Finally, he expressed his sensation that Cubans and xalapenos looked down on him with relative lucidity, as well as his awareness of the tensions involved: Yes, yes, I felt attracted, ok, before I already had some knowledge, it attracted me a lot, and in fact after going through all that, I told my family I wanted to do the initiation rites for santería. They told me “No, are you crazy? All that, it’s just the Devil’s rites!” It was a good joke, and I was obviously young, and I didn’t do it, I stayed attracted, and afterwards, I wanted to say something about it, but not in an ugly way or with bad feelings towards them, but if there was something that caused me to change my perspective with respect to those things, it was when I started to enter into a relationship with more Cubans, who came more and more often, and the direct relationship with Cuban people was very ugly. Very ugly, because we gave them a lot of importance at the time, to such a point that they felt like gods or something of that sort, so they behaved in a very ugly way, like “OK, now, I’m the one who knows, and since it’s me who knows that’s what gives me value, that’s what makes me important here, so I am not going to teach you, because if I teach you I am gonna lose, because you’re going to know, too”; and so, you understand that? It’s understandable that way of being, I started to distance myself a little from the Cubans, but not from their culture, their culture I will always respect, I like it a lot, but for a good while I have wanted to do something that was more my own thing, if at one time I felt an attraction for this music, I think it had something to do with something genetic in me. I am genetically part of it. I carry it in my blood. (Manuel, Veracruz on February 20, 2008) Several matrices of meaning operate in tandem in the musical and choreographic practices of the performers whose connected itineraries this chapter describes. The discourse of filiation involves what appear to be shared concepts, including family, brothers and sisters, lineage, genetics. Interpretations of these concepts vary according to the individual and the contexts in which they are used. The factors that contribute to different interpretations are outgrowths of categories of relations that range from consanguinity to ritual relationships and ethnic and racial identifications. Another important if rarely mentioned factor is the idea of membership in the same network, which is essentially a “big family,” with its lineages of professors and students and other alliances. Their identity-based discourse is an outgrowth of historically and geographically situated constructions regarding specific ethnic, regional, and national groups, but it sometimes also

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Figure 4.7 Manuel playing percussion (quinto, tumbadora, dundún and cajón) for the group Kábulas, at the La República bar in Veracruz, June 12, 2010

refers to trans-local and transnational configurations such as migrant networks, diasporas, and networks of ritual kinship relations. This study is somewhat distant from a “free choice” interpretation due to the weight of Afro-Cuban tradition. The fact that the community members all speak Spanish does not prevent problems of understanding from arising during exchanges between performer network members. The musicians and dancers work together and are sometimes in frequent contact with each other, preparing and organizing shows, rituals, and workshops and classes and appearing to cooperate easily. In reality, though, they do not necessarily have similar intentions, which calls the myth of artistic “fusion” into question. The idea of fusion would suggest that under specific circumstances, cultural, ethnic, social, and religious differences can be transcended. As Sara Le Menestrel has observed elsewhere in this volume with respect to Louisiana dance and musical practices, rather than healing cleavages and divisions, mixing genres at times reinforces them. Still, fusional practices have clearly contributed to one or even several axes of belonging. But this sense of belonging is not focused on a particular group united by shared objectives or a strong common identity. Instead, it takes the form of a web that adopts different modes of operation depending on the context. In their studies of transnational migrants, Glick-Schiller and Levitt (2004: 1009–1010;

The sense of belonging 115 see also Levitt, 2004) propose a distinction between what they call a way of being, which is the product of contextualized belonging to transnational resource networks (i.e., networks that participate in a broader system), from a way of belonging, an identity-based awareness possessed by individuals who belong to this type of social configuration. The second notion echoes what (2003) has called a “sentiment of transnationality.” Falzon’s ethnographic study of a transnational network of Sinhi Hindu merchants demonstrated that, although members may live at great distances from each other, intermediary family relationships, modern communication, and frequent travel support the maintenance of close ties. These researchers nevertheless refer to ethnic groups that construct – or that constructed long ago – a multi-localized sense of identity. Like Appadurai and his ethnoscapes or “ethnic landscapes” (1996: 247), they envision the locality of social forms as derived from a set of values more than from a geographical location. The examples presented in this chapter illustrate that it is possible to envision and describe social forms that extend beyond the boundaries of ethnoscapes or transmigrant communities. The musicians and dancers whose itineraries are described here do not uniformly express the same intensity of belonging to the network of performers and promoters of the “Afro-Cuban” repertoire. In fact, some of them seem to merely use the network, if unevenly, to be able to pursue their own professional careers. Others build their identities and artistic legitimacy around conscious, committed involvement in the network, easily functioning within multiple interweaving codes. Ultimately, regardless of their positions, individuals are connected to each other through this singular form of social organization, suggesting that an alliance or conflict between parties located anywhere in the network affects relationships between members at other nodes in the network.13 As Granovetter (1973) argues, artistic activities function as bridges or “weak ties” that bind circles and groups. Weak ties imply that there is a single pathway between two individuals who have nothing else in common, allowing a message to travel a greater social distance and to exit the group in which it originated, while also enabling individuals to seize opportunities for mobility (Ibid., 53; 64). In the cases that this study has examined, artistic activity clearly opens access to other worlds through the transnational relational networks that it nourishes. But these networks can also enclose, for example when an apprenticeship has not taken place in optimal circumstances. The hierarchy of network members – the social hierarchy of the State of Veracruz, and the hierarchy of places represented by (Castells, 2005: 446–448) enable exchanges that traverse the network at the transnational level, from Xalapa – the principal node of exchange in Mexico – and Veracruz, which is no longer the world’s cultural point of entry into Mexico and has been transformed into a parking lot.

Notes 1 In Havana, the generic term religión is used to designate them, an implicit reference to a system of representations that includes the complementary practice of santería as well as its corolloary, the divinatory system Ifá (both of which are of Yoruba origin), of

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the palo-monte (of Kongo as well as other origins), of a relocalized variant of Kardecist spiritism, and the local cult ofsaints and virgins. In the case of men, membership in these sects is often complemented by membership in male secret societies, such as abakua, which originated in Calabar (Southeastern Nigeria) or in Masonic lodges (Argyriadis, 1999). Practitioners of these groups call themselves religiosos. More than one in four Cuban doctors practices abroad as part of the country's international missions (Roumette, 2005). On the concept of lucha, the basis of the sense ofnational belonging in contemporary Cuba, see Karnoouh, 2007: 245. This is not a military organization but a celebrated troup ofperformers ofthe Afro-Cuban repertoire. Tino describes them here as a "brigade" that conducts lightning-strike operations. According to G. Aguirre Beltran ( 1989: 179), in colonial times this term signified "wild pig" and was used to describe mixed descendants of"Blacks" and "Indians" in the State of Veracruz. In the present day, the term has acquired a positive connotation and is used to describe the region's inhabitants in general (Perez Montfort, 2007: 175- 210). "El que se enojapierde." "Dale, pinche cubano, t6cale!" The bata played in non-sacred contexts, called aberikola, are not consecrated. I use this term because the setting involves the transfer of liturgies (moyugba) pronounced in introducing all santero ritual acts into daily life. These liturgies mention, in a specific chronological and hierarchical order, the creator God, the orichas, and the ritual ancestors ofthe one who officiates (for an analysis of these liturgies, see for example L. Menendez, 1995). This was the case during my first interview with Tino. Nevertheless, at the time, I had neglected to record this somewhat laborious "obligatory part," settling for taking notes. This is why I chose another example, for which I possessed the exact terms used by my informant, to illustrate the way in which this process ofjoining a network is formulated. This rural musical and choreographic geme from the southern part of the State of Veracruz was folklorized in 1946 to support the presidential campaign of the veracruzano presidential candidate Miguel Aleman (Cardona, 2006: 215). Popularized through the cinema and transnationalized in the wake of migration toward California, it later, beginning in the 1970s, became the focus of a revitalization movement that was led by anthropologists, musicians, and local historians (idem: 216) seeking to underscore its "metisse" character in blending Indian, African, and European influences. A ceremonial occasion entailing New-Age inspired rituals that takes place in Mexico around the time of the vernal equinox. Regarding the use ofpre- Hispanic archeological sites for contemporary ritual purposes during the equinox, see, for example, De la Torre and Gutierrez (2005: 62- 63). Which corroborates the definition of network proposed in Firth 1954 (cited and translated by Forni, 1991: 259). For a sociologic approach of transnational networks, see also Colonomos, 199 5.

References Aguirre Beltran, Gonzalo. La poblaci6n negra de Mexico. Estudio ethnohist6rico, Mexico OF: Fondo de Cultura Econ6mica, 1989 (1 946 ]. Appadurai, Arjun. Modernity atLarge: Cultural Dimension ofGlobalization, Minneapolis and London: Minnesota University Press, 1996. Argyriadis, Kali. "Les Parisiens et la santeria: de !'attraction esthetique a !'implication religieuse," P sychopathologie africaine, xxxr, n° 1 (2001 - 2002): 17-43. Argyriadis, Kali. ''Ramas, families, reseaux. Les supports sociaux de la diffusion de lasanteria cubaine(Cuba-Mexique)," Journal. de lasociete des americanistes, n°91-92 (2005): 153-183.

The sense ofbelonging 117 Argyriadis, Kali. "Les bata deux fois sacres. La construction de la tradition musicale et choregraphique afro-cubaine," Civilisations, LII, n°1-2 (January 2006): 45-74. Argyriadis, Kali. "Reseaux transnationaux d'artistes et relocalisation du repertoire 'afrocubain' dans le Veracruz," Revue Europeenne des Migrations Intemationales, 25, n°2 (November 2009): 119-140. Capone, Stefania. Les Yoruba du Nouveau Monde. Religion, ethnicite et nationalisme noir aux Etats-Unis, Paris: Karthala, 2005. Capone, Stefania. "Conexiones diasporicas: redes artisticas y construccion de un patrimonio cultural 'afro'," in Circulaciones culturales. Lo afrocaribeno entre Cartagena, Veracruz, y La Habana, edited by Freddy Avila Dominguez, Ricardo Perez Montfort, and Christian Rinaudo, 217-245, Mexico, DF: CrnsAsllRn/Universidad de Cartagena/.AFRonESc, 2011. Cardona, Ishtar. "Los actores culturales entre la tentaci6n comunitaria y el mercado global: el resurgimiento de! sonjarocho," Politica y cultura, n°26 (2006): 213-232, Mexico. Carpentier, Alejo. La musique a Cuba, Paris: Gallimard, 1985 [ 1946]. Castells, Manuel. La era de la informacion. Torno 1: La sociedad red, Mexico: Siglo XXI, 2005 [1996]. Colonomos, Ariel. Sociologie des reseaux transnationaux. Communautes, entreprises et individus: lien social et systeme international, Paris: l' Harmattan, 1995. De La Pefia, Francisco. Los hijos def sexto sol, Mexico: INAH, 2002. De La Torre, Renee, and Gutierrez Zufiiga, Cristina. "La 16gica de! mercado y la 16gica de la creencia en la creaci6n de mercancias simb6licas," Desacatos, n°18 (mayo-agosto 2005): 53-70. Falzon, Mark-Anthony. "Translocal Anthropology: A Contradiction in Terms?" inReseaux transnationaux,joumees d'etudes de !'UR 107, Bondy: !RD, 21 octobre 2003. Flores Martos, Juan Antonio. Portales de mucara. Una etnografia de/ puerto de Veracruz, Xalapa: Universidad Veracruzana, 2004. Firth, Raymond. "Social Organization and Social Change," The Journal ofthe Roya/Anthropological Institute ofGreatBritain andIreland, 84, n°1-2 (January-February 1954): 1-20. Forse, Michel. "Les reseaux de sociabilite: un etat des lieux," L'Annee Sociologique, 41 (1991): 247-264. Garcia Diaz, Bernardo. "La migraci6n cubana a Veracruz 1870- 1910," in La Habana/ Veracruz, Veracruz/La Habana, las dos orillas, edited by Bernardo Garcia Diaz and Guerra Vilaboy, 297-319, Xalapa: Universidad Veracruzana, 2002. Garcia Diaz, Bernardo. "El Puerto de Veracruz, cabeza de playa de la musica cubana en Mexico," in Circulaciones culturales. Lo afrocaribeno entre Cartagena, Veracruz, y La Habana, edited by Freddy Avila Dominguez, Ricardo Perez Montfort, and Christian Rinaudo, 247- 267, Mexico, DF: CIEsAsllRD/Universidad de Cartagena/AFRonEsc, 2011. Glick-Schiller, Nina, and Levitt, Peggy. "Conceptualizing Simultaneity: A Transnational Social Field Perspective on Society," International Migration R eview, 38, n°3 (2004): 1002- 1039. Granovetter, Mark. "La force des liens faibles," in Le marche autrement, 45-73, Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 2000 [1 973]. Hagedorn, Katherine J. Divine Utterances: The Pe,formance ofAfro-Cuban Santeria, Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001. Hoffmann, Odile. "Renaissance des etudes afromexicaines et productions de nouvelles identites ethniques,"Journal de la societe des americanistes, n°9 l-92 (2005): 123-152. Juarez Huet, Nahayeilli. Unpedacito de Dias en casa: transnacionalizacion, relocalizacion y practica de la santeria en la ciudad de Mexico, Social Antropology PhD, Colegio de Michoacan, 2007.

118 Kali Argyriadis Kamoouh, Lorraine. Un miroir de patience: analyse de l 'identite cubaine au regard de l 'aporie de la permanence du Meme dans le temps, Unpublished Doctoral Dissertaion, Sociology, Universite de Paris 7, 2007. Knauer, Lisa Maya. "Afrocubanidad translocal: la rumba y la santeria en Nueva York y La Habana," in Culturas encontradas: Cuba y los Estados Unidos, edited by Rafael Hernandez and John H. Coatsworth, 11-31, La Habana: CIDCC Juan Marinello/University of Harvard (DRCLAS), 2001. Levitt, Peggy. "Redefining the Boundaries of Belonging: The Institutional Character of Transnational Religious Life," Sociology ofReligion, 65, n°1 (2004): 1-18. Lopez Calleja, Sonia. Diffusion des cultes afro-cubains aParis et a Valencia: influence des processus cognitifs dans !'adhesion a une nouvelle religion, Unpublished DEA Thesis, Universite de Paris-X, June 14, 2005. Malcomson, Hettie. "La configuraci6n racial del danz6n: los imaginarios raciales del puerto de Veracruz," in Mestizaje y diferencia: Lo "negro" en A merica Central y el Caribe, edited by Elisabeth Currin, Mexico: INAH/CEMCA/UNAM/IID, 2011. Menendez, Lazara. "Un cake para Obatala?" Temas, n°4 (October 1995): 38- 51. Ortiz, Fernando. Rampa aftvcubana: los negros brujos, La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias sociales, 1995 [1906]. Ortiz, Fernando. Los instrumentos de la musica aftvcubana. Los tambores batti, La Habana: Editorial Letras Cubanas, 1995 (1954]. Perez Montfort, Ricardo. "El 'negro' y la negritud en la formaci6n del estereotipo del jarocho en los siglos XIX y XX," in Expresiones populares y estereotipos culturales en Mexico. SiglosXIXyXX, 171-210, Mexico: CIESAS, 2007. Rinaudo, Christian. "Lo ' afro,' lo 'popular' y lo 'caribefio' en las politicas culturales en Cartagena y Veracruz," in Circulaciones culturales. Lo afrocaribeno entre Cartagena, Veracruz, y La Habana, edited by Freddy Avila Dominguez, Ricardo Perez Montfort, and Christian Rinaudo, 37--67, Mexico, DF: CrnsAs/lRD/Universidad de Cartagena/AFRoDESC, 2011. Roumette, Sara. "Cuba. L'internationalisme medical," RFI, September 23, 2005. www.rfi. fr/actufr/articles/069/article_38734.asp.

5

Ahmad Wahdan Maestro among the Frenzied streets of Cairo1 Nicolas Puig

Figure 5.1 Ahmad Wahdan in 2005 at home during a rehearsal

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Ahmad Wahdan is a master. He is a singer and multi-instrumentalist who moves from place to place according to the rhythms of his professional commitments and many encounters, each intended to maintain various circles of acquaintances, as well as formal moments spent with musicians officiating at one or another of the many celebrations that punctuate the Cairo night air. The moment he appears, Ahmad is hailed from the stage by whoever is mc-ing an occasion, microphone in hand. Occasions for celebration are many. Engagement parties, wedding ceremonies, alcohol-laced shows intended to make clients happy, sometimes helped by the sweet anesthesia of hashish in some random downtown cabaret on the banks of the Nile or along the Avenue of the Pyramids, a more middle-class scene. It would be a mistake to draw the portrait of Ahmad’s peregrinations too hastily, however, based on the economics of his movements and the corresponding social elevation of his activities or to portray him as a “wise-man” serenely cruising through Cairo’s frenetic streets. A great deal of work is involved in achieving – and maintaining – the status of master. It is a status that is earned through years of work, the time it takes to make a name for oneself, and it requires daily work to sustain it on the stages of street parties and amid the incessant flow of sociabilities that confer to the musical profession its relational ponderousness. Being a master is merely a formal indication of one’s peers’ recognition, which is as fragile as it is unstable.

Figure 5.2 A stage at a street wedding in the Cairo neighborhood of Darb al-Ahmar, 2003

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Still, one of the most salient features of Ahmad Wahdan’s itinerary, amid this unending articulation of place and displacement, is the central question of recognition. Seen from this perspective, the spatial chain of his social contacts reveals a sort of cartography of celebrity. In this “proximity-based society” (Puig, 2003) that conjugates being rooted in the territories of proximity with intense circulations that create reservoirs of opportunity, success is achieved and maintained through daily interaction. According to a popular adage among musicians, their profession requires “saluting people you don’t know.” Being “recognized” initially means that one may be known by the people one encounters, but the opposite might not necessarily be true. This socially binding celebrity is experienced from one close acquaintance to the other, through the contact with the other, and in the intimacy of the neighborhood as well as on far-away stages. Recognition therefore involves the physical identification of an individual whom one stops in the street to say, with greater or lesser sincerity and sometimes with mild irony: “Hey, Mr. Artist, how you doing?” Or, when two cars meet in one of the tiny side-streets in the old city and the musician behind the wheel might say “Hey, Artist, you don’t wanna let us pass?” Ahmad, a master in the midst of the frenetic activity of the streets of Cairo, is a musician who is often seen lugging his synthesizer (urg) or his Arab lute (oud) and amplifier, starting and stopping amid the endless tide of people and machines coursing through the city’s streets and passages. His pauses in this human ebb and flow alternate between artistic and social performances whose function is to unleash, maintain, or sanction recognition. It is this precious resource that determines a career, whereas Mohamed Ali Avenue, where a group of cafés has functioned as the epicenter of Cairo’s’ musical scene for over a century, is to some extent a holdover from an older era. Although its prestige has declined in favor of other locations, the Avenue – the term has acquired toponymic value in the profession – still serves as an important reference. Ahmad wanders through numerous urban stages that vary from wooden platforms at street parties to the living rooms of urban apartments, each of which provides another place to display and cultivate status, position, and territorial belonging. His appearances are greeted with a “Welcome Master Wahdan!” by the “ambience maker” at wedding receptions,2 as more boasts and promotional slogans fill the air: “Long live Sayeda Zaynab, the neighborhood of men, the real ones!” or “Darb al-Ahmar, the neighborhood of guys with good taste.” In this urban musical “garden,” such displays and rituals energize the professional culture of Cairo’s musicians. Beyond the question of musical ability, participating in the scene means traveling between different social circles and adapting one’s performance to a wide range of audiences. This demands social intelligence that allows an individual to meet others “on their level” in both social and musical terms. This tension between social and artistic aptitudes is mirrored in the tension inherent in the collective arbitration of status and social and moral deliberations about both the profession and categorization processes in Egyptian cultural circles. This mirroring effect extends to the West, where popular music and dance are the focus of constant – if somewhat diffuse – interest.

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The Egyptian term for “place,” makân, captures perfectly the dialectic between mobility, movement, and social position that characterizes Ahmad’s peregrinations. The reference points that arise in the course of Ahmad Wahdan’s itinerary can be generalized because they reside at the intersection between urban anthropology and sociology of social roles. My exploration of Ahmad’s life and career will unfold in four parts, beginning with his fables, a moment of methodological return that leads to the Arab accordion, which exemplifies Western influence over many local references. In between these two parts, the prelude, the beginnings, and the early ruptures as well as the stakes involved in occupying a “place” will provide opportunities to thread Ahmad’s life narrative into the urban and social contexts through which he travels.

Ahmad’s fables Taking advantage of her presence in the two scissor-manufacturing and sharpening workshops that her husband Ahmad owns in the old city, I occasionally join Um Rana for brief, one-on-one conversations over a cup of tea or a Coca Cola on an old worm-eaten wooden bench in the small dusty street in front of one of the shops. She tells me about her husband Ahmad’s antics and adventures and a wide range of other matters that are somewhat clear to me because of my long acquaintance with the family. She confides, with a sigh, that “Ahmad, he’s a fable” in other words “a long story.” She is not attempting to tell me Ahmad’s tells but instead is retracing what comes to the surface and how, through his actions and behaviors, Ahmad authors his own life as if it were a fable. Um Rana’s commentary is not especially flattering as she somewhat harshly contextualizes Ahmad’s itinerary, including evidence of his role in his family and the neighborhood environment. The neighborhood is not a source of concern for Ahmad, because he fully assumes that his way of life is seen as deviant, which allows him to cultivate a form of social and cultural superiority over the other inhabitants of his apartment building. Other voices echo some of the criticisms made by his disillusioned wife, but I will not give them undue prominence here, except to mention in passing Doctor Ragab (whose honorific title does not necessarily reflect academic distinction), who spends his evening “trimming the wool off of Ahmad’s back,” the local expression for talking behind someone’s back. But let us return to Um Rana, who asks point-blank if I remembered Hag Mahmoud. She continues, informing me about her death with a sad smile and fatalistic tone. Bad news such as this often greets me when I come back to Cairo after an extended absence and ask about certain individuals. Specific causes of these sudden deaths are scarce, and people do not seem overly concerned about why Allah has decided to end the life of a member of his flock. There is occasionally acknowledgement that an individual was “tired” or suffered from some vague illness. But these deaths inevitably provide a lesson about life’s fragility

Ahmad Wahdan 123 and the need to urgently take advantage of it. Ahmad, who is in his fifties, has decided to spend the time that remains multiplying experiences. After hesitating in his forties, he seems to have definitively chosen license over the repentance belatedly adopted by many of his fellow sinners, who renew their broken connection to religious observance in preparation for their future introductions to the Creator. He makes no secret of this decision, explaining: I’ve got the blues. My daughters are married, they’re grown up and have children. My wife works, my son is a student. I’m alone in the world, and I want to enjoy complete freedom, play music, and take advantage of every moment, do like the others and practice my profession wherever I feel like it. I want to have new, original experiences. (2010) Um Rana is exasperated by Ahmad’s attitude. He no longer does anything at home, and he has abandoned the conjugal bed, spending most of his time in a minuscule apartment in Duwiqa that he acquired after the 1992 earthquake. He sold two of the apartment’s rooms, keeping the entrance hall, a bedroom, and a bathroom. He intends to live an unfettered life, doing as he wishes. For the past several months, he has been accompanied by a young Copt who owns an old Nasr (a car locally assembled under license from Fiat), an unemployed accountant who follows Ahmad and runs small errands for him. He manages to scrape by, drinking tea, buying cigarettes – the day’s fuel – and drinking a locally made alcoholic beverage nicknamed “petrol” thanks to the modest gratuities that the Master pays him. As he strolls through his numerous errands, often with motivations that appear somewhat unclear, Ahmad’s Coptic associate broadens his circle of acquaintances, never missing an opportunity to speak to an acquaintance, in one case someone who immediately found him a job with a large Egyptian firm for thirteen to fifteen hundred Egyptian pounds per month (a bit under two hundred US dollars). Um Rana’s critical counter-narrative narrates a phantom, darker itinerary that casts a shadow over Ahmad’s autobiographical trends when telling his own story. I occasionally feel lost among the threads of innumerable stories, anecdotes, rumors, value judgments, reproaches, and worries . . . with the ultimate effect of balancing or perhaps adding uncomfortable elements to my effort to create his “majestic portrait.”3 In the end, the density of these exchanges and the omnipresence of hesitations about what is happening and what is not only reflect a form of instability that becomes part of life and that requires permanent re-evaluation of what should be responsible actions. And they inform us about an ethics of daily life through which men interact in the pursuit of their “interest,” a recurring word that reveals the harshness of social relations while retaining and appraising what should be proper behavior.

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These changes ultimately indicate how practices are categorized, especially moral practices. The itinerary allows us to re-insert into daily routines the rhetorical resources and positions that spontaneously slip into the course of the action. The itinerary thus offers a way of putting discourses and acts into perspective and, as a methodology, it demands direct observation, albeit accompanied by interviews and conversation. This is because our understanding of social relations depends as much on real-time patterns of sociability as on how individuals are anchored within various temporal systems. The problem is finding a way respect the constraints of the coproduction of the itinerary by two or even several voices while also deriving a few general insights from the fictional singularity that the process generates. An additional challenge is capturing participants’ complex orientations within relatively dense relational spaces. Accompanying Ahmad on his complex rounds, one experiences this density as one might a voyage in time. Before this study began, I adopted a position that questions the culturalist perspective that maintains that remote, all-encompassing cultural or religious referents govern daily lives. In this case, these referents would be the Islamic norms issued at other times and in other places that supposedly – and uniformly – determine people’s patterns of behavior. The itinerary is a tool that allows us to interrogate such mechanistic paradigms by calling attention to the variable boundaries of such normative bodies of rules, of which most participants only have partial knowledge, which they adapt to their own daily lives in highly diverse ways. Ultimately, one of the legitimate objectives of this approach is to portray a trajectory in such a way that it comes alive, unveiling a universe to the reader and offering social insights while reflecting what the participants themselves think and feel about their situations, while also respecting informants’ privacy. A musician aspires to be the center of a form of attention that sees him as an artist and not as a man who has a private life, friends, and routines, although all of these factors are necessarily inter-related. Of course, emphasizing biographical information assumes that the study neglects some personal details, which in itself introduces a certain bias, particularly once the informant himself becomes aware of this research interest in private matters and his social network becomes an instrument of dissemination. What criteria can help decide what to make public and keep private about an individual’s life? What image among the many versions of his trajectory should be privileged? And how can Ahmad serve as his own witness? Another question relates to what I ought to do with the stories about her husband that Um Rana tells me, contrasting versions of their shared history about whose importance or weight I have only the slightest idea. What should I do, for example, when she tells me about that memory of the very positive reaction of her father-in-law to their marriage in the mid-1970s at dawn one morning in October 2010, when he gave her his blessing with a prosaic “take him,” and then warmly thanked her, clearly delighted to be rid of a difficult son?

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Figure 5.3 Ahmad Wahdan in front of a music store on Mohamed-Ali Avenue (c. 1970)

A few days later, Ahmad, heir to a lineage of artisans, explained his difficulty explaining his marriage to his family because of the social and economic disparities between the two families. The truth is less important than the fact that Ahmad remains convinced that modest superiority, demonstrated by his quasipaternalistic attitude toward lesser people, is justified. He clings to this attitude when he pictures himself as spokesperson for the artisan-musicians on the Avenue. It also seems that, regardless of the conditions under which their lives together began, Ahmad was seeking to flee his family, which he felt mistreated by and found claustrophobic. Even at fourteen or fifteen years old he liked to wander Mohamed Ali Avenue and admire the elegant stars. A few years later, he found the financial resources that he needed on the Avenue to finance his household as well as a place that matched his ambitions.

The beginning: a liminal period (1960–1975) Ahmad was fascinated by the artists sitting on café terraces along the avenue. The unknown sat alongside with the anonymous as well as the best-known names, especially at the celebrated ‘awat at-tigara café. This elegance stands in stark contrast with the rusticity and conservatism of the artisan milieu in the nearby old city of the site of Ahmad’s origins. Life was not easy at home after his second wife left. His mother remarried and took her daughter with her, leaving him as the only child of that couple remaining

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with his father. The other children living there were older children of the father’s first wife. He had one son, Salah and six daughters, which explains why Ahmad’s father wanted to keep him at home. He suffered from the isolation and the family punished him for his mother’s behavior – or at least that was his experience. He nevertheless preserves tender memories of childhood:4 The story began [. . .] I was climbing the stairs, by myself, and I was crying. I was crying a lot, to the point that all of a sudden I became aware of my voice, and then of the silence [. . .] and going down the street, I started listening. A piece of music, a song, a person reciting the Koran whose voice was beautiful, or a song by Um Kalthoum, Abdel Halim Hafez, or Farid al-Atrach, or, I don’t remember what there was at the time anymore, in the sixties [. . .] and I forgot all my problems, all the worries that I had in my heart flew away, as if I hadn’t been oppressed, as if that way I had started to manage my problems. (Ahmad, May 3, 2010) He gradually immersed himself in music, initially at school, where he learned Koranic chants, and later at home listening to his older brother Salah. He borrowed his brother’s lute whenever he left the house to teach himself to play it. He explains this growing passion for music as a way of escaping from his stepmother’s mistreatment, while everyone else treated him like a servant who could always be called upon and Salah was the favorite. The eldest son of his father’s first marriage, Salah had the privilege of having his own room. In the neighborhood’s cramped lodgings, even if the apartment of the Sennân family5 was not very small, Jean-Charles Depaule explains that the privilege of possessing “a house within the house (bêt fi-l-bêt)” was a matter of intense negotiation in which boys have priority. Salah was evidence of the elevated status of an oldest son that guaranteed him his own patch of domestic territory to dispose of as he wished (1990). Thanks to the sanctuary provided by his brother and in spite of his father’s opposition, he began his apprenticeship and developed his proficiency as a musician. The difference in how the two brothers were raised produced contrasting results. One of them held court, receiving friends who would later become leading intellectual figures, including Omar Shara’î, a musicologist and historian, before ultimately immigrating to the United States and opening a veterinary clinic. In fact, Ahmad never ceases to express his astonishment at the idea that dogs receive cosmetic surgery. The workshops that he inherited with his sisters provided him a steady income that made him less dependent on the vagaries of being a musician. His older brother also played music as an “enlightened amateur.” It was out of the question for him to make a career out of music, which he did not consider respectable. Ahmad dreamt of becoming part of the music scene, however. His brother, the guarantor of the family’s honor, helped pay for his studies at the Institute of Music to make this ambition more socially acceptable. He later harshly criticized Ahmad’s daughter after the unpleasant surprise

Ahmad Wahdan 127 of seeing her playing the synthesizer at a wedding party in a side street in the neighborhood. For reasons of morality and convenience, it is completely forbidden for a young woman of good family to expose herself to the men’s gaze in this way. To some extent, Ahmad’s family reveals a widespread division in the field of music and other cultural practices. Problems of legitimacy tend to be associated with forms of festivity connected to the popular classes, and as a result they are often stigmatized as being licentious and low quality. The startling contrast between Ahmad and his half-brother, with his contemporary conservative middle-class values, resulted from their respective positions in the family. In keeping with the plebeian character of the neighborhood, they were a lower middle-class family that later lost their status, except for the older brother, who had found financial success in the United States. Ahmad became a musician at a time when the Avenue’s influence in the music scene was diminishing, which allowed closer contact between music professionals and artisan-musician networks in nearby neighborhoods. These changes encouraged a number of young people attracted by the prospect of an artistic career to seek careers as professional musicians as an alternative to small manufacturing jobs and the cultural baggage associated with them. Only a few years earlier, the Avenue was a mandatory rite of passage for musicians from the provinces or abroad who aspired to join the Cairo music scene. Well-known musicians sometimes settled there, including Samira al-Qurayshi, who bought an apartment in the area in the early 1950s, where I met her, surrounded by her musician children, not long before her death a half-century later. When she first arrived, her rise to fame had just begun, and she was helped by one of the agents who haunted the cafés scouting for emerging young talent. These historic changes in the role of the Avenue are consistent with an important shift in Ahmad’s life story. During a liminal moment, he was an adolescent gradually separating himself from his family and beginning to take his place as a young man on the cusp of professional life, although without full membership in the community of musicians. It was the years that he spent at the Institute of Music that enabled him to enter the “musician market,” followed by a period of discoveries and new horizons that he described to me in 2002: The Institute had something strange – it was the first mixed secondary institute. And it was the only one in Egypt that mixed girls and boys. There weren’t many of us. There were 13 girls and 13 boys in the class. They classified them depending on the needs of the Cairo symphonic orchestra and depending on the instrumentalists being requested. Meaning they needed a cello – they employed three or four instrumentalists to work with the students, who specialized in that instrument. There was demand for the sitar, so they assigned seven or eight students. If there were too many for the violin, they reduced the number. It involved preparing orchestra musicians for the future at a time when there was not a single Egyptian instrumentalist in the Cairo symphonic orchestra.

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Nicolas Puig The orchestra was entirely composed of foreigners, every one of them instrumentalists. So the conservatory and the Academy began training children starting at the age of seven. The students entered at six or seven and left as first-class musicians (brima vista). You could put a musical score under their noses and they could play it right away. To get to this level, you have to stay with the violin for fifteen, twenty years. They studied and learned the technique and positions. The foreigners were the ones who gave the examinations and the grades. I was unlucky at the Institute because of the social class I came from when I entered . . . and I was surprised to have girls with me as a teenager. And young people that age . . . I partied, I worked outside . . . I was already on the market on the Avenue Mohamed-Ali, which was where musicians assembled at the time.

Musicians’ arrival on the “market” created a clean break, at least that was the term used to describe the event. It meant giving up a conventional lifestyle – usually with a sense of relief – including regular working hours and being part of a hierarchy. This change also caused conflict in some families, although not in the few remaining musical clans. This extended to a variety of situations that ranged from placing underage children in a work environment, even if it meant removing them from school, in order to ensure that they received the most prestigious instruction possible so as to ensure their upward mobility. Material concerns were critical at a time when such choices carried important long-term implications. Ahmad and his colleagues recall the signs of promising beginnings that now only exist as a few pictures in old photo albums, such as a red car with Ahmad posing at the wheel, whereas now he only owns a scooter, albeit a red one. They experienced less competition at the time, and a musician could earn between fifty and one hundred Egyptian pounds in an evening, compared to a civil servant who could scarcely bring home sixteen pounds a month. On Thursday nights at the time, “the entire city of Cairo was partying” (Ahmad, January 10, 2009). According to Ahmad, this all ended some time ago: I followed the professionals. Mohamed Ali Avenue had no doors. There were open cafés that welcomed anybody who could pay for a cup of tea. I went down, I followed and observed, how this guy works. . . . I discovered that musicians’ incomes were very high. At the time, a musician could sometimes make 100 pounds in a night. When business graduates were working for 16 pounds a month, an accordion player was taking home 100 pounds from a party or a wedding. That was a lot of money. When I started thinking about getting married, I couldn’t have lived off of 16 pounds, but I could manage quite well with 100. Even if I only had a single gig, I could live for a whole month. I counted everything up materially like that, and then the occupational pyramid started to invert itself. It’s the same thing. Everything went up. If you take any construction worker, you’ll see that he can take home 50 pounds, and if you take a mazahrgui (a percussionist who plays the mazhar, a tambourine equipped with cymbals), he’s going to take home the same amount,

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50 pounds. And the worker works every day, but the musician rarely works once a week. (September 5, 2002) This golden age ended with a marriage, the same one that Um Rana now seems to regret, her eyes becoming unfocused while she draws on her water-pipe, an indispensable possession of artisan-bosses. The couple moved into the apartment in the neighborhood under the citadel where they still live. The neighbors accepted the couple, particularly the musician, since they were already accustomed to the loud noises of machines like the antiquated leather hole-punching machine in apartments that were converted into workshops. Since then, some neighbors have died, but most of them are still living there with reduced living spaces because of the real estate crisis. The little neighbor, Shayma, is now fully grown and married with her first child; the single room that she lived in with her mother – they share a bathroom on the landing with three other neighbors – now houses her entire little family, which will undoubtedly continue to grow by adding at least one additional child. From the beginning, Ahmad imposed his uniqueness on this small universe, delegating the social domain of the neighborhood to Um Rana and allowing her to manage relationships, a task at which she excels. Meanwhile, he threw himself body and soul into the artistic life that he believed would place his name at the top of the charts and provide him social recognition.

Position and prestige Thirty years later, in 2006, the act of renewing an identity card was to be a major turning point in Ahmad Wahdan’s life, because it was the first time he could write “musician” next to the word “occupation.” His daughter Rana had married the secretary of the musicians’ union that he joined after refusing to join for years because the dues were too high. The official is a noteworthy factor in his having his professional status formally recognized. This coincided with another important change in Ahmad’s life when he turned over managing the scissor workshops to one of his daughters and later to his wife, making music his sole occupation. After being a shopkeeper, he was now an official “musician,” a status that his “identity” continues to demonstrate. He sees this status as a form of recognition, although he is aware that a faint note of suspicion surrounds small-time musicians like him, those who do not circulate in suits and ties, who play prestigious halls around the city and make money only on the commercial circuit, which is branded by the stigma of social illegitimacy. Ahmad left the cafés on the Avenue behind him and developed new routines centered around the “Casino Nasif,” which is now known as “Saad the Chauffeur” because of the new owner’s name and occupation. He was finally an official musician now that began to distance himself from the network. From the point of view of his peers, he had long enjoyed an enviable position – with a regular gig in a café and a dedicated chair of his own (sâhib kursî). This status was evidence of his peers’ esteem and ensured him a privileged place within the professional hierarchy, and his professional activities centered on the café.

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Figure 5.4 Ahmad Wahdan, at home in the Darb al-Ahmar neighborhood, 2003

Years later, in 2010, Ahmad vividly recalled that the ambience of the café was an essential part of his work: Thursday was a special day, it was the day that people were everywhere and musicians got together, leaving the Avenue to play weddings throughout the

Ahmad Wahdan 131 entire Egyptian Republic. For example, you leave Mohamed Ali Avenue and you play a wedding at the Fayoum or in Aswan. And Thursdays were known for that. [. . .] Me, I wanted to become part of that world and they, the musicians, were looking for people. On Thursdays, there were more than 1,000 parties in the city, and the whole Mohamed Ali Avenue worked all across the country. I was there, and there were no accordionists. They told me to learn the accordion to get work [Ahmad originally played the oud]. I didn’t even have any instruments, and they had work to offer me. We came to an understanding for a party – I’m in the café and somebody came to see me. “Can you do this? Can I introduce you to people? What do you play?” “I play the accordion, tablas, etc. I ask this much.” We made a deal like that. And using some of the money I made, I rented an accordion. [. . .]. That’s how it is, if there’s a celebration, somebody tells somebody else . . . and then we know each other. “Ah he’s a good singer, he’s a great instrumentalist, that guy’s not bad, this other guy is no good.” I had a good reputation. I had worked on my reputation, I am a good musician, I can play the music needed for a wedding, I know how to make dancing girls work, I can play so people dance. I know how to play music that a dancer can move to, and that’s important; and I know how to play the music that people request at weddings [. . .] it was going well, and then after that, it was over [. . .] the parties got to be no fun, they changed. When he quit frequenting the café a few years ago, Ahmad was affirming a new status – from now on people would have to come see him “on purpose” about gigs, meaning he no longer had to hang out waiting for contracts at the café. Matters of position and rank involve processes of hierarchy formation in economic, social, and cultural fields that also intersect with musicians’ livelihoods. This is common across a wide range of apprenticeships, modes of functioning, places, and reputations. As evidence, here is an example that shows the importance of this place and, in passing, the omnipresent mechanism that shapes relationships between musicians. After he received an invitation to play at a Western diplomat’s home, Ahmad spent part of the evening trying to form a duo with a renowned Egyptian violinist. He was unable to approach the great maestro directly, so he sent word through his entourage so that someone would hand the maestro his card. His invitation to perform in a duo with him was declined – although not frontally – under the pretext that performing with no time to rehearse as a duo might limit the time that the maestro would play during the gig. An assurance that things would be better-organized next time was communicated to Ahmad, but he was not duped. He had failed to engineer what could be described as musical hypogamy, meaning a marital union with a spouse of inferior social rank. The violinist’s refusal of musical hypogamy arose from a fear of even a temporary alliance with an artist of lesser renown, Ahmad. The danger was that it might lead to avoidance tactics or, on the contrary, depending on the situation, to attempts to reconcile in order to benefit from the other’s prestige (brestij). Examining such convoluted social maneuvers is fundamental to the ethnography of prestige.

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An array of subtle games involving negotiations of rank and status are played out in an effort to continuously publicize oneself via different interactions and encounters, from place to place. Civilities and subtle codes are used according to who takes precedence over whom. Ahmad, who felt he had been somewhat led on by the violinist during the earlier upscale evening, was unaware of the “drama” being played out. He is much more master of the situation when he welcomes musicians he has trained in his own home who are often from his own neighborhood and who, although they are friends, still display a certain deference toward him. Ultimately, Ahmad himself refuses this musical hypogamy by declining to test his prestige by playing street weddings. An integral part of these festivities, which are situated at the lower rungs of the employment hierarchy, he gradually climbs up the professional ladder. My own three-year presence in Cairo contributed to his ascension, because I was sometimes able to arrange prestigious performances for him in places like the gardens of the French Institute of Oriental Architecture or the inauguration of a restored palace in a historic neighborhood that was attended by the Governor of Cairo. In this way, Ahmad was catapulted into a social world that was previously out of his reach with the intermediary efforts of a moderately connected Westerner. For a variety of reasons, however, Ahmad’s ascension remained incomplete, and he was forced to organize his own events in a hall in a chic Cairo neighborhood the Al-Sawi Cultural Center in Zamalek. He paid out of his own pocket for most of these occasions, which naturally irritated his wife. She again lamented his spendthrift habits and his pretentious ego while she slaved away in order to pay for their daily lives, in addition to their son’s private lessons, which were a necessity for success in school. The structure of employment at their social level leads to this form of impermeability, as difficulty circulates between the sectors of the music market, with the wedding musicians who gather on Mohamed Ali Avenue constituting the lowest level, even if there are still a few stars to be found there to confirm that it is a music school . . . but on the condition that one is able to graduate and move on. There are of course examples among the city’s musicians of careers that expand in natural ways. Those who rise above performing at street weddings subsequently avoid playing in them because it would entail stepping down from a rank attained with considerable difficulty. Ahmad paints a somber picture of the profession: The state of the souk [the “market,” in this instance of musicians] . . . and can we still even talk about a souk? I don’t go to the café anymore. Now I don’t have the energy to go there. I want to advance. You either advance, or you die. And if I die honorably, that’s better. I have built a good name and am a good person. I have trained a lot of people. So I don’t want people to see me under less good conditions that the ones I have attained – for which I wore myself out – and that have left a good impression on people. The most honorable thing would be for me to stop the moment I can totally rely on another source of income. I don’t need this work as much as I did in the beginning.

Ahmad Wahdan 133 If I need it, it’s going to signify the beginning of my decline. The profession gives you only good things in the beginning – dignity, prestige, good looks, money, fame, and a happy life. Then it starts to take everything back from you. Until the pyramid inverts itself. It starts to take back your dignity, your social level, your health. It starts to take away everything that it gave you. I am an instrumentalist who makes 200 pounds. I work in the souk. A less experienced musician comes along. He’s works for 50 pounds. He works and I don’t. To be able to work, I have to accept 50. And there is no difference between him and me. If there were, he wouldn’t be able to stay in my place. [. . .] Me, I’m either in my place or I would rather just not show up. (September 5, 2002) Attention: You are a man used to sleeping all night, and you don’t sleep at night at all. A lack of sleep at night ruins people’s health. An hour of sleep a night is better than five hours during the day. So you lose your health. And then for weddings, the client wants somebody young, a young man to play and sing. He doesn’t want an old man. So for that old man, the decline begins. Ahmad recently began to complain about exhaustion and pains in his bones. The body, he believes, ages poorly because of the difficulty of the work and the long nocturnal hours. He even says that “sunlight is the musician’s enemy.” Like many of his peers when they approach their fiftieth year, he was always on the lookout for a position that was better suited to his idea of what a respectable man should do. Some envisioned quitting the profession altogether, leading to a few ill-defined professional conversions that became part of their itineraries. Ridha, the percussionist, for example, was currently employed by a security company as a night watchman, and his colleagues at the café sardonically observed that “at least he gets to work all night long.” Ayman, on the other hand, made the transition toward a more acceptable, related activity by maintaining, repairing, and renting musical instruments. The change provided him with higher status and a modest amount of social recognition. The question of morality, which people avoid their entire lives, becomes increasingly pressing as time passes and society changes or as a younger, unattached man becomes a father. Two registers are superimposed that, although they overlap, are not entirely consistent with each other: Social shame, which causes a sense of discomfort about how one presents oneself, and the religious transgression associated with the musical professions in many people’s minds. This difficulty is understood in various ways involving compromises to one’s margin of action in terms of established conventions and how one behaves according to personal convictions. In other words, “I have a respectable occupation, and it is not a problem to do that, God doesn’t really care.” Stricter interpretations imply position such as “it’s bad to drink, farah (marriage) is haram (prohibited by the religion), and people commit major sins there, of the flesh, alcohol.” Ahmad considered the matter for a long time. He began to pray, suddenly aware of the precariousness

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of his personal situation and of his need for redemption before he presented himself before the Creator. He was also concerned about his respectability here on earth. These interludes never lasted long, though, and, although he was a true believer, he quickly abandoned his observances, taking a pragmatic point of view and placing his faith in divine mercy. Ahmad developed an adapted form of religion involving recognizing Islam but determining how and what he did to express this faith. According to Kertzer (1997, cited by Ferrié), this collective form of “solidarity without consensus” ultimately typifies the majority of believers’ actual religious practices. For Ridha, who confided her dreams of a peaceful small businesses in me, it is not so much a question of conforming to norms or not – which sometimes contradict each other anyway, as illustrated by the proliferation of religious literature and Internet forums – but instead of the discomfort that her work causes her, particularly regarding her growing son and his neighborhood acquaintances, from whom he prefers to hide his mother’s profession. Living with this “dark secret” (Hannerz, 1983: 318)6 does not necessarily mean living under the burden of sin, even if the sense of transgression can become so great a burden to dancers and, to a lesser extent, musicians, that they abandon their careers. In Ridha’s case, like others, the problem is more seeking an element of anonymity and avoiding suspicious looks. This attitude can be compared to the “morals of visibility” that characterize prevailing ethics among alcohol consumers in Tunisia more fittingly than the “morals of culpability” (Buisson, 1997). Sensitivity to social convention can provide sufficient motivation to compartmentalize one’s existence. By aspiring to melt with complete anonymity into one’s home environment, one can throw a veil over an activity that most fellow citizens perceive as deviant.7 Ahmad holds out hope that this young and still fragile revolution is the beginning of a period of potential reconfigurations of social relations and relationships with authority. Above all, “Egypt is not in the midst of a revolution, it is in mouled,” he argues, considering the exaltation that had taken over the city and the animation along the banks of the Nile crowded by young people meeting each other and broadening their horizons in the wake of the events. Finally, without the abuses of the previous regime, it is possible to imagine that street parties regain acceptance, sacred as well as profane. Such popular festivities have typically been supervised by the police authorities, providing them an opportunity to collect “contributions” from event organizers in exchange for inaction. While awaiting confirmation of these imagined tomorrows of unfettered musical celebration, the changes that Ahmad made in his trajectory opened new perspectives. The presence of a Western researcher who suddenly became an expert thanks to a mission for a far-away French museum, long Ahmad’s calling card, has noticeably enhanced his social position. This positive connotation flows naturally from its Western association, which confers an automatic advantage despite the fact that the relationship with the West is ambivalent. One illustration of this mixed blessing is the way in which Western references are used in the discourses surrounding musical

Ahmad Wahdan 135 practices, which opened the way for my fourth and final immersion in Ahmad Wahdan’s itinerary, an episode introduced with a certain degree of fanfare by a discussion on the Arabization of the accordion.

The Arab accordion, or what can be done about the West? Jean-Noël Ferrié has observed that the mechanisms used to refer to the West “undoubtedly have very little to do with this disquieting, majestic thing that we call ‘the vision of the West’” (1997). In fact, retracing the manifestations of this vision in Egypt should begin by examining them in context and exploring the ways in which this distant entity – the West – whose actual contents are infinitely malleable, is referenced – and un-referenced. The diatonic accordion became Arabized through a process that exemplifies how a foreign object becomes integrated into prevailing esthetic conventions. The object is redefined through a process that culminates in its indigenization. Ahmad, who masters the subtleties of the instrument, describes the operations required to adapt it to Eastern music. The accordion is modified by filing one of the two reeds mounted along reed boards inside the case, which lowers the sound frequency. This is typically performed without the aid of a tuning fork because the ear is sufficient. This allows the production of a note lowered by a quarter-tone on the pull stroke or opening (fath) of the bellows, or, alternatively, its natural version on the push, which is called closing (‘afl). An accordion modified in this way is called mitssayik from the word sîkah or quartertone.8 People believe that this micro-interval shows that the instrument has “become Arabized,” increasing its appeal to Egyptian audiences and ensuring that it is integrated into the local musical scene:9 The accordion appeared in Egypt and became part of the takht shar’I [Eastern takht: a small musical grouping that developed in the late nineteenth century], which includes the violin, the lute, the sitar (qanun), and the reed flute (nay). It was integrated into this mix of instruments. Egyptian musicians added quartertones because the accordion was originally a Western instrument used with Western styles, techniques, and rules, but Egyptian musicians customized it by adding quartertones. And it appeared in Um Kalthoum’s orchestra with the famous accordion player, the master Faruq Sallama, which brought him enormous fame, and the sound of his accordion is like a zaghrouta [youyou] in the middle of the farah. A farah without an accordion was not appropriate, so this instrument and its music were needed. (Ahmad, January 11, 2009) The common belief that Arabic music is a superior vehicle for expressing human emotions derives from the melodic subtleties made possible by micro-intervals. The enhancements that result from altering an instrument and/or a specific way of playing it are parts of a highly specific approach to music.10 Familiarity with the original exogenous references is built up through repetition and over time, a

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Figure 5.5 The musician Ad-Damanhuri on stage at a wedding. Darb al-Ahmar neighborhood, Cairo, 2003

process that the local lexicon takes into account and that began under the influence of Western musicians. Unsurprisingly, Italians occupy an important position in this musical history because of the significant influence of Italian musicians on the Egyptian music

Ahmad Wahdan 137 scene since the nineteenth century. The use of Arabized Italian terms thus connotes a certain distinction among individuals who use them, allowing them to infuse social exchanges and other situations with the supposed urbanity of this “civilization.” “Brima vista,” “maestro, and “bruva” (repetition) become elements of this cloud of meanings. While French (do, ré, mi for C, D, E . . .) and Arabic (rast, dukka, sîka . . .) notations coexist in musical theory, Egyptian music professionals use English terms in fields semantically linked to the most influential cultural environments since the 1970s, including terms like “drum” and “guitar” for instruments or “sound,” “echo,” and “reverb” to refer to sounds. These traces of past and present cosmopolitanism echo the multiple refractions of the idea of the West (al gharb) that Ahmad and his peers often draw upon. But the ways in which this space is invoked remain vague and contradictory, and the contents vary depending on each individual’s adaptation to a particular situation. The notion of popular “shaabî ” has a slightly ambiguous meaning in such complex deliberations, as do references to the West, and it is continually debated, with highly variable contents. Ahmad openly adopts contrasting positions by contending that he can happily picture himself as a privileged witness, the quintessential representative of a “popular” style, while also distancing himself from that role in favor of his newly acquired role as a cultural middle-man, which enables him to reach cultural spheres that are otherwise outside his current cultural scope. The ease with which Ahmad circulates among different social worlds is a skill recognized by his peers in the same way as his musical aptitude. Ahmad cultivates social skills that he acquired in the multi-layered, heterogeneous Egyptian society of the city, in which each circle possesses its own singular courtesies and customs. He uses this social facility to maintain his rank in the social hierarchy of the different neighborhoods and houses that he traverses while exercising his profession or engaging in social networking. This includes his own home, where foreigners are increasingly frequent visitors. His public relationships11 have become more cosmopolitan over the past ten years as foreigners have joined his circle of acquaintances – musicians, professors, friends, students of Arabic, and, more recently, a number of European women belly dancers trying to improve their knowledge of Egyptian music and dancing. His close contacts on the local scene and his privileged access to a type of authenticity provide foreign dancers with an edge in European and American dance markets. As a result, it is not unusual to see a foreigner or small groups of Westerners in the hara12 Abdallah Beyk in the Darb al-Ahmar neighborhood. Um Rana points this out with a certain satisfaction, asserting that “if there’s a foreigner here (in the hara), everybody knows they’re coming to our house.” The process of patrimonialization of music – which we will call informal, through educated Westerners who come to the Wahdan’s home to meet the master later became more formal due to a program for collecting musical instruments and sound file samples for Mucem, a French museum. This transition allowed Ahmad to detach himself from local norms and become a middleman at the interface between “Avenue” circles, French collectors, and a scattering of impassioned foreigners. The musical esthetics involved in this research and the associated

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interactions partly evade debates about their intrinsic qualities, because it is enough for them to remain connected in some way to “local culture.” In this way, they also come under a problem of cultural relativity and a logic of incommensurability because they cannot be quantified or compared. The renewal of the term almée is evidence of a similar process. In fact, the word “awâlim” – the plural of “âlma,” which referred to a category of Egyptian singers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Rodinson, 1975), took on a more pejorative meaning in the twentieth century. It has been rehabilitated in the past several years because of increased Western interest, at least in France and, from what I observed, the United States but without the moral condemnation associated with it in Egypt. The Western infatuation for Eastern dancing and the rise of broad-based interest in Arabic cultures have created new opportunities. An orchestra of Egyptian musicians that took the name “The Cairo awalim” for the occasion performed in Paris in the mid-2000s, and there is an Awalim Dance Company in Atlanta in the United States, as well as an association called Awalim danse orientale [Awalim Oriental Dance] in the French city of Perpignan. Although not particularly appreciated in their country of origin, a number of terms and the cultural contents to which they refer have become vectors of exoticism in Western contexts. This is the case with the Musicians of the Nile, who are locally rejected and called “gypsies” but who accepted this label to promote their performances in the West (Zirbel, 2000). Ahmad has become a resource person for these groups and even performs occasionally with some of the dancers. This is how, in Ahmad’s fables, or at least within his sphere of influence, modest international connections have been created, using the humblest of means and as part of a lineage based on the vestiges of earlier moments of integration into Mediterranean or the even more remote spaces that made Alexandria and Cairo into cosmopolitan cities in the nineteenth century. The trajectories of objects and instruments transformed by local usages and the itineraries of individuals and encounters that can profoundly affect local categorization processes open up horizons that blend the inter-urban and international scenes. Ahmad does not dare to expect to profit directly from these trends, however, except for the satisfaction that his itinerary has gained an international dimension, since he often repeated his desire to travel, emphasizing that he would never return if he left, but he is also immediately pointing out – seemingly without contradiction – that he could never survive homesickness. All of this is grafted onto his proliferating social interactions and the densification of the number of places that he traverses in the course of his engagements and visits, which ultimately explains his infatuation with the idea of having an “office.” He expresses his desire for a place that would prove his social position without any particular activity needing to be connected to it, a space independent of his family where he would receive people, manage his affairs, and hold court. Ahmad never strays far from this inflated vision of his social mobility. He says that he aspires to owning a car and opening an office where he can devote his energy to maintaining his status for the remaining years left to him. This is because

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he is currently preoccupied by this rather somber perspective, which has suddenly increased his awareness of the precariousness of his presence here on earth and prompted him to think about how he can leave his mark or sûfenîr (souvenir). Egyptian Arabic borrowed this word, retaining its French and English meaning, to refer to items for sale in tourist shops that help recall important moments. It is also possible that he is referring to the possibility of conscientiously recording a few quality songs to create lasting memories of his itinerary. Or, perhaps a souvenir for Ahmad is something that would unify the phases of his musical career into a single, elegant musical production. His career is presently immortalized by only a few fragmented archives – postcards from various periods, concert announcements and brochures (which are referred to using the English word pamphlet) and dust-covered photographs. These are all tools used for self-promotion that have become markers of time along the axis of a professional itinerary. At last, Ahmad might also mean “doing something for God,” i.e., not for his after-life – will it unfold in paradise? – but in reality for no one, an act without importance that involves no grand expectations. Well, almost none, because this extension of himself would graciously remind his descendants of him, especially his children and his grandchildren now that he is a grandfather. But, in this mortal life, here on earth, he made a detour through this life story, which – with the deepest respect for the dissonant voices, contradictions, and ambiguities that constitute the richness of Ahmad’s character – is ultimately a form of homage, an homage that I hereby wholeheartedly render unto him.

Notes 1 A few weeks before sending our manuscript, Ahmad’s daughter, Rana, called to let me know that her father had just passed away. Ahmad ended up disappearing in the city: He was hit by a car in the night as he was coming back from a gig in one of these frenzied streets of Cairo. Ahmad died on May 31, 2018, while doing his job. This homage written in his lifetime tragically turned into a posthumous tribute. Allah yerahmak ya Ahmad, ya fennân, ya sadiq al-qalb. 2 The nabatshî: He congratulates guests and addresses salutations and greetings to them. He collects gifts of cash in the form of tips to be distributed later among the members of the orchestra and the newlywed couple’s families according to pre-established agreements. 3 The majestic portrait is focused on “the individual as public incarnation” (Marc Abélès, 2011: 188; 190). The portrait of Louis XIV by Hyacinte Rigaud (1701) is an archetypal example. 4 “Yes, what little I have of honor and courage, I have because [. . .] of the child that I was and who is now like an ancestor to me,” Georges Bernanos, cited in Laurent Déom (2004: 101). 5 Ahmad’s patronymic name, which means the knife-sharpener. 6 The author explains that segregated living is a perfect example of the urban lifestyle. It is composed of a group of stable relationships, each of which is supposed to represent the subject as he is. The impermeability of these groups of relationships means that one can adopt several social roles in parallel with each other, some of which are more illicit than others. 7 For a more detailed discussion of professional ethics, see Chap. 2 in Puig (2010). 8 The same term is used to designate the mode beginning with a half quarter-tone: E sîka, F, G, A, B sîka, C, D, E sîka.

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9 In a discussion of globalization, Friedman (2000) cites the example of a beer label that the Papous attach to their shields because it symbolizes courage. According to Friedman, the resulting object is not a hybrid because it is fully appropriated and integrated into the local system of reference. This is an exogenous perspective that constructs hybridity by inferring displacement, something that the Papous do not perceive when they use the graphic image from the label and the beer’s symbolism within the framework of their own codes. Jean-Noël Ferrié (1996), on the other hand, questions the idea of “encoding” that leads to fully integrating “transnational objects” into a local framework, because it entails postulating a “production of an ‘always different’ cultural difference in which culturalism only sees cultures that are resistant to change and immobile,” a “coding installs the local in the elsewhere,” which is essentially the same as substituting one culturalism for another, because the cultural system is considered to be the primary determiner of how individuals orient themselves. Although, as Ferrié has suggested, it is true that “encoding situates the local in the elsewhere,” I wish to emphasize that adapting a displaced object, which is sometimes transformed, involves a range of perspectives and intentions that are only partly accounted by either the model that focuses on appropriation or the second model that centers on the durability of the object’s original reference. The continuum between these two poles contains a range possible combinations that involve the interplay between collective cultural constructions and individual orientations; time also plays a determinant role that neither model takes into account. 10 Such as creating quarter-tones on the trumpet by using the flexibility of his lips. 11 It is said that they are one of the two pillars of the profession, along with “politics,” in the sense of knowing how to optimally manage one’s relationships in a way that is consistent with one’s own best interests. 12 A neighborhood can be defined as “a residential unit where people live ‘with doors open,’ [. . .] that continues to be identified with sociability and powerful solidarity among groups” (Depaule, 2010: 562).

References Abeles, Marc. “Le portrait comme opérateur ethnographique: l’écriture et la vie (politique),” in Portraits, esquisses anthropographiques, edited by J. Massard-Vincent, S. Camelin, and C. Jungen, 179–192, Paris: Éditions Petra, coll. anthropologiques, 2011. Buisson-Fenet, Emmanuel. “Ivresse et rapport à l’occidentalisation au Maghreb. Barset débits de boissons à Tunis,” Égypte Monde arabe, première série, n°30–31 (1997): 303– 320. http://ema.revues.org/index1660.html. Deom, Laurent. “Esprit d’enfance contre exil intérieur dans les essais et les écrits de combat de Bernanos,” in Exil, errance et marginalité dans l’œuvre de Georges Bernanos, edited by M. dans Milner, 97–112, Paris: Presses Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2004. Depaule, Jean-Charles. “Des territoires en formation. Jeunesse et urbanisation au Caire,” Égypte Monde arabe, première série, n°1 (1990): 153–164. http://ema.revues.org/index187. html. Depaule, Jean-Charles. “Hâra,” in L’aventure de mots de la ville à travers le temps, les langues, les sociétés, edited by C. dans Topalov, L. Coudroy de Lille, J.-Ch. Depaule, and B. Marin, 559–563, Paris: Robert Laffont, coll. Bouquins, 2010. Ferrié, Jean-Noël. “L’appartenance des objets: problèmes d’anthropologie de la culture et de l’identité,” Égypte Monde arabe, première série, n°25 (1996): 15–24. http://ema. revues.org/index822.html. Ferrié, Jean-Noël. “Usages et petits usages de ‘l’Occident’ en Égypte,” Égypte Monde arabe, première série, n°30–31 (1997): 321–335. http://ema.revues.org/index1663.html.

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Friedman, Jonathan. “Des racines et (dé)routes. Tropes pour trekkers,” L’homme, n°156 (2000): 187–206. Hannerz, Ulf. Explorer la ville. Éléments d’anthropologie urbaine (translated and introduced by Isaac Joseph), 432, Paris: Éditions de Minuit, 1983. Puig, Nicolas. “Habiter à Dûwîqa au Caire. Dedans et dehors d’une société de Proximité,” Autrepart, n°25 (2003): 137–152. Puig, Nicolas. Farah. Musiciens de noce et scènes urbaines au Caire, 214, Paris: SindbadActes Sud, La bibliothèque arabe, coll. Hommes et societies, 2010. Rodinson, Maxime. “Âlima,” in Encyclopédie de l’islam, Vol. I, Leiden and Paris: E.-J. Brill, Maisonneuve et Larose, 1975 (1960). Zirbel, Katherine E. “Playing It Both Ways: Local Egyptian Performers Between Regional Identity and International Markets,” in Mass Mediations: New Approaches to Popular Culture in the Middle East and Beyond, edited by Walter Armbrust, 120–145, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.

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From milonguero to “professor” Inventing a trade Christophe Apprill

Figure 6.1 Federico Rodriguez Moreno and Corinne Barbara, A fuego lento, 1996

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Born in 1966 in Argentina, Federico has been dancing and teaching “Argentinian” tango in France since 1993.1 In both France and Argentina at that time, tango had become “an old people’s dance” and experienced a period of decline beginning in the 1960s after flourishing between 1925 and 1950 in Argentina. Like certain other older music and dance forms, the popularity of tango suffered from the success of American and British music with younger generations, as well as the hardening of the political and social climate associated with Argentina’s economic decline. The resulting break in cultural transmission across generations eventually gave way to younger people’s rediscovery of folk practices. In 1983, in a political context defined by the end of dictatorship, the performers of Tango Argentino organized a European tour. The tour, which included a stop at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, included music, singing, and dancing, and it prompted a rebirth of Argentine tango in France and the rest of Europe. The first tango classes began to appear in the mid-1980s, but the teaching of tango began to develop in earnest in the early 1990s. At the time, social dances continued to be influenced by the deep crisis in dance of the 1960s, when young people turned away from traditional ballroom-style dancing in favor of the inventiveness of rock and the “freedom” of jerk. Couple dances as a whole, along with the social practices associated with them, became limited to teas and afternoons dances that became associated with folklore traditions in young people’s eyes. Young Argentinian dancers like Federico Rodríguez Moreno contributed to tango’s renaissance by resolving the problem of the generational gap that had effectively halted the transmission of the genre. In Buenos Aires, the new generation turned to older ballroom dancers, the milongueros, to learn steps and figures. In Europe, faced with an eager but neophyte public, they adapted dance moves to learners who initially tended to be uncomfortable with touching each other and who had no model of ballroom dancing for guidance about dress, rhythm, or socialization. The Argentine tango that was spontaneously created2 in France and a number of other countries thus belongs to a category of social dances whose status is paradoxical: Although they can be described as dances, they are not considered to qualify as art because they originated in a social context, the dancehall – instead of in staged representation or performance. Such social dances have weak symbolic legitimacy and no legal recognition,3 and teaching tango means joining a professional world whose parameters are blurred and that does not require a sense of artistic vocation or benefit from the prestige that is associated with creativity. From ballroom milonguero to tango teacher, Federico’s itinerary exemplifies the various phases involved in constructing the occupational category of dance professor, as instructors are generally called. Federico thus improves our understanding of a field about which the sociology of the artistic professions has little to say: The hybrid character of “social dances,” uneasily situated midway between artistic education and social rituals, means that Federico’s field fits poorly sociological views of the artistic professions and has received little scholarly attention. For this reason, his itinerary sheds light on an activity that is at the intersection of a number of complex issues surrounding the status of an occupation that is not necessarily a profession.

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Dance according to dancers I conducted our first interview in July 2008 in Paris over lunch on the terrace of a café near the Peter Goss studio, where Federico and Catherine Berbessou were conducting a month-long workshop sponsored by the AFDAS.4 I should mention that my personal involvement with Federico and Catherine involved participating in one of their workshops in the same studio a number of years ago. This long acquaintance made it easier to begin the interview. My initial discovery of tango took place in 1983 when I was 20 years old and attended Tango Argentino at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. Tango entered my soul that night, even if dancing was already a familiar activity. I had recently crossed the Sahara in the company of my brother and was greeted on my return by my first love’s abrupt announcement that our relationship was over. This youthful separation re-opened a wound left by the death of one of my parents when I was nine years old and, in response, I felt an irresistible desire to learn to dance and became a tango dancer and “professor.” More than my academic studies, dancing provided me a way to remain standing while imposing movement on my melancholy and offering a means of making a living. Although I prefer not to cast more of a shadow on Federico’s itinerary, the focus of this chapter, it is important to note that my perceptions and understandings of the itinerary of my comrade and “colleague” have led me to wonder whether it is possible to grasp someone else’s affective experience without taking one’s own emotional state into account. In other words, can we gain knowledge about social activities in which affect predominates by exclusively using rational thought? This seems clearly impossible to me, and numerous intellectuals’ and researchers’ itineraries attest to the strong influence of personal experience on their choice of field and methodology.5 For this reason, I present Federico’s itinerary as an insider,6 directing my gaze toward the actions and choices that stem from its affective dimension and on the sense of being that shines a light that points out the direction of an itinerary, whether it involves dance or not. Spread over several years and constructed through a host of interactions that have involved both work and friendship, the quality of my relationship with Federico has unquestionably shaped my transformation of his narrative into this essay.

Becoming a tanguero Federico moved to Paris in 1993, after working with several partners, including Nathalie Clouet and Michèle Rust.7 He met the choreographer Catherine Berbessou, who became his partner and later his wife. Between 1996 and 2003, they developed and staged three shows8 that united tango with contemporary dance. Berbessou later disbanded her company, and the couple resumed their teaching activities by offering workshops in France and Italy. Federico belongs to a generation of dancers9 that engineered tango’s rebirth in the early 1990s. He possesses knowledge transmitted to him by the old milongueros, while also being closely involved in efforts to adapt tango to contemporary

Figure 6.2 Poster announcing an internship in Argentine tango with Federico Rodriguez Moreno and Catherine Berbessou.

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circumstances. When he was younger, Federico almost never danced, participating in his words “in normal sports that every kid plays.” Around the age of eight or ten, he started learning Viennese waltzes with his parents, “because we had to participate in weddings and parties where there were dances. [. . .] It was the first couple’s dance that I learned, very easily.” The learning was not “formal” because it took place within the family. Most practitioners of couples dances whom I have interviewed also report informal early learning, and many answer questions about how they learned by contending that they “never learned.” He specifies that he did not practice waltzing for years: For me, dancing was – we dance, we dance because we go to night-clubs, because it is a way to meet people as adolescent, we dance when we are young at parties, but never in a learned way. He encountered the tango thanks to his aunt, an actress who “spent time in an artistic milieu” as the scenographer at the San Martin Theater in Buenos Aires. She and her husband, who is originally from Spain, had decided to move to Spain from Argentina. She wanted to leave Buenos Aires with something that really belonged to the city. [. . .] And she got the idea in her head of learning the Argentinian tango. She found a place really close to where she was living, the Caning Salon.10 She looked into it and asked me to accompany her, not as her partner but to learn to dance. Accompany her because she found the ambiance a little [struggles for words] a little difficult [drags on the word difficult]. So she wanted the image of having a man accompany her. That’s it. That way, she wouldn’t be bothered, and things would be clear. (Federico, October 16, 2008) “Difficult ambiance” was a euphemism that accurately described the divide between these dance locations and the values that governed middle-class portègne respectability. His reference to his aunt’s feelings underscores the paradoxical status of tango both as part of the country that she is preparing to leave and a set of practices in which a single woman does not feel particularly at ease. In fact, the ambience of a milonga is somewhat strange in comparison with Western dancehall rituals familiar to us. After a dance sequence (tanda) whose length depends on the DJ, the couples separate and return to their tables. After the cortina, a musical interlude between tandas, a new tanda begins and the invitation game begins. Individuals’ gazes seek each other out from one table to the other. When prospective dance partners’ gazes meet in mutual recognition, the partners join each other on the dance floor. Caning is a large hall with filtered lighting that limits visibility, however, where it can be difficult to exchange glances when seated. As a result, the men sometimes stand and circulate around the dance floor, examining the seated women dancers whose gaze they seek to engage.11 It is a slow process, and their expressions are intensely focused while they roam the floor.

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Was it these aspects of the dancehall atmosphere that Federico’s aunt feared to face alone? Or was it perhaps simply that being in a man’s arms was somewhat audacious when her only motivation was to learn how to dance? His aunt’s reticence recalls the mixed signals that pervade the dancehall environment, where the pleasures of dancing and those of seduction tend to interact. Arranging to be escorted by a young man like Federico provided an element of protection that, although still within the family, was nevertheless outside the control of her husband. Her nephew’s presence thus deflected suspicions about propriety while leaving the possibility of the pleasures of seduction open. I initially interpreted Federico’s aunt’s motives as follows: But the desires for appropriation are stronger than the discomfort surrounding immersion in the milonga environment. What this woman is taking to Spain with her is like a way of walking, i.e., an incorporated form comparable to the Brazilian ginga that can be updated in a different cultural zone. According to this interpretation, his aunt experienced the need to store away part of the portègne identity before she left her home city. This is a credible initial interpretation, but it tends to obscure the more sensual aspects of tango, a fundamental element of the genre’s identity that is simultaneously independent of it: The interplay of gazes between the sexes discussed by Alicia Dujovne Ortiz (1984) when describing the atmosphere in the streets of Buenos Aires. The importance of corporeal experience in identity construction is evaded in Federico’s way of conveying his aunt’s words and also in my initial way of interpreting them. The very term “corporeal experience” masks what we are hesitant to name but that is an inherent part of everyday experience – gazing at the other with desire and desiring the gaze of the other. These are basic interactions in socialization and identity formation, because they occur between beings made of flesh and blood. Our Cartesian culture prefers to emphasize the rational explanation of facts and social behaviors, and we sometimes have difficulty recognizing the importance of carnal and sensual interactions in the constitution of our existential view of ourselves.12 Because of his aunt’s wish to learn the tango and perhaps other desires as well, Federico found himself at age eighteen twice a week at Caning, sitting in a chair looking at couples learning from Puppy Castello. He spent the time watching his aunt, observing people dancing, and sipping Coca Cola.

Early experiences Puppy always came over and teased me by saying I needed to start. I told him that that I wasn’t interested and that it wasn’t my world. After two months, he convinced me. He said OK, you don’t want to do it, but do it for me, give me the possibility of a tango, let me direct, I’ll lead you in the dance and then you decide. So he took me and he said you hear the strong tempo, you make a step for each beat, and he took me onto the dance floor. It was impressive for me to be able to

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Christophe Apprill dance something that I didn’t understand at all. I was on the music, which was really pleasant, really very pleasant, and the next day, I began learning. It triggered something, it’s a little dumb to say it: “roots.” . . . But it’s as though I had felt something very familiar. Beginning at that moment, it seems like my mother told me: You are going to start learning tango, you know that your grandfather always listened to the radio. He only listened to tango. I didn’t know all that. I didn’t have all that information. In other words, tango unleashed a part of the history of my family, when I was little, that I didn’t know at all. Anecdotes, times when people told stories around a maté, things like that. [. . .] They were simple things, like for example when he was in his workshop, rebuilding something on the weekend, he turned on his radio, he was a fan of Carlos Gardel. In fact, I remember that there was a photo of Gardel. I always wondered what that picture was doing there, because nobody in the house listened to tango and I hadn’t ever heard any. But my grandfather died when I was little, I don’t have direct memories of all that. So at that time, I got into it, I started to learn and I went to Puppy’s; and on Sunday, I went to Miguel Balmaceda and Nelly’s.

Federico felt that he was marching to music, even when he was involved in the pleasure of a dance with which he was unfamiliar but that was among the country’s cultural beacons. Thanks to tango, he gained access to part of his family’s history, not that of his parents – who did not dance the tango – but of the earlier generation who had experienced the flourishing of the genre in Argentina but did not experience the full brunt of the hardened political climate in the 1970s. There is a striking contrast in his narrative between his seeming indifference – which makes his passivity comfortable – and his simultaneously abrupt and radical discovery of a world so rich in feelings. It is worth noting, too, that no consideration of the contact with a woman’s body factors into his emphasis on affect. After all, it was in the arms of a man that he took his first steps, an apprenticeship with the same sex that was consistent with the traditional transmission process before the academicization of teaching in the 80s and 90’s. Men learned initially among themselves, within the family or among friends, in order to acquire the fundamentals – how to hold one’s partner, the music, and the different steps – before attending a dance and inviting women. Like the cabaceo, a form of invitation that allowed men to avoid the public humiliation of a refusal, men were already hardened when they were introduced into the social space of the dancehall, which was also a way of avoiding making missteps. This approach to learning to dance was becoming rare beginning in the 1980s. Federico began learning tango the “old-fashioned” way, in a man’s arms, even if dancing represented a privileged way of approaching women for him. If feeling the body of a member of the same sex in one’s arms was a peculiar emotional experience, Federico made no reference to it. He improved his dancing in this way, without an official partner, although he did have the good fortune of working with Graciella Gonzales, Puppy’s partner at the time: I danced a lot with her, so you learn a lot with somebody who dances very well, and furthermore, on one hand, Graciella included me in her group of

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friends with whom we went out to the milonga and all that, and on the other hand, Puppy brought me, took me under his wing, as we say. He really started to give me lessons and to train me, to bring me into the milonga. After that, Puppy, I followed him everywhere. [. . .] That started me really working, without the problem that she could become a partner. The problem of a partner, it’s the necessity of entering into. [. . .] It’s something I absolutely did not want at the time. I had a lot of proposals for galas, for dancing professionally, but I wasn’t at all interested. It wasn’t that I refused, but I thought it wasn’t for me. Consistent with the discourses of amateurs and organizers of tango clubs in France, the ballroom can indeed function as a site for apprenticeship in the same way as the dance class. On the other hand, the rejection of an established partner can be interpreted in a variety of ways – as a desire not to link the private and public spheres, not to mix intimacy and professional training, preserving sexual freedom, and/or not committing oneself to a single partner in order to diversity dancing experience. . . . During this period, his aunt continued to take classes, and they did meet to dance, although infrequently: It was amusing to dance with my aunt, because it was a very different relationship. It was somebody from the family. It is the same relationship as when I had learned to dance the waltz when I was really young with my father and my mother. It wasn’t the direct man-woman relationship that was at stake. It was more of an amusement. Recounting his experience with his aunt allowed Federico to explore tango’s sensual facet because of its absence when he was dancing with a family member. The question remained whether dancing with a “real” woman would plunge him into a different state of alertness. What is certain is that the young Federico, after learning on the arms of his professor, Puppy – and on his belly, since Puppy was somewhat portly – discovered the charms of the heterosexual relationships that were not as formal as they were with his aunt but that were grounded in an alterity in which desire plays a definite but proper role. In this way, as he was leaving the zone of childish diversions and entering the space of adult pleasures, dancing offered opportunities for relations between a man and a woman. There is nothing surprising in the fact that Federico did not expound on the details of his discovery of the sensual joys of dancing. His reticence is consistent with most practitioners with whom I have discussed their early experiences. Indeed, caught up in narrating his own itinerary, it was simpler not to go into detail concerning this aspect of the experience and to proceed with his chronicle. I might have been tempted to try to learn more about this feature of his past, but two things restrained me. First, the fact that all of the dancers whom I have frequented have tended to dodge such questions for reasons that oscillate between prudishness and a difficulty to verbalize intimacy. Second, my purpose was to allow Federico to narrate his own story as he saw fit in order to analyze a “raw”

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narrative of his itinerary. This did not prevent me from later returning to particular elements of his story. . . . For me, entering into Caning meant crossing the time tunnel and finding myself in the 40s and 50s, with an old musical background. For Argentinians, the tango was the most old-fashioned, retro thing there was. Nobody did it, except the generation who had danced it at the time, and lots of children of that generation, for reasons of family origins, and people who were in the artistic profession as dancers. [. . .] It was an environment where the average age must have been 60 years old. There were few young people. [. . .] And afterwards, there was this whole group of professionals, since they were young and all that, I have access to them through Graciella, by acquaintance, etc., but also because it was a group of young people. [. . .] Right away I was propelled into a milieu where the level was excellent. I divided my evenings between nightclubs where we went with friends, like any place that you could listen to rock, dancing, trying to meet somebody, etc. And starting at 3 or 4 in the morning, I went to the milongas. In the mid-1980s, the tango scene in Buenos Aires resembled a museum of dress codes, dance forms, and musical choices from the 1940s. Federico was thus caught between a group of practices powerfully rooted in issues of identity and the state of this culture at the moment in which he found himself immersed in it somewhat in spite of himself. Perón’s first presidency, between 1946 and 1955, is associated with a revival of tango (Castro, 1990). During the 1960s, however, the same phenomenon occurred in Argentina that took place in much of the West, as popular music and dance forms fell out of fashion because young people lost interest in their elders’ culture and turned toward English and American music. Dance seems to have suffered particularly from this rapid decline. There were pockets of resistance to the erosion of traditional forms, however. Porteños continued to listen to tango music on transistor radios, and even if many of the musicians had emigrated or been exiled, others, such as Osvaldo Pugliese, remained in Argentina, and tango music did not vanish from everyday existence. Many of the city’s dancehalls were destroyed or transformed into cinemas, however, and meetings were forbidden. The generation gap produced by this decline was doubly obvious, because not only were there few young people in the milonga, but Federico and his generation were not introduced to the tango by their families. While the codes of the 1940s seemed outdated to him, his description of his relationship with Puppy suggests a degree of infatuation and a close alliance between the young Federico and his older mentor. He subsequently paid homage to Puppy in a scene of a show entitled A Fuego lento, in which Puppy’s voice could be heard on the soundtrack. Highly priced as a source of authentic filiation, relationships with older milongueros are a singular characteristic of the tango environment, where age is associated with greater experience in dancing.13 This filiation system also served a practical function in enabling the new generation of dancers to turn to those who still possessed the knowledge and skills. This process can be expressed indirectly, as it was in the

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dancing demonstration given by Puppy and Géraldine Rojas in 2005 at Caning, a dancing couple with a difference in age of forty years.14 Did being immersed in the milonga influence Federico to become a tanguero or a milonguero? Tanguero, the term used in the tango milieu in France to designate practitioners, makes no distinction between ballroom dancers and those who merely dance during scheduled dance classes. The term milonguero, however, connects dancing to the ballroom atmosphere, more specifically to the Buenos Aires milonga. When Federico uses the term milonguero, there is no doubt that he is referring to his professors. On listening to the interview, it becomes clear that for Federico, the question is not a mere question of labeling. Behind these terms lay values that refer to qualities carried by dancers that have essentialized in France what is called “milonguero” style.15 When you start to spend time in the world of tango, something happens little by little, especially in a milieu like the one over there [i.e., in Argentina]. The practice involves the notion of sharing. For example, you see someone do something, you don’t know it, you ask him, what are you doing? This aspect of sharing, you learn to teach what you do and watch in order to learn. It works enormously in families. The advantage of working with Puppy and Graciella was that for that time period, all those families were very closed. They allowed me to go anywhere, and with everybody. They didn’t have a problem with me going to other places, and that was cool because not everybody is like that. As soon as you knew how to dance a little, people wanted to appropriate you so that you represented their school. [. . .] All the people in tango were amateurs; they had their jobs somewhere else. The incredible thing about this milieu, that might be a lesson for other professional milieu, is that they were amateurs but they worked like professionals. It was rigorous, analytical; they asked themselves lots of questions. They re-learned; they never stopped. Puppy, even though he was over 60, kept learning. He said to me: What are you doing there? Where did you pick that up? There was this desire to work, to discover. It was never taken for granted. There was really this idea, this notion that I adore in tango, this idea of the itinerary. Of living your itinerary, of taking advantage of it. And the end result is not so important. Close examination of the qualities of these “professors” reveals the significant pathways through which knowledge circulates in the dancehall environment. Dancers who teach are not professors – they are first and foremost milonga dancers. The difficulty of creating an adequate title for them stems from the fact that professionalization is a recent, if highly promising, development. Teaching played a marginal role in the transmission of tango prior to its revival, which resulted in a sharp break with the informal modes of transmission of the past. The tendency toward professionalization gradually increased in Buenos Aires in the 1990s, as much in response to economic need as to a desire to transmit an intangible cultural heritage. This transformation can be understood both in terms of growing demand in Europe and the possibility of well-paid tours abroad, as well as the imposition

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of a drastic austerity plan on Argentina by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that bankrupted the middle classes, especially retirees. For this reason, behind the noble idea of cultural “sharing” lay the economic realities of an unregulated dance market in which any initiative was permissible and that itself was part of a society whose system of social protection was threatened by free-market reforms. It is difficult to assign a name to an occupation that lacks legitimacy. Indeed, Federico never refers to the occupations of his “professors” when they were not involved in dancing. Few of them belonged to high-level professions, a fact that does not necessarily reflect their educational level. Puppy was an electrical technician, and Graciella was training to be an elementary school teacher. Federico was studying to become a physical education teacher, and he and Graciella completed their studies at the same time. Graciella opened the first classes in “women’s technique” in Buenos Aires. Indeed, one element of the dance renaissance can be credited to women, imbued with the culture of the body and dance movements acquired in conservatories and dance companies. Still, an examination of individuals involved in the tango in this microcosm shows that male dancers are more frequently referred to than female dancers. Only men, for example, are mentioned as having participated in the tango revival. A gendered division of labor has driven interpretations of tango’s resurgence, in which technical finesse is attributed to women and creative inventiveness is associated with men, a division of roles consistent with macho stereotypes about tango.

Teaching tango: inventing a trade Federico first traveled to Europe at the age of twenty-five when his family, as descendants of immigrant families, was invited to participate in seventh centenary celebrations of the Swiss Confederation. Federico took the opportunity of being on the continent to extend his stay in order “to get to know the capitals of Europe.” I had a one-week visa for France, so I stayed a week. I’d met Michèle Rust in Argentina, and she had said “If you come, come to the milonga, it’s going to be good for you to dance over there.” When I was in Paris, I made sure to go dance on the banks of the Seine. And that’s where she offered me my first work. We gave classes for a month. [. . .] The incredible thing for me was to discover that I was still in my profession. I was a professor in movement. It was dancing, but I didn’t know how to envision it, which is why it was super-important for me to make a one-year plan and to know how to organize lessons. To distinguish between levels, at the time, I did it by referring to the structure of tango. So I worked a lot on that because it wasn’t just informal anymore. [. . .] One of the things that I looked for here right away was whether I could teach physical education. As soon as I started to settle here, I said to myself that I was a PE teacher, and I had my diplomas validated and I started working. What pleased me about this was that I had a diploma, that’s what I was looking for, what I wanted to do, to be a PE teacher. The first thing they told me what that I could never work in a public school because

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of my nationality. And well, I said to myself, basta. To get nationality, it’s going to take I don’t know how many years and up until then, I have to live from something. What I found through tango is that I was already in physical education – I was a professor of movement. It’s not physical education, it’s dance, but it involved everything a physical education teacher does: diagnostics, analysis of movements, adapting a program to a group of people, asking the right questions with respect to the objectives that you want to achieve in a class. [. . .] Everything that was part of my profession. Tango enabled me to continue my trade even if I wasn’t in a school, even if I wasn’t with a group of children and teenagers. [. . .] And it’s true that in Argentina, I never wanted to become a professional. For example in Buenos Aires, I remember that right when I started dancing a little I had lots of offers to give classes or workshops. It is something I didn’t want to do, I didn’t want to get into that. I had my profession, it was clear for me; I had my night job that allowed me to live very well, so I let tango really be like a pleasure. From time to time, if there were friends or a group of Graziella’s friends who wanted a class, I did it willingly, I liked doing it, but it was more out of solidarity related to what I had received, it was more that, more than saying I want to become a tango professional. And I said to myself, even at the time, I wasn’t professional tango dancer, I was a tango professor. Even if one is, how should I say that, even if one is called upon to do exhibitions in a dancehall or something like that; for example, a guy like Puppy, nobody ever told themselves that he was a professional tango teacher. Never. Even if he did exhibitions all the time. The tango professional, that was somebody who joined a dance company like Tango Argention, after them there was Tango for two. And people who worked in the shows in San Telmo at night, things like that, for the revues, etc. But otherwise, we were professors, or people who went to the milonga. I never wanted to join that circuit. I didn’t like it. I liked going to see the shows, but I didn’t see myself being part of them. [. . .] I never imagined being an tango professor in Buenos Aires, or a dancer, or a professor. Q: It wasn’t noble? No, no, not at all. Already, when I started dancing tango in Buenos Aires, it was an antiquated dance, way out of fashion, for old people, and the only young people there were either children or people who were dancing professionally at weddings or in shows, most of them were from the dance world. So they did tango for the pleasure, for the milieu, because my aunt had asked me at the time. It was an activity for me, like going mountain climbing, like I did other activities. But I saw it when I started to become interested in making it professionally. I mean for example that at the time, when Puppy was working the tango, he organized milongas, I mean, he found a hall, a DJ, he did the promotion. [. . .] And all that didn’t interest me. And in the milonga or the practice that happened before, he came and got the woman to dance and taught the beginners. Not a thing like I discovered here when there was a group of people in a studio who were doing a class. It was completely

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In the 1980s, the tango scene in Buenos Aires was moribund except for a handful of professional dancers like the Dinzels.16 Tango survived in a few scattered locations among a greatly reduced community of dancers,17 and formal teaching had not yet been organized. In the early 1990s, tango teaching remained informal and closely associated with dancehalls, which were simultaneously where dancing took place and where one could be initiated in real time into the culture and practices of the genre. As Federico phrased it, the dancehall is the “core space”18 of this dance form, distilling all of the energies that it requires – finding a hall, a DJ, etc. In an activity in which pleasure remains the most important element, the quality of the dancing is perceived as unrelated to formal training and certification. This raises the question of the exact process by which one learns to be a “professor” of a dance characterized exclusively by on-the-job training and that lacks an agreed-upon curriculum. Federico’s comments on the subject reveal that the formal teaching of tango, a previously non-existent activity, was an outgrowth of tango’s historically informal, unstructured paradigm of transmission. The generational revival that he represents had nevertheless started to influence the original home of tango, where workshops proliferated and demand for beginning tango lessons rapidly increased among younger people with no exposure to learning through immersion. Becoming a “professor” does not reflect any particular career objective or plan, and teaching in Buenos Aires did not transform Federico into a “professor.” In Argentina, Federico’s desire not to be professionalized was in effect because he perceived himself as already possessing a “real profession” as a physical education teacher, for which he had received formal training and possessed recognized skills, as well as demonstrable employment prospects. Furthermore, being a tango teacher did not mean being considered a professional in Buenos Aires at the time. For Federico, a professional is someone who performs on stage, not someone who attends a dance, teaches a bit of dancing, and offers demonstrations in a ballroom. This idea of dancers and dancing gives a better understanding of the social environment of dancing in Buenos Aires, as well as the value attached to the activity of dancing the tango. In distinguishing the tango “professor” from the professional tango dancer, Federico implicitly links ballroom and “exhibit” experience to teaching. Conversely, the experience of the dance professional is inextricably bound to stage performance. He thus separates formal training acquired in the ballroom, which he sees as providing the tools to become a milonguero, from the ability to perform on stage, as though the two activities were completely unrelated. His immersion in the tango as a young man offers a glimpse of the fault line between these two scenes, one social and endogenous and witnessing the resumption of intergenerational transmission after a break and the other centered around shows for foreign audiences. Paradoxically, a large number of choreographies written beginning in the 1990s recreate ballroom scenes from other periods,

Figure 6.3 Federico, Catherine Berbessou, 1997. © Nathalie Sternalski

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including the early twentieth century, the inter-war period, and the 1940s, attempting to demonstrate the links between these two purportedly opposed categories – ballroom tango and stage tango (also called fantasia). It was only in Europe, where the public lacked tango’s specific technical and social codes, that Federico began to imagine that teaching could provide a credible occupation. Changing countries, cultures, and markets reoriented and professionalized his relationship with the tango, not due to a well-considered career decision but as a consequence of the typical extended European trip of a young Argentinian. This professional initiation was prompted by growing demand among young Europeans beginning to discover the tango in the early 1990s. His career plans were not inspired by a quest for legitimacy as an Argentinian but instead by default, when the French education system did not recognize his physical education credentials. Being a school teacher in France requires a particular status, and dance professors with qualifications compatible with the diplomas issued by the national education system are given priority. Because this is not often the case, it is difficult for school administrations to regularly ensure that dance is offered in the schools. As a result, the teaching of dances that fall outside the “noble” dances covered by the 1989 law (including tango) constitute a potential but under-exploited field of employment. This lack of equivalency between the administrative establishment and the legal status of a teaching field raises questions about the qualifications that fail to link “two categories of qualities, those of the job, and those of the man” (Stroobants, 2007: 65). Federico’s early teaching experiences drew on his training as a physical education teacher simply because no certification or job description for tango “professors” exists. For his initial lessons, Federico adopted a hybrid vocabulary that combined French expressions with Spanish terms for dance steps, along with formulas, images, and explanations of movements. The classes had to be meaningful to his students, of course but also to him. The invention of a tango course was grounded in tangible data – a teaching approach, a type of tango, analyzing corporeal movements – that, although not reducible to the mere transmission of basic dance steps, nevertheless necessarily traversed that phase. Written in chalk on the floor during his courses, the word salida19 is a concrete illustration of the solutions developed by Federico for introducing and formalizing an exogenous vocabulary in order to support beginners’ learning process. Federico invented the occupational category of tango “professor” by transferring his skills as a physical education teacher to dance instruction. This pattern of transfer is shared with other dance genres. Dance teachers often describe how they constructed their new professional frameworks by transferring skills, knowledge, practices, and methods learned through activities that enjoy a legitimate professional framework that includes marketing, accounting, and human resources management (Apprill, Djakouane, and Nicolas-Daniel, 2013). These adaptive processes demonstrate how practitioners compensate for the lack of a professional framework, largely out of sheer necessity. The field is completely unstructured except for the interplay of supply and demand, and the

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Figure 6.4 Federico and Catherine Berbessou on stage, Italy, 2009

itineraries of other tango “professors” reveal that they often involve a change in occupation and/or that tango teaching is often a second job. Gustavo Naveira, for example, studied economics before he focused on the tango, while Rodolpho Cieri was a delivery man, while his wife Maria was an agent for the national railway company. Some members of the new generation of dancers, however, have developed careers by focusing on dance from the beginning: Pablo Verón and Victoria Vieyra, for example, were trained in other dance forms – tap dancing and contemporary dance – before turning to tango. Federico founded an occupational category with no connection to any preexisting guild or profession. This may reflect the fact that being a tango dancer is unlike any other artistic profession or position in the world of “dance.” Being

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a tango “professor” cannot be described as an extension of a supporting activity like that of a tango stage performer, which, like contemporary dance, is regulated by a professional framework. Nor does the field function in the same way as the professor-researcher duality, in which one role, according to Friedson, “possess[es] the economic foundation,” and “the other [is] an outgrowth of a subjective logic,” with both functions “subsisting in the manner of certain plant species, like parasites on each other (Freidson,1986).” And indeed, there is no analogous dual term to describe a similarly symbiotic “professor-dancer.” For dance performers, teaching can be perceived as undermining the entire enterprise; as Sorignet (2010: 302) notes, “Teaching is among the accessory activities of the primary activity of being a performer.” The activity of the dance professor nevertheless does reflect Friedson’s criteria: It is a profession in the sense that it is a mercantile activity that mobilizes “a specialized skill within a division of labor” (Freidson, 1986: 440). In introducing the notion of social value into the definition of a profession, Friedson offers a reminder that the mechanistic tension between supply and demand does not fully account for the organization of a particular economic sector. It is worth briefly recalling how the profession of dancer in the field of “world” dances was first recognized. Recognition was based on the historic properties of the dances and not on the nature of the activities or formal properties of the dance itself. It was the social values of classical, contemporary, and jazz dances and their links to artistic projects with long histories of stage performances that led to the 1989 law codifying the occupation of dance professor and defining the conditions for certification. Today [I feel like a dancer] because I have an itinerary that affirms that. My problem is that I never had training as a dancer before. I never took a dance class. When I talk about dancing, I talk about other dances – contemporary, a bar on the floor, elementary things, placing, I don’t know. Everything I’ve gotten is in Catherine’s professional milieu. This is where I’ve been trained, through Catherine’s work. But you don’t have time to get trained, you make do with what you have, the technique, the possibilities, etc. And I had to learn everything, even how you come on stage, what you look at, how you’re going to do it, why. And that, everything that can be the preparation of a dancer, I didn’t have. So, that’s why sometimes I say that I do not have training as a dancer. Obviously, the notion of dance, you learn a huge number of techniques, but not like today when you have classes on posture, classes on rhythm, a class on technique, on feminine technique. Back then, we learned while we did something, nobody corrected us, you had to do however you felt it. From time to time, we had a correction, or we looked for something together. But that’s very different than what you can experience today. The Law of 1989 codifies and regulates the division of labor, the rules governing employment and pay, and the level of insertion into public service of cultural workers, distinguishing artists from other personnel categories whose livelihoods are connected to dancing. As a result, except for the three major dance genres covered by

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the law, the vast majority of teaching trades is not recognized. There are no external norms, like certificates or specific collective agreements that apply to tango teaching.20 Instead, it is associated with on-the-job learning and recognition and evaluation by a community of peers. The distinction that Federico draws between his profession – the “real one,” the one for which he was trained – and a dance learned while-doing and closely related to pleasure illustrates this uncodified character as well as the lack of structure and organization that characterized the tango at the time. His experience is consistent with tango’s social status: His teaching does not benefit from any official recognition whatsoever, neither in legal or symbolic terms. An additional distinction between covered and non-covered dance genres by the 1989 law: Genres covered by the law are associated with performing,21 while the others tend to have irregular contact with the stage. The hierarchical relationship between the stage and the dancehall that Federico exemplifies is consistent with the recognition of dance practices in France, where the stage is the primary criterion for legitimacy. The position of a dancer-performer and/or dance company within the diverse dance landscape in terms of legitimacy and among different categories of theaters reflects and also shapes public recognition, which is in turn a function of the number of spectators and performances per year, the prestige and size of stages, the value of the performance vouchers,22 the purchase cost, the length of the show, etc. Indeed, there is a wide array of criteria that cumulatively form the basis of distinctions between different kinds of choreographic representations. (To this list should be added the substance of the representations themselves as they have been accumulated during two decades by the dynamics in which a repertoire is saved.)23 Federico’s vision belongs to this configuration, in which every one of these criteria combine to define the value accorded to the work of being a dancer. In actual practice, broad differences in skill levels – memory, physical condition, quality of movement, current body state – objectively separate a performer’s work in a piece by Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker or a neo-classical piece by Thierry Malandain, for example, from that of an evening in the life of a ballroom tango dancer. These differences are based on the formal properties listed earlier as well as historical characteristics, including whether a dance genre is considered performance- or participation-based, fuel a system that separates officially recognized dancers from those who are not recognized. As a result, the professional dancer is often an individual who, because his or her practice, is based on stage performance and evades the socialization of the ballroom, which is synonymous with amateurism, learning-while-doing, and “popular” conviviality. This categorical distinction also pervades the discourses of most of the personnel of the different administrations that govern the dance field in France. In this context, a ballroom dance such as the tango does not produce dancers. The fact that “professors” of unregulated dance forms cannot fully claim status as either professors or dancers and are therefore both formally and symbolically devalued partly explains why so few individuals aspire to these fields. Poor employment prospects, low pay, and frequent parental disapproval combine with the absence of official recognition and status to further discourage those who might aspire to specialize in these dances. Indeed, dancers who

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begin these activities on a full-time basis are often older than participants in regulated dances.24 The shift from a “show society” (Debord, 1992) to a “society of amateurs” (Donnat, 1996) reflects the vagueness of a system based on implicit categorizations between dancers and non-dancers. The discussions surrounding this system are made particularly intense by the power relationships between the different categories of practitioners.25 What is at stake in this system of classification is ultimately not so much a hierarchical scale of legitimacy as it is the failure to integrate the increasingly important figure of the amateur. The quantitative and qualitative explosion of amateur activities and practices is one of the most remarkable trends of the past thirty years. The increasing specialization of amateurs, their commitment to a growing range of sectors, and their growing mastery of the same tools, knowledge, and sometimes experience as professionals suggest that the criterion of multi-activity is no longer an adequate distinction between amateurs and professionals. In the domain of ordinary passions (Bromberger, 1998), multi-activity represents a break with the posture of spectator. The existential dimensions of this break have been neglected by studies of the evolution of cultural practices in France, despite frequent calls for greater attention to the subject (Donnat, 1996). Multi-activity appears to apply to the modalities of amateur practices as much as it does the modern condition of the contemporary cultural worker and more specifically the artist (Bureau, Perrenoud, and Shapiro, 2009). The only criterion able to sustain the distinction between these two categories of culture workers is the paradigm of artistic creation. Each of these parameters helps to underscore “in-between-ness” of the contours of the professional field that Federico “invented.” The tango is not a “dance” because it is not a discipline that has been systematically studied by members of a national or international choreographic field.26 The tango “professor” derives his knowledge and expertise from the ballroom environment, which is by definition an amateur space. Finally, tango “professors” like Federico do not belong to a coalition that defends their interests, organizes the market, guarantees their remuneration level, or promotes recognition of their expertise.

Becoming a performer/demystifying the stage The one thing I didn’t learn, unlike all the dancers I know, professional dancers, who come from contemporary, classical, etc., is this mystification of the stage. For me, the stage is not a holy place; it was a place of confrontation. [. . .] You’re not there to show yourself, you’re not there to build your selfesteem. You’re there to defend an idea. But I never had this sacralization of the stage. For me it was: you have to do well; you have to be there and give everything you can. So, sometimes, it was more like a constraint than it was a pleasure. I see how Julie, every time she went on stage, a dancer like Agathe, people like that, they arrive and they’re in heaven. Me, it was always a source of worry: Am I going to be good enough for what this piece requires? Once the show was over, it was OK, it went well, or it didn’t go well, the work was well done; overall, you did the best you could. [. . .] I have the feeling of always having given everything I could at the time. But I never

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left a show feeling as if I’d lived something totally out of the ordinary. [. . .] On the other hand, working with Catherine, what you learn is to improvise. Like anybody who is beginning, it was hard for me, because it’s extremely difficult. And there, yes, I have extremely intense times. I don’t know how to describe them, it goes further than anything else, and it goes further than the stage, further than yourself. It’s like there are moments when you are elsewhere, in a parallel world. It’s truly an experience that you’ve never had that happens. The stage is always a reproduction of something else that you’ve experienced. Here, it’s not. You really live it. That’s why today people ask me if the stage is something I miss. I tell them no. But improvisation, yes. Improvisation is something that really struck me; it’s an extraordinary thing. [. . .] Because it’s never the same thing, and because it remains fragile. There have even been moments when we spend three months improvising as you know, and we don’t keep it all for the show. There are so many moments I remember that don’t show up anywhere, that are only in my head that are extraordinary moments. Q: And this idea of improvisation had you felt that with tango, that power? Yes, it’s the same thing that you contact at times in the tango, during a dance, practice session, or exhibit. It’s not common, it’s not often, but from time to time, you feel it. I think that it’s a great driver of the passion that surrounds tango, these instants of light, these instants that are different than your normal experience that pushes people to try to find it; that’s why they’re doing it, and that’s why they keep doing it, and that’s why they train more and more because they are truly magical moments. [. . .] It’s true that I am somebody who dances a great deal during in the dancehall, I never stop, and at times, I go completely elsewhere in my head. Federico’s position regarding dance corresponds to the representations of the dancers he frequented, who perceived the stage as a powerful and decisive experience in their profession. He did not devote the attention of an addict to the stage and to “a state of grace” in which the performer is in communion with his or her public or the sense, cited by many stage-struck dancers to justify their sacrifices, that time is “suspended” during performances (Sorignet, 2010: 187–194). On the contrary, the stage as Federico envisions it is a routinized workspace where the priority is that the work be “well done.” His point of view, which does not seem to reflect a particular desire to challenge more mystical views concerning performance among live performers, applies craftsman-like qualities such as hard work, honesty, and conscientiousness that are associated with non-artistic, manual occupations. This explicitly calls into question the near-sacred status accorded to artists and artistic occupations based on two kinds of recognition – symbolic (the aura of the stage) – and real (audience applause, peer and professional criticism). Although his experience is more consistent with the values of interiority, sensitivity, and experience as elements of creativity, there is an inversion in the hierarchy of values: What is most prized is what happens behind the curtain during improvisation sessions and during the creativity phase of developing a performance. The heightened status of improvisation stems from his experience while involved in creating a show and from dancing in dancehalls. De-throning staged performances

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Figure 6.5 Federico and Teresa Cunha, Valser, 1999. © Nathalie Sternalski

by seeing them as labor – and the corresponding elevation of the physical states involved in creativity and improvisation – constitutes an inversion of the typical perspective of dancers. Indeed, it is the state of the body and awareness that become measures of value, criteria that lie outside the evaluation procedures

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referred to earlier that sustain hierarchical classifications among different dance genres. According to this inverted view, interiority is the key factor that defines a dancer. It is the same interiority that lies at the heart of the cluster of practices that enable the movements of the body and the apperceptions of the senses to create meaning. This vision thus represents a shift away from dance – and dancers – as socially defined dancer and toward an internally-defined, embodied practice that prizes the quality of practice as seen and experienced from within.

Passion without vocation Federico’s itinerary is remarkable because it explores the interplay between states of consciousness that are widespread among the corporeal practices based on ordinary passions and a professional career in an unregulated field. Based on the absence of any hierarchy, a relaxed attitude and a taste for improvisation function as well in the dancehall as they do during the creative phases when a show is in development. His itinerary is in stark contrast with that of contemporary dance performers. On the one hand, there is little indication of a sense of vocation, a central construct in the sociology of artistic practice. A sense of passion transcends the framework of amateur practices to provide a foundation for his professional activities. This shift illustrates that the passion involved in dance cannot be restricted to a single category of amateurs. There is nothing original in that – many professions are represented as driven by passion. But in the present case, this core passion is unaccompanied by any vocational impulse, although it cannot be argued that this is necessarily due to the profession’s weak official regulatory framework. On the other hand, Federico’s idea of improvisation focuses as much on performance as on the social context of the dancehall; his territoriality is hybrid, and its properties are not exclusively oriented toward creativity. His character is thus doubly distinct from improvisation as currently understood by performer-dancers (Sorignet, 2010: 167–210). The states of consciousness that he evokes relate to esthetic experience while also containing an identity-based dimension. Joy and pleasure are central to understanding and analyzing this esthetic experience (Jauss, 1978). Improvisation in the dancehall or during creative development can be envisioned as an “adequate discharge of pathogenic affects” and a “deliverance from internal conflicts” (Laplanche and Pontalis, 2007: 60–61) but also as a source of joy expressed in a kind of refrain that the body achieves in connection with other moving bodies, a joy that contributes to the development of “psychism.”27 The experience of dance thus provides a means of imposing boundaries on the void, of re-imposing structure, of re-situating oneself inside one’s own body through interaction with the body of the other, a remarkable aspect of dance genres such as the tango (Apprill, 2010). In this sense, ballroom dancing helps reassure one’s sense of self by self-legitimizing it, re-affirming practitioners’ identities just as they are, or, alternatively, by expanding the horizon of possibility outward from the self. But it could also be a matter of experiencing a sense of being by implicating one’s existential condition as a way of rebalancing it through the brainstorm of improvisation. This process is sometimes described in terms of self-construction. Oury (1989: 107) quotes Maldiney’s distinction between constructing (assembling

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homogeneous elements) and building (assembling the heterogeneous); in structuring the co-presence of both the sensed and the rational, the dancehall experience is more akin to the “building of oneself” than to “self-construction.” Although the basic elements of this experience are commonly accessible to amateur practitioners, they are also available to a professional like Federico. This super-imposition of different statuses on the lived experience of a shared passion makes it difficult to classify this activity among “ordinary passions.” Ultimately, Federico’s itinerary has demonstrated that a previously non-existent professional framework gradually developed because of orientations whose principal energies and flows derive from a particular way of being instead of from an official definition of what it means to dance . . . or to be a dancer.28

Notes 1 In common use throughout Europe, the label “Argentine” tango came into use in the 1990s during a period of resurgence. For greater accuracy, it should be placed between quotation marks or replaced by the term rioplatense tango, which has the additional advantage of avoiding the nationalistic implications of “Argentine.” 2 The word spontaneous refers to “bottom-up” development not propelled or supported from the outside (unlike the current development of tango in Morocco, for example, which is the result of a deliberate strategy among French residents). The development of “Argentinian” tango in France since the 1980s is tied to the initiative of individuals, initially grouped into informal associations, engaged in their activity of promoting tango thanks to the framework of the 1901 law governing associations. Elsewhere in the world, a similar pattern of development can be observed that is based on the desire, encouraged by the availability of free time and comfortable economic conditions. This development contributed in France to the broadening of the repertoire of dances practiced among amateurs. 3 Unlike classical, jazz, and contemporary dance, the teaching of tango – and every other world dance – is not covered by the 1989 law. 4 An insurance fund for activities in the areas of culture, communications, and leisure. 5 From Plato to Durkheim, including us, contemporary figures amid the imperatives and hazards of academic research (See also Caratini, 2005). The case of Simone de Beauvoir declaring to her lover “I’ll do the dishes, I’ll sweep,” offers a singular example of how feelings impinge on a committed trajectory (Beauvoir, 1997: 106). 6 Greater scholarly attention should be directed to the methodological problems posed by this level of involvement, by analyzing the researcher’s unofficial life and practices, in particular his belonging to a supposedly self-explanatory cosmogony. From Michel Leiris to Claude Lévi-Strauss, from Norbert Elias to Jeanne Favret-Saada, a prolific intellectual tradition has appropriated this question, which is far from limited to the sensorial domain of dance. 7 Two dancers of contemporary dance played an important role in the dissemination of Argentinian tango in Paris in the early 1990s. 8 These shows were entitled A fuego lento (1996), Valser (1999), and Fleur de cactus (2002). 9 Mariano Chicho Frumboli, Gustavo Naveira, Fabian Salas, and Pablo Verón are among the key figures in the renewal movement. 10 Currently one of the most renowned milongas in Buenos Aires. 11 This exchange of gazes is called the cabaceo. When a woman meets and holds a man’s gaze, it means that she wishes to dance with him. If she declines to meet his gaze, it signifies that she is declining his invitation. 12 “Our ideas grow not only out of a logic of truth but also out of what might be called an economy of subjective existence. [. . .] This involves instead the recognition that the

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activity of thinking (including, of course, my own), while having its own system that enables us to be at the service of knowledge, also finds itself in some way inserted into a more general and thoroughly vital system intended to maintain our existential foundation.” (Flahaut, 2002: 273). The words of Jorge Rodriguez, an Argentinian tango dancer and teacher in France since 1985. The conference, entitled “Assessment and Perspectives on Fifteen years of Tango in France” (Bilan et perspectives de quinze ans de tango en France), was held in Lyon in October 2008. www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OxyYHZTcUI Inherited from the social dance environment of urban salons, this dancing technique was formalized as a dance style and teaching approach in the 1990s. It is characterized by a close embrace and small steps (ocho cortado, etc.) that emphasize the sensuality of the abrazo and rhythmic play. See the interview with Rodolfo Dinzel, La Salida, p. 22, n° 21, January 12, 2001, www. letempsdutango.com/salida/salida21.pdf. In 2011, when tango was behind an increase in tourism that attracted dancers from around the world, this community was estimated to consist of approximately 15,000 people, a relatively small number given the total population of Buenos Aires. The principal locus of tango is the ball or dance, meaning that the conditions that make transmission across generations possible are realized in the context of the dancehall. Historically, this has proven necessary for its existence both as a practice and as a source of identification. Cf. the meaning attributed to this term by Flahaut (2002: 393–400). Salida: Literally, the “exit.” It is a basic eight-beat step that enabled entering into the structural logic of the dance . . . and to come out of it, i.e., to enter into an improvisation phase. Activities involving teaching dances that were unregulated by the 1989 law generally are regulated by the collective agreements covering animation. By a field of representation, I mean the entirety of activities, trades, administrative structures of selection, production, diffusion, and training, as well as the buildings, discursive registers, and specialized media that surround and define the field of staged dance performance. It should be noted that in France, artists and cultural workers who are able to collect a minimum number of performance vouchers each year qualify for a special system of unemployment insurance that guarantees regular monthly payments that compensate for intermittent periods of work. This is the product of numerous structures and organizations, including, for example, the Carnets Bagouet and the Centres de Développement Chorégraphique; the seminars of the Centre National de la Danse and the conferences on this topic demonstrate the increasing interest in this issue. 84% of intermittent dancers questioned reports that their careers began before the age of 25. This early beginning is even more pronounced among permanent dancers (91% had their first contract before the age of 20). Rannou and Roharik (2006: 249–250) The population of professional intermittent and full-time dancers (5,000) is the lowest category of live performer (Rannou and Roharik, 2006). However, there are as many dance amateurs as there are members in the largest sports association in France. Regarding the dance scene in France, see Faure (2009). According to Oury, this is the signifier that is going to allow the development of psychism: “In order for that to be able to create a structure, the body must distinguish itself from the surroundings. [. . .] Whether it is well separated so that the body can be delimited. If it is poorly ‘split,’ an entire life can be spend making little splits, which causes dissociation . . .” (Oury, 1989: 145). Although not directly related to sociology, the sentiment of existing (Flahaut, 2002) is a useful notion for untangling primary socialization from secondary socialization. It makes it possible to avoid the trap of determinism, breaking with functionalist research, and it authorizes taking into account personal and interpersonal experience.

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References Apprill, Christophe. “Des Nuits a Danser: Passion Ou Décentrement?” in Tango Sans Frontières, edited by F. Joyal, 81–113, Québec: Presses de l’Université du Québec, 2010. Apprill, Christophe, Djakouane, Aurélien, and Nicolas-Daniel, Maud. L’enseignement Des Danses Du Monde Et Des Danses Traditionnelles, Paris: L’Harmattan, 2013. Beauvoir, Simone de. Lettres à Nelson Algren, Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1997. Bromberger, Christian. Passions Ordinaires: Football, Jardinage, Généalogie, Concours De Dictée . . . , Paris: Bayard Editions, 1998. Bureau, Marie-Christine, Perrenoud, Marc, and Shapiro, Roberta. L’artiste Pluriel. Démultiplier L’activité Pour Vivre De Son Art, Villeneuve d’Asq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 2009. Caratini, Sophie. Les Non-Dits De L’anthropologie, Paris: PUF, 2005. Castro, Donald S. The Argentine Tango as Social History, 1880–1955, the Soul of the People, San Franscisco: Mellen Research University Press, 1990. Debord, Guy. La Société Du Spectacle, Paris: Gallimard, 1992. Donnat, Olivier. Les Amateurs, Paris: Département des études et de la prospective, 1996. Dujovne, Ortiz Alicia. Buenos Aires, Seyssel: Editions du Champ Vallon, 1984. Faure, Sylvia. “Les Structures Du Champ Chorégraphique Français,” Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, n°175 (2009): 80–95. Flahaut, François. Le Sentiment D’exister. Ce Soi Qui Ne Va Pas De Soi, Paris: Descartes et Cie., 2002. Freidson, Eliot. “Les Professions Artistiques Comme Défi A L’analyse Sociologique,” Revue française de sociologie, XXVII (1986): 431–443. Jauss, Hans Robert. Pour Une Esthétique De La Réception, Paris: Gallimard, 1978. Laplanche, Jean, and Pontalis, Jean-Bertrand. Vocabulaire De La Psychanalyse, Paris: PUF, 2007. Oury, Jean. Création et schizophrénie, Paris: Galilée, 1989. Rannou, Janine, and Roharik, Ionela. Les Danseurs. Un Métier D’engagement, Paris: Département des études et de la prospective, 2006. Sorignet, Pierre-Emmanuel. Danser. Enquête Dans Les Coulisses D’une Vocation, Paris: Edition de la découverte, 2010. Stroobants, Marcelle. Sociologie Du Travail, Paris: Armand Colin, 2007.

7

Julien A bass-player hits the road Gabriel Segré

Figure 7.1 Julien with No One Is Innocent at L’Élysée Montmartre. Révolution Tour, Paris, April 2005, © Pidz

Julien is a bass-player who began playing with a small group of friends before joining the underground music scene. He later played bass with a well-known French band called No One Is Innocent and occasionally with the highly reputed singer Zazie and Christophe Mali of Tryo, before eventually touring with the internationally known rapper MC Solaar. Alternating between periods as audience member or producer, amateur or professional, band member or “mercenary,” RMiste1 and well-known player, or “precarious” and “multi-inserted” musician (Coulangeon, 2004), Julien has played an astonishingly wide range of roles within the hierarchy of the musical professions.

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His evolution as a musician has unfolded in stages, starting with playing for fun and eventually learning the trade, spanning anonymity and highly skilled performance, specialization and instability, and, finally, luxury. Tracing Julien’s itinerary is witnessing the birth of a musician following a sequence of apprenticeships that began with learning to play and to take care of his equipment. His itinerary also demonstrates a gap between the ways in which musical careers are typically represented – the inspired genius or the idealized Bohemian – and the realities of a profession whose relentless daily grind often involves mechanistic and repetitive work and unstable employment. Julien’s itinerary also demonstrates geographical and social mobilities in terms of both what propels them and their effects. His career ultimately illustrates many different statuses and positions and a wide variety of social relationships that typically revolve around power and domination. It also reflects the role of friendships with different categories of actors in the field, including musicians, technicians, promoters, journalists, and members of the public, who structure the “world of rock” or the “music scene” (Hein, 2006).

A band of friends First steps toward a life in music It was not the music itself that motivated Julien to “enter music,” even though he “listened to a fair amount of it.” In fact, playing music initially provided a way of being part of a group – “a band of buddies.” Music was an “excuse to see friends” that was like a collective leisure activity that brought people together and strengthened relationships. As Perrenoud (2007: 23) suggests, “it is above all about joining a peer group.” Music also allowed Julien to occupy a position in the group and “an excuse [. . .] for having a real role,” according to his own words Julien became “a cog in the deal” who was “not indispensable, but almost.” Far more than creating, composing, and playing music, what motivated Julien was “getting together with the guys” and “doing stuff with them.” Music – the pretext – was also the focus of this instrumentalization. Playing an instrument was simultaneously critical to participating and secondarily as an explicit practice, and it obeyed an imperative not merely to play but to belong and to participate. At first, Julien was especially enamored with music or with his instrument, but instead because of the collective activities that music offered; just as soccer centers on a common goal, his early bands resembled a theater troupe.2 His choice of an instrument was based on a need to “be part of the machine” more than by a preference for a particular instrument or sound. “So I chose my instrument, the bass guitar, by chance in the beginning. I took the instrument and took off with it. So I came to music not at all out of a desire to be part of it.” This is the opposite of the class determinism that Lehmann noted (2002) among instrumentalists in symphonic orchestras (although members contended that they did not choose their instruments) or the deliberate choices of musicos3 studied

Julien 169 by Perrenoud (2007) and Tassin (2004), who chose the guitar because they loved Eric Clapton or Stevie Ray Vaughan. Julien selected the instrument that the band needed in order to be able to play with them. In action Julien’s first band was a typical start-up band. They began playing as a group of “buddies” before becoming musicians and being perceived as “competent.” Perrenoud, referring to Durkheim’s typology (Perrenoud, 2007: 88), describes such groups as being regulated by a mechanistic form of solidarity. Route 66 specialized primarily in rock covers by the Doors, the Rolling Stones, the Clash, and Telephone, played with uneven talent but great enthusiasm. “There you go, that’s how it started out. After that, it was like lots of people, it’s the little group, music among friends, rehearsals at the local youth cultural center.” In this sense, Julien’s itinerary differs little from many adolescent musicians whose first bands are often based on affinity (Tassin, 2004: 88) of age and gender or the same school or neighborhood. Julien’s first band consisted of eighteen- and nineteen-year-old friends from the same Paris suburb who had met in middle school or high school. This generational and territorial proximity demonstrates how such groups are formed and maintained as an extension – and reinforcing element – of a cohort of friends. The group gradually learned to play covers of songs by musicians that they liked by repeatedly playing them, and their repertoire gradually expanded as it kept pace with their exposure to the world of music.4 This “do-it-yourself ” approach allowed each member to become a musician without the slightest hint of a complex or fear. Once Julien had bought his bass guitar, he pursued this model and was almost entirely self-taught (Hein, 2006: 265), bypassing formal instruction and developing somewhat approximate notions of music theory. His most important influences were records, tablatures, methods, and chord sequences showed to him by friends and acquaintances.5 The apprenticeship (continued): the “musician attitude” and a sense of success In the beginning, you don’t ask yourself whether you’re a musician. You are more into taking on the attitude of a musician. Personally, I wanted to have a musician attitude. I was into that. (Julien, May 15, 2008) Like musicos, Julien learned to be a musician while learning to play his instrument. He learned the corporeal hexis of a musician by observing other bass players in local bars and musicians in higher-profile groups performing in prestigious concert halls or on television. He adopted the gestures and attitudes that he saw other bass players using, developing his own serious, sober stance, his trademark.

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He was tall and thin and dressed in simple, relaxed clothes that were casual but unaffected – jeans with tee shirts and Docksiders or Converse. Onstage, he exhibited an economy of movement and gesture that gave the impression of a hardworking, serious musician who emphasized playing, an image that reflected an “ascetic hexis” for a musician as opposed to a “paraxystic hexis.” Julien’s shyness and discretion influenced both how he approached his role in the group and his way of performing. This style also reflected the fact that the bass guitar and the drums generally establish tempo that is the foundation for rock songs. This choice of sobriety over exuberance also reflects the available models. Rock bass guitarists tend to adopt a relatively serious performance style – a “bass face” that allows lead guitarists and singers to perform the “show.” Julien’s anxiety or stage fright helped him project this serious posture and wear everyday clothes that were familiar and comfortable and “acted sort of like a shield” that was “anti-stage-fright” and “anti-anxiety.” He learned what being onstage involved with his first band, Route 66, in a kind of caricature of as-seenon-TV reality or what a spectator or even a fan experiences. His emotions on stage ranged from euphoria, pride, and happiness to humiliation. His early performances were awkward and feverish, but despite technical issues with sound, mistakes and slip-ups, misunderstandings, and his own anxiety, he experienced a feeling of success with the band, primarily because of the indulgence and enthusiasm of the “buddies” who comprised most of the band’s audiences. He played a few concerts, including gigs during the Fête de la Musique (an annual nation-wide music festival) and at youth cultural centers and municipal theaters in the Yvelines department, as well as in pubs in Paris. He also played parties with other musicians, mostly friends and acquaintances, and participated in open jams called “boeufs.” He accumulated few if any cachets (performance vouchers),6 but the most important thing was gaining access to a stage or other performance space, with compensation consisting primarily of contact with an audience, applause, enthusiastic encouragement, congratulations, and other forms of admiration. From “leisure” activity to a full-time commitment Julien settled into performing following the “hyper-rock” model (Tassin, 2004: 222) (or the equivalent “rock” model, which has slightly fewer pronounced characteristics). This model applied to musicians who were not “hereditary” and came to rock and musical performance with no musical family background, early learning, or familiarity with an instrument.7 These musicians also lack early listening experiences and formal instruction, and their commitment to music is typically channeled through a peer group.8 Julien was following a “leisure” model of musicianship (Tassin, 2004: 232– 233) involving uninterrupted practice or one that constitutes a secondary and nonexclusive activity that is limited to social events. He was working in an architect’s office, a short-term job that he kept for purely economic reasons. He practiced

Julien 171 every day at home and on weekends with the group. He played his earliest gigs for an audience at jam sessions with friends when there happened to be a bass and a guitar in somebody’s room. This kind of situation occurred with increasing frequency as he and his group of friends became better established musically, frequented similar groups, and circulated within a relational network in which musical instruments were not unusual (percussion, guitar, bass, harmonicas, synthesizers, etc.).9 Julien’s commitment to music quickly changed from part-time to full-time when he quit Route 66 to join a new band called Oneyed Jack. He was not involved in any other professional project or specific educational process that he found satisfying or worthy of full-time involvement and that might distance him from music. He felt ready to commit to something more important and broaden his commitment to music as part of a realistic, promising, and rational project. With no diploma or officially recognized musical skills, he quickly came to see his bass playing and the pleasure that he derived from it as his primary professional asset. His early successes with Route 66 at small concerts – and later with Oneyed Jack during their first tours – reinforced this desire to commit himself to life as a musician: And then, after a while, you start to feel all glittery, and to see the prestigious impact you can have playing music. Prestige meaning girls, tours, always being with your best friends. You have that impression of being with an eternal band of friends. So I felt more and more focused on that, and wasn’t concentrating on school or work. And so I made the decision fairly fast, even while basically being a mediocre musician. (Julien, May 15, 2008) His encounter with Oneyed Jack precipitated a shift away from an exclusively “leisure-based” approach and separation from his group of friends in Route 66 and toward a commitment to a group that involved a full-time activity, Oneyed Jack. The rhythm of rehearsals was tighter, gigs were more important, and projects more ambitious. Original songs replaced covers, the repertoire grew steadily, rehearsal conditions improved as a rented studio replaced a garage, and equipment – from instruments to amplifiers, effects pedals, and mixing tables – was of higher quality. Each member invested more time and money, accepted greater sacrifices, and did whatever was required to improve their performance. Concerts were also more frequent, and recordings were self-produced CDs instead of barely audible cassette tapes. One day an assistant from a record label who liked their performance and repertoire approached the group. She offered to cut a demo CD at no cost and sign a contract with the band, a step that was synonymous with total musical commitment. It was a decisive moment when bands often break up, because every member has to be ready to meet the challenge and abandon their studies and other professional activities.

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For better or worse Being a professional musician In 1991, Julien was 22 years old and met a fusion rock group called Oneyed Jack at a concert at an MJC (youth cultural center) in the Paris suburbs. Julien played a mix of hardcore, rock, hip hop, and dub, between the Beastie Boys, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Rage Against The Machine, with this group until 2002. Julien had exchanged a playful, teenaged ambience for a social space in which he was a salaried employee who made money, trading audiences composed of friends and buddies for larger groups of complete strangers. He arrived on the scene “a bit like a slacker,” “with my hands in my pockets, sort of rock n’roll,” but he quickly encountered a system of obligations and duties that was harsh and demanding and in which slip-ups, deviant behavior, or a lack of seriousness or professionalism were sanctioned. So, recently a teenager, Julien and his new friends were compelled to behave responsibly and learn the trade. The proliferation of rehearsals, concerts, gigs, encounters with audiences and employers – bar and performance space owners – or with technicians during sound-checks and lighting tests reinforced his experience and added to his knowledge. And we sort of learned by doing like cabin boys on a ship. We learned the profession for twelve years, cutting our teeth together. It meant learning a trade and learning social relationships within the “world of rock” at the same time, how to manage them, a way of life, a system perceived as rigid and codified, with its rules, its hierarchies, its taboos, and its strict principles. It was a really hierarchical thing. Very tightly regulated. On the technical level, in the concert hall, you do this and not that. There’s a mechanical system, a tour system, a system for recording, a system for the life of the band, a system for everything that surrounds the band that was ruled like a musical score. [. . .] And all around, there was a functioning that had been in place for years and that you weren’t allowed to touch. (Julien, December 5, 2008) As such episodes recurred throughout his career, Julien acquired new confidence and a musician-like ethos and increasingly controlled his instrument and his ability to manage his role during a set. The system and the machine Julien discovered an invariable routine in which the life of the band was fragmented into periods of creating and composing, recording and demos, followed by the album and the tours. For three or four months, the band concentrated on writing music, followed by two weeks in residence recording and producing the demo. They held a few concerts to test the repertoire before entering the studio to

Figure 7.2 Julien. Oneyed Jack. 1993, © Mlor

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record the new album, which then came out several months later. Following that, they spent three months promoting the new CD in radio and press interviews. Touring was the longest and most draining phase in the cycle and involved four or five concerts a week for as many as eighteen months per year. Each tour cycle was composed of four- to five-day frantic stretches racing from city to city in France. The rhythm of Oneyed Jack’s gigs was intense – Julien played between 800 and 1,000 concerts (250 concerts a year in some years) as well as large festivals in France (in Belfort, Rennes, La Rochelle, and Midem) and abroad (in Holland, Belgium, Germany, and Quebec). After returning to Paris after a tour cycle, Julien felt exhausted and depressed and spent the first day recovering. The second day was resurrection day when “you started to see the light.” The third day was spent preparing for the next cycle. Julien was overwhelmed by a sense of anxiety and anger on the eve of each new tour that reminded him of Sundays or late afternoons before school started back in the fall and later when he had to go back to work. The departure, separation from his girlfriend – and later, from his child – as well as the prospect of long hours in a mini-van on the road and the tour itself (and its corollaries – boredom; lack of privacy, comfort, and sleep; the fear of facing an empty concert space or a bad concert) triggered a sense of discomfort that quickly replaced the euphoria and exaltation that he felt at the beginning. This mechanistic, routine pace and lack of freedom, as well as a total absence of improvisation, was similar to the touring rhythms of every other amplified musical group:10 For example on tour, you arrive at noon in a place. At a quarter past noon, you eat your tabbouleh salad, at one, the lighting guy has finished and you go do the sound check. At 3, the sound check is over. . . . It’s a schedule that doesn’t budge, that never budges, that will never budge, ever. (Julien, December, 2008) What disappointed me was, it’s a little of this and a little of that, there was this aspect of everything being totally ready, completely pre-arranged, and ultimately, you’re just one more band that goes through the system. [. . .] By 3 p.m., you’ve finished the sound check, and you sometimes give a couple of interviews. At 5, you go back to your hotel, at 7 you eat, and at 8 you play. By 10, you’ve finished, you party some, and you go to bed. So in the beginning, it’s great, because you say to yourself, yeah, I am living the band life and stuff. You travel a little . . . and after 300 concerts, you leave the night before, you know you’re gonna do this or that at 1 p.m., then something else at 3, then something at 5, whether it’s in Lyon or Marseille, or Bordeaux or Nice, or London. (Julien, December 5, 2008) Band members got up at six to travel to the next city, spending between four and eight hours on the road depending on distances as long as 600 or 800 kilometers. They often went to bed well after midnight after the “partying” that inevitably

Julien 175 follows every concert. Exhaustion accumulates and it becomes increasingly difficult to manage a two-hour concert every night. At this pace, lassitude quickly sets in and with it a sense of disappointment and frustration. For a while, the group accepts these limitations and sacrifices and is just impatient to enjoy the payback – the concerts and the partying. But there comes a time when concerts are just one more mechanistic phase in a highly regulated daily life that includes an endless series of sound-checks, interviews, lunches, and rides in the minivan. Giving a poor performance Julien’s experience rapidly induced a painful contradiction with the myth of the free, self-actualized artist – the rebel Bohemian who fully enjoys his freedom and an exciting daily life that is divided between joyous performances, partying, encounters, improvisations, and trances. Playing music and going on tour became just a way of making a living – a job. It was a “job” that was possible to “screw up” if you failed to respect certain rules and imperatives. Songs had to be worked on and rehearsed to be well performed. The job demanded investment and rigor, in stark contrast with Julien’s more leisurely beginnings. It became increasingly painful to put forth the required effort: And so there, that’s the hardest period. It’s when you realize nobody likes you, you know? They expect things, they make demands on you. It’s then that you realize it’s a profession, and that it’s possible to do it poorly. Whereas at the beginning, it was just a totally relaxed thing with your pals, a real dynamics of leisure time. And you don’t realize that when you go to Lyon, people pay for their tickets to come see you, and after a while it hits you. [. . .]. And people get tired of it, because you repeat yourself, you do stuff that isn’t very interesting, songs that you don’t play very well, that you mess up on stage, and people get worn out. And that’s when you’re in a phase of deep professional depression. A period of big doubt. (Julien, December 5, 2008) During the last years of a band’s existence, the playing begins to get less professional – songs are not well prepped or even not at all, concerts are less successful, and tours become more laborious. Along with exhaustion after years on the road, audiences become tired as well. Julien observed lighting technicians darkening the back of concert venues to diminish the sense of emptiness when a third of the 400 seats were empty. He could hear the characteristic echo of an almost-empty hall. He witnessed the lost look in the eyes of a lead singer who no longer knows where to direct his gaze. He used musicians’ tricks associated with failure in this type of situation – moving quickly from one song to the next so that an audience has no time to respond negatively by booing or teasing: You play your song and you move on to the next one. You don’t leave a blank. Because a guy who starts, it’s the open door for everybody, it’s the

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The same article, year after year Relations with the press also illustrate how groups can fall into a rut. The system of interviews and promotion is another highly regulated feature of a fixed system that reproduces archetypal roles. Groups like Oneyed Jack regularly meet with journalists from local and regional newspapers like Ouest France and Nice Matin, the specialized music press, and fanzines. The journalists are usually beginners who are either on assignment or are afficionados. Each interview begins the same way, and every meeting with a journalist reproduces the same scene, an identical dialogue, and the same article. The questions are invariable, interview after interview. In concert after concert, city after city, and tour after tour, it is always the same: “And that lasted twelve years. The group existed for twelve years. And it was that way the first year, and then the second year, and then all the rest.” The group played the same festivals every year and in the same venues, giving the same interviews to the same media outlets. Journalists they met one year changed and left for other jobs, only to immediately be replaced by new recruits who worked the exact same routine: And, for example, I remember finding articles that were identical for three or four years in a row. A copy-paste job of the first article with a picture, often of Noir Désir. People found a picture of Noir Désir in our article. A journalist’s mistake. (Julien, December 5, 2008) The endless turnover of journalists gave the group the impression of stagnating. “There is constant circulation, and then finally it is you who become set in your ways. It circulates permanently on the other side, it’s only new blood, and you, in fact, you’re in the back every time.” The relationship with the press showed the relative failure of the band – its woeful stagnation and the fact that it was stuck in a rut. Myth and reality Julien’s story reflects a common narrative of unsteady employment that also contrasts sharply with the Bohemian ideal and instead resembles the career paths of young, occasionally employed, exploited laborers. His discourse about himself and his itinerary are not devoid of certain aspects of the Bohemian life, however, for example when he refers to his early days as a musician as a time when “the artistic career became invested not only as a profession where one makes a

Julien 177 living [. . .] but also as a vocation” (Heinich, 2005: 29). Julien contends that he was aware that he would not make money in music, but he does not appear to have attributed much importance to this fact. What seemed most important at the beginning was making music with friends who were as carefree as he was. His goal was to prolong a kind of adolescence without money, free and happy, a sentiment that he now considers somewhat wistfully. The early chapters of his story involve living on the margins as adolescents “cruising with their heads down,” achieving their childhood dreams, including “everything we imagined when we were kids – groupies, touring, television, radio, interviews, rehearsing two weeks non-stop.” But touring and the daily grind quickly became apparent, and he came to mourn the innocent, idealized vision of the musician’s life. Although a Bohemian lived on the margins, “outside of any hierarchy, able to rub shoulders with the extremes of the social ladder, but concerned with avoiding the middle, represented by the ‘middle-class,’ ‘the grocer,’ the ‘philistine’” (ibid., 2005: 35), as bass player for Oneyed Jack, Julien was a cog within a system of constraints, obligations, and duties that required conformity. He interacted with technicians, concert venue managers, journalists, and professionals on a daily basis. These interactions helped him maintain professional relationships that were in turn governed by an entire system of rules and constraints. He “navigated” in a universe that was like a clock or well-oiled “mechanical system” in which each person had a pre-defined role with established gestures and attitudes that were repeated endlessly according to the rules. As Julien describes it, a musician’s life is dominated by routine and offers little flexibility and no hope for change. Month after month and year after year on the road, moving mechanically from one city or stage to the next, he slid farther and farther away from the Bohemian ideal, in both its idealized version – the “choice of a marginal life dedicated to a vocation” – and its cynical version (“resignation, for lack of anything better, to a relegation experienced as heroic”) (ibid., 2005: 37). The character of the “unknown genius” that is linked with the image of the Bohemian artist thereby becomes replaced by the image of a vulnerable, unstably employed piece-worker, and laborious routines supplant any vestiges of romance. Julien sought in vain for signs of the Bohemian ideal in his life as a musician: And after a while, that kind of rock and roll side, you’re looking for it. That slight edge of adventure [. . .] you know, you can move around, travel, it’s all the same in fact. In fact, you don’t see anything. [. . .] That’s what I feel about all that now. About all of this kind of sad life with the band that we had. And that kind of killed the sort of crazy side that we were able to enjoy on the side. (Julien, December 5, 2008) Life as an unreliably employed musician Julien’s daily life is the opposite of society’s representation of the artist as Pierre-Michel Menger describes it. Like many artists, Julien lucidly catalogues

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the “limits of ideological re-enchantment” that reduce the illusions, grand ideas, and ideals of the artistic life “to the format of ordinary work experiences” (2002: 54–55). He ultimately paints a portrait of himself that is very close to the artist-aslaborer described by Menger. Indeed, Julien is “like an example of the new laborer” who is far removed from “romantic, contestatory, or subversive representations of the artist” (Menger, 2002: 8). The reality of his daily life shows that “the activities of artistic creation are not or no longer are about work, but about [. . .] the most advanced expression of new modes of production and new employment relations engendered by recent mutations in capitalism.”11 On the road, instead of the non-conformist, Bohemian, free, and unfettered artist-creator, Julien incarnates the unstably employed laborer of the future. The uncertainty about the course of his career, the contractual hyper-flexibility, the intense competition, the endless sequence of employers, and the different forms of short-term labor combine to guarantee difficult work conditions full of stress, danger and risk, repetitiveness and routine, fatigue and boredom, and in which free time is determined by work time, by the long period required to launch a career, the prominence of undeclared work, and the numerous situations involving conflict and humiliation: But we weren’t living well, we were minimum wagers, even though we worked a ton, in fact. We didn’t think we were really working, but we were working, we were totally taken up in it. [. . .] That was a very difficult time because we didn’t have any detachment, no perspective on ourselves.12 (Julien, December 5, 2008) Julien was a prisoner in a system of power and domination that contributed to a sense of self-devaluation and that negated his investment, his sacrifices, in short, the work itself.

Passages No one is innocent Julien met Marc Gulbenkian, the singer of No One Is Innocent, through Greg, the drummer of Mojo, and the three men formed the band in 2004. They produced two albums, played 200 concerts, and toured from 2004 to 2007, accumulating “valuable performance vouchers and real salaries, assisted by an actual team of technicians, with backliners and a technician who takes care of your equipment.” Julien again experienced the same set-up with No One Is Innocent as he did Oneyed Jack, but under more comfortable conditions: Well, in fact, we hit a new level, but still in a very set thing, a rigid program like a greased wheel, still that system but with a little more elegance, a little more class, you know? It wasn’t the same hotels or transportation. We were in

Julien 179 tour-buses, in huge buses, with little sleeping cabins, the real thing. We were five musicians, and ten to twelve technicians following the band everywhere. (Julien, October 11, 2009) The band’s technicians were greeted at each location by the local team who “prepared the ground” so that the musicians were completely free of such lowly tasks and only had to play once evening fell. Fatigue and stress were dramatically decreased by this division of labor, which also improved the touring conditions, including travel and lodgings, as well as performance. The band’s status allowed them to focus on their music and to specialize. At the same time as he turned technical matters over to technicians, Julien was also leaving tour management to professionals. This freed group members and made them more independent and, in his words, “spoiled rotten.” “With Oneyed Jack, we couldn’t eat whenever we wanted. We ate whenever we could, because we were the opening act and the times were set. But here, they asked you what time you wanted to eat in the morning, where, what.” They were no longer hostages to a frenetic schedule: We traveled at night. Or we slept at a hotel, and you have a train the next day that took you to the location. And you had to be there at six in the evening, not at noon, you know? That’s the big difference, it was more comfortable. (Julien, October 11, 2009)

Figure 7.3 Julien with No One Is Innocent. La Cigale, Paris, October 2004, Revolution Tour © Pidz

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Touring with MC Solaar: the love boat Julien took a break from touring with No One Is Innocent to participate in several projects, including film clips for Zazie, DVDs for Tryo, and a gig as musical director for Christophe Mali. Then he met Mathieu Rabaté,13 who “turned him onto” a tour with the rapper MC Solaar. Julien was about to enter an entirely new environment – the world of the “mercenary.” “This is when you really are a musician. A musicos, in fact. [. . .] You play songs that are already written.” The musician is at the service of the singer-author-composer, and he is pampered as a luxury employee. He was also much better remunerated, earning between 400 and 800 euros a day, depending on whether the concerts during promotional tours were broadcast or not. Depending on the number of concerts, he netted as much as 4,000 euros in ten days and “managed to do months where you took home 10 or 12,000 euros.” Julien spent ten days in residence working from ten in the morning to nine in the evening while the group was developing playlists and rehearsing. He learned 70 songs by heart and worked on arrangements with the drummer. Then came the time for televised promotions and the tour itself: And then you were treated like royalty. It was a huge team, lots of people. It was a small circus, a little Barnum, with lots and lots of teams, technical teams and stuff. And then there were four musicians with MC Solaar, and they’re treated like precious objects, the important guys. [. . .] It was super luxurious, totally opulent. You’re on the plane, on jets, on trains, we had buses, and 4- and 5-star hotels. So we were in a big tour configuration, a big star tour. (Julien, October 11, 2009) Julien described a way of operating that was totally unlike anything he had experienced with Oneyed Jack and No One Is Innocent. He was ultra-cosseted and treated like a “luxury product,” receiving the most scrupulous attention: “On the Solaar tour, I had a guy named Lolo – Laurent – who took care me . . . he was my backliner, meaning he took care of setting up my equipment, changing my strings, he was my own personal technician.” Because everything was completely taken care of, Julien no longer focused on anything besides the performance, under optimal conditions. He had minimal contact with local teams or the technical staff and arrived at the last minute, at 7:30 or 8:00 in the evening, a half-hour before it was time to play, and everything was ready and in place (the equipment, sound check, etc.): For example if I was playing tomorrow with Solaar, I would take a plane at 4:30 in the afternoon, and I would get to Nice at 6:15, and then a helicopter or I don’t know what would take me to Monaco or wherever. At 7 o’clock, I got to the performance hall. So my day ultimately started at 4:30 or 5 in the afternoon. (Julien, October 11, 2009)

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Figure 7.4 Julien with MC Solaar. 2007 © Pidz

The technicians left the day before and traveled all night so that they could arrive in Nice or Monaco at 7 a.m. and “set up” from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Then they did the takedown until two in the morning and got on the bus again so they could be in another town and at another venue the next day. Sometimes they worked sixteen or seventeen hours a day. The musicians do not participate in this “Great Barnum Circus.” Instead, they take a plane and stay in a big hotel, and after the concert the party with the star musician, the other musicians, and the security guards: Party time was also totally overseen by professionals who made sure the place was secured and ready to receive the band. Because there were one or two bodyguards all the time. It was they who managed planning the evenings. The bodyguards on big tours like that, they’re also the security chiefs, and they make sure the artists can get in anywhere, that the VIP corner is ready. (Julien, October 11, 2009) Every possible means was deployed to ensure that the musicians only needed to focus on their playing, so the only thing left to do afterwards was party. Hooking up Julien “made connections” and gradually built a career as a musician as he moved from one group to another – from Route 66 to Oneyed Jack, to Mojo, to No One

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Is Innocent, and to MC Solaar. Every change and new project, whether starting a group or joining an existing band, is framed as advancing his professional career through connections. Finding a manager, recording an album, signing a first professional contract, obtaining concert dates – each new step forward and sign of progress in an individual or collective career is presented more or less directly as the outgrowth of connections. This was how Julien “hooked up with” the members of Oneyed Jack, then Greg, the drummer with Mojo, who introduced him to Chris, the singer of a group that Julien joined for a few months and played 30 or 40 gigs with in Europe. A new encounter with the singer of No One Is Innocent, again thanks to Greg, changed his destiny. No One Is Innocent was looking for a bass player, and they were familiar with Julien’s style, meaning that he would not need to audition. This is a constant with Julien, who never once had to submit an audition despite changing groups many times. It was also due to connections that he was connected with Tryo, which had signed with the same Sony label Yellen Music. Connections also led to his engagement with Oneyed Jack and MC Solaar: And then I met a guy named Mathieu Rabaté who was the drummer with Zazie, from Indochine to begin with,14 and who had seen my work and proposed I come play the bass with MC Solaar. [. . .] And it was the same thing, I didn’t audition, and he offered it to me and I said, “OK,” and we took off for a year and a half, we toured for a year and a half until November 2008 with MC Solaar. (Julien, October 11, 2009) The theme of connections is recurrent in interviews with musicians. (Tassin, 2004: 133). To hear them tell it, a musician’s professional ladder is made of decisive encounters that shape their destinies. Such meetings are determining factors in obtaining contracts, and they play a fundamental role in the evolution of musicians’ careers and in how they circulate from one group to another and from one level, or project, or network, to the next. This explains why the subject figures so prominently in Julien’s autobiographical narrative. Recordings, rehearsals, retreats, and concerts that one either plays in or attends are all represented as propitious for meeting new people and as “times” for hook-ups. Record labels, recording studios, concert venues, television stages, and radio studios are recast as places for meeting people. Band members touring together become deeply acquainted. The tour system, festivals, and opening for other bands bring musicians into contact with colleagues, fostering the development of intersecting bonds. Some musicians, including Greg and Matthieu Rabaté, tour with several bands and work intensively on a range of projects and become resource people and mediators. The experience of being musicians reinforces their confidence in the crucial importance of connections in a musical career and of the system of informal relationships that surround them. Meeting people completely supplants increasingly rare formal mechanisms

Julien 183 of seeking employment such applications, sending CVs or demo CDs and DVDs, and participating in castings, auditions, or competitions. Beyond the objective functions of connections, however, meeting people is the focal point of a discourse and representation focused on their value. A musician’s itinerary is thus reinterpreted as the result of destiny and as being transformed by key events that involve fate and luck. The narrative of friendships and felicitous random meetings replaces analytical discussions about how networks work or the power of influence and patronage. The theme of the encounter that structures an autobiographical narrative frames the itinerary, not as a career but as an adventurous path that supports a romantic vision of the artist and of the system that leads the artist to his true vocation. Geographical and social circulations Julien moved around geographically from city to city and occasionally from country to country during international tours. He was a road musician in constant movement and perpetual circulation, playing over 100 concerts a year with Oneyed Jack, 200 over a three-year period with No One Is Innocent, and touring with MC Solaar for a year and a half. He traveled within a social circle of professionals who organize the circulation of musicians, bands, and venues – critical sites on local scenes such as concert halls and festivals, as well as certain locations on the margins like squats that are stops along the circuit.15 Organizational models and transportation resources evolve considerably as musicos commit themselves to their careers and move from band to band until, like Julien, they become well-established musicians in the employment of stars. Power relations between tour and venue managers in the circuit also tend to evolve in favor of tour managers as bands become better known. Organizing a tour depends on a balance between musical supply and demand among performance venues. Improved transportation conditions have important consequences for musical performances. In Oneyed Jack, Julien traveled in “a mini-van with a maximum of nine seats carrying six musicians, three technicians, a lighting guy, and a chauffeur who we called the tour manager. It was awful.” Anguish, fear, lack of privacy, boredom, personality conflicts, and moral and physical fatigue are just some of the consequences of this protracted, precarious mode of travel. Every group that is like Oneyed Jack travels under similar conditions and around the same circuit. The bands all rent the same mini-buses, travel the same routes, and perform on the same stages. They know each other, run into each other, and share the same experiences. Stories circulate among bands with members who died in mini-van accidents. There is even a “cursed” van rental company: There are several rental companies that rent mini-buses, one of which wasn’t expensive and could rent you a van in the evening for the next day. The name of the company was K. and it still exists. And No One, Lofofora, and Sept, all overturned in their trucks [. . .]! K., they were well known, everybody used

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Gabriel Segré their mini-buses, because we couldn’t afford to do otherwise, but everybody knew that you had a big chance of turning into a pile of bloody meat. To tell you the truth, we called them “the Company of Death.” (Julien, May, 2008)

The danger of long mini-bus trips is part of groups’ shared knowledge in the amplified music scene in France. Accepting risks and swapping stories about accidents are simply aspects of the shared culture of these musical groups. By changing groups, levels, and statuses, Julien evolved from traveling in minibuses to “tour-buses” and later to huge buses equipped with individual sleeping compartments that made traveling more comfortable – with greater privacy, less noise, increased safety, and the possibility of sleeping in transit. Time on the road was no longer wasted, and instead of being punishing for mind, body, and spirit, it was restful. Traveling with MC Solaar was primarily by air. The star paid for everything: “We are luxury items. We are transported, taken everywhere.” Julien arrived a half-hour before the concert and just “strapped on” his bass and played. He no longer experienced anything other than the luxury of business-class travel, in taxis, TGVs, and planes – sometimes even private aircraft. He traveled either alone or with other musicians but never with the technicians. Professional relationships: from hazing to independence As he changed groups, Julien increasingly became a part of the model of the “career” musician, gradually gaining legitimacy in his own eyes and those of other professionals, especially technical personnel (with whom he rarely had contact). He acquired experience as the years went by and reinforced his habitus as a musician, mastering his instrument as well as relationships with other actors in the “rock world,” including audiences, peers, tour managers, distributors, and technicians. His own reputation as a bass player grew, as did the renown of the groups with whom he played. With Oneyed Jack, he sometimes found himself in the uncomfortable situation of interacting with technicians older and far more experienced in the technical aspects of music than he was: Yeah, all the technicians around make fun of you. At the beginning you get hazed a bit. You’re a new guy, so the team looks down on you. Because it’s obvious you don’t know anything. You’re so naïve, you say dumb stuff. [. . .] I was supposed to explain things I didn’t know anything about. It was like handing them a stick to hit me with. You can’t show up and say, “OK, I want this and that,” to a technician who knows his trade better than you [. . .] you’re totally vulnerable. If you don’t have technicians, you don’t have a team. (Julien, December 5, 2008) The relationship was entirely different between No One Is Innocent and local technicians. More experienced, better-known musicians earned the right to be

Julien 185 treated with consideration, and they left their own technical teams to take care of preparations and relations with local teams: Since we were a well-known band, we were treated better, by good technicians. We all had a background, enough major musical experience, that the teams were all respectful and above all, now, it was not us who were being welcomed, but our technicians. (Julien, December 5, 2008) With MC Solaar, the lack of direct contact between musicians and technicians was starker still. The spoiled, hyper-specialized “mercenary” musician was a person apart from everyone else with whom contact was unthinkable. Julien no longer did sound checks or spent time in concert venues. He arrived with only enough time to go to his dressing room and perform. As he “grew up” as a musician, this distance from the bands and the local technician teams steadily widened. He no longer traveled with them, shared the same schedule or experiences, or faced the same hardships, and he stayed in different hotels and received different performance vouchers. His relationships with technicians were purely professional instead of based on friendship (the technicians for Oneyed Jack began as friends), because technicians’ status had changed. Julien evolved from being teased and dominated as a beginner who was forced to explain the soundboard to the sound man (who immediately put him in his place) to a privileged situation in which he was no longer concerned with the slightest technical aspect of the gig. Relations with the public also changed dramatically. As he gained recognition, Julien distanced himself from audiences and fans. With Oneyed Jack, there had scarcely been any distinction between musicians and audience except for during concerts. There was considerable contact with audience members, who were mostly friends or peers. The party that followed the set brought musicians and audiences together with little real differentiation. Having someone buy your drink was the final perk of the artist: In a small concert hall with 150 seats, after the people have a drink, you meet them. And these are even places where sometimes you sleep upstairs. Because they’re hotels, too. [. . .] You’re permanently close to them, you spend your evenings with them, you party with them. (Julien, December 5, 2008) With No One Is Innocent, venues were larger, and fame was more important. The group was less available and social distances became more noticeable. This distance expanded as Julien assumed the mantle of a “musician” and differentiated himself from the people who attended his concerts. This distancing effect was still more pronounced touring with MC Solaar. It was imposed by the context, with after-parties held in trendy, exclusive nightclubs instead of in venues or café-concerts where the shows took place. The concert hall staff and the private security agents who accompanied the musicians reinforced this increased social distance.

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Relationships inside the group: from adolescent fraternity to mercenary individualism In addition to a new status, every transition to another musical group involves learning new ways of operating and new types of relationships. Playing with Oneyed Jack, the primary relationship and performance modes were democratic and anarchical. Complete equality ruled over the group’s day-to-day operations. The members had founded the group together, although the guitarist and singer had already played together and given the band its name, and everyone participated in composing songs and creating set lists, a collective process centered around jams that somebody usually launched with a musical riff or a line from a song. The approximately 70 songs in their repertoire were all considered to be shared compositions: Since we were totally anarchical, there was no specific musical leadership. We constructed the pieces collectively, as a group. We often took off from a bass note or line, or a line of verse, and we built the rest as a group. We were a real group, and we wrote our material together. (Julien, December 5, 2008) The entire team was lodged in the same hotels, including the six musicians and three technicians, the sound engineer, the lighting manager, and the tour manager, who was also the chauffeur. They traveled and lived together, and their performance vouchers were the same. The symbiotic, anarchical nature of the group was reinforced by the fact that members were all young and by their shared libertarian values, as well as by the accumulation of challenges that they had faced together, all of which combined to ensure an environment of reciprocal closeness. “It was a little anarchical between us, but around us, there was a system that demanded respect – technical, artistic, etc. [. . .] We were like teenage brothers, totally left to our own devices.” The collegial community spirit inside the group was in stark contrast with the hierarchical, highly regulated, authoritarian external world surrounding them. They were young people gradually forced to adapt to rules, submit to humiliations, and be called to order – and finally conform to the system. But a joyful and carefree insouciance continued to prevail between them. The organization of No One Is Innocent was different. The singer, Marc Gulbenkian, was the group’s founder and co-owner of the band’s copyright with Universal Studios. He was officially the bandleader, and he ultimately had the deciding vote. Julien was joining a pre-existing project, and he became a part of hierarchical power relations within the group: It was the singer who signed the contract a long time ago, and since we all arrived afterwards. [. . .] So it’s Marc who decides, we are all free to write lines, stuff like that, participate in writing and composing, but he gets the final say. He makes the final decision. [. . .] So in fact, the singer wrote the

Julien 187 songs we were gonna play, and so he’s the leader. There’s a boss [. . .] a kind of keeper of the temple, you know? (Julien, December 5, 2008) Relationships remained warm. Creating, writing, composing, arranging, and compiling set lists continued to be conducted in a collective spirit, although with greater seriousness and rigor. But the work was conducted within a smoother and less exhausting environment. Reduced fatigue, pressure, and stress associated with greater comfort and better organization contributed to a more professional setting that made relationships easier to sustain. At the same time, there was a clear boundary between the musicians and technicians and between the singer and the musicians. When Julien signed a contract to join the musicians who accompanied MC Solaar, he was no longer a member of a collective, a fact that was evident in even the band’s name. As a musician working at the pleasure of a high-profile headliner in the world of music, Julien joined an implicit hierarchy based on fame and on the star’s rapport with audiences to a greater extent than on specific musical skills, merit, or peer opinion. He had at last encountered the highly refined “invisible boundary” between stars and staff – between the “‘CEOs’ and the ‘valets’ of music” (Coulangeon, 2004: 59). At this level, the processes of differentiation and the division of labor, as well as the distinction between functions, became accentuated, as did the rationalization of each individual’s activities. Julien played a highly circumscribed role and occupied a specific function that was perfectly defined. He had detailed rights and obligations, particular working conditions, an established schedule, and a welldefined sphere within which he had autonomy. It was an environment in which hierarchical and status-based relationships were more important and explicit, and each individual’s knowledge and skills were precisely recognized and defined.16 Every participant possessed a well-established professional identity. As a consequence, there were profound inequalities in transportation, dressing rooms, hotels, leisure activities, and work times. These were not shared by MC Solaar, the musicians, or the technicians. The times that the musicians, the star, and the rest of the team were together (from the sound engineer to the head of security) were reduced to a bare minimum. The few shared moments were entirely devoted to work and to professional relations, except, of course, for the party time that continued to punctuate the rhythm of the concerts – and will throughout eternity. When he left No One is Innocent, especially when he quit Oneyed Jack to join MC Solaar, Julien was exchanging a “primitive undivided state” in which “art was blended with friendship, morality, social values, and politics, a configuration of interdependent relationships in which the parties are not totally interchangeable,” comparable to “family” or the “primary group” (Brandl, 2002), for a hierarchical configuration in which everyone except the star “is replaceable, even a musician (although not on the same day).” In this new configuration, relationships depended on the objective properties of each actor’s position more than on his or her subjective properties. Julien’s transition from Oneyed Jack to the environment

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of the band that played with MC Solaar involved a leap from a mechanistic form of solidarity based on proximity and similarity to a more organic type of solidarity rooted on status, to employ Durkheimian terminology. From we to I: the birth of a musician As Julien was negotiating the transition from one social environment and form of solidarity to the next, he was experiencing an additional major shift from the collective “we” of an “entity” to an individualized “I.” His sense of being emancipated from the group grew in tandem with an increase in self-assurance and in technical mastery, as well as growing recognition in his own eyes and those of other actors in the rock music scene. The close-knit, libertarian, democratic, community-oriented, adolescent nature of Oneyed Jack helped him develop his identity. Each member saw his own personality and identity melded with that of the collective. As a musician, each individual served the group. Individual entity, when it appeared, was reduced to a pronoun, as family names typically cease being used in interviews and articles about the group as well as in CD liner notes. This tight-knit character was remarkably well-illustrated in the shared authorship of Oneyed Jack’s repertoire of songs and the image on the first album cover of Cynique (Oneyed Jack, Cynique, Yelen Musiques, 1996), a photographic montage that fused the band members’ faces together. The group’s successes and failures revealed the disappearance of individuality in favor of a single entity, Oneyed Jack. When a conflict arose between the band members and a concert hall manager, the entire group suffered the consequences: And as an entity, you’re hated. Meaning that inside the group, there were one or two of us who were not unpleasant, but we were subjected to. . . . Because when you arrive, you’re a band, you are an entity. You are part of the group, of the entity, and it’s the group and you’re a part of it. Period. If there are some guys who act like assholes, then you’re an asshole too, because you’re part of the group. (Julien, December 5, 2008) From group to group and project to project, Julien gradually developed a form of autonomy. He increasingly found himself in situations in which professional bonds tended to resemble friendships and in which distance replaced close bonding between members and collaboration took the place of affection. Within these systems, every individual had his own identity, status, function, and role. Every individual acquired a veritable identity as a musician, as his own work and his skills were recognized and led him to be sought after and hired. Julien became a “musician” in others’ eyes who was recognized for his rank and skills. He also gained status in his own eyes after believing earlier that he was an imposter and “crook” or a “trickster”:

Julien 189 So with Oneyed Jack, I saw myself as a . . . group of pals, a group. I mean, the word “artist,” or “musician”. . . . Musician, I felt bad saying I was a musician because I didn’t have the skills, in the beginning anyway, to be a musician. I mean you see, I wasn’t. (Julien, December 5, 2008) But total commitment, the long list of musical projects and partnerships, forms of recognition such as being sought after by peers and receiving proposals for gigs, or album sales, as well as the admiration of an audience, had finally helped him to define himself as a musician: But at a certain point I said to myself, yeah, I’m a musician, because I was playing with lots of people. There you go – you’re a musician. I was saying to myself “you can adopt this label, because finally, that’s who you are, because you are living off of it, you work with people [. . .] after a while, people buy a concert ticket or an album because of you.” That’s when after a while you say to yourself “there’s somebody who spends ten euros just for you, so you’re a musician.” (Julien, December 5, 2008)

Figure 7.5 Julien with No One Is Innocent. Le Splendid, Lille, March 2005, Revolution Tour © Pidz

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Passages From Route 66 to Oneyed Jack, from No One Is Innocent to M.C. Solaar, Julien experienced a wide variety of contexts, played in a long list of spaces and stages, met a wide range of participants in the “world of rock,” and played a range of professional roles. His itinerary offers a somewhat exceptional illustration17 of the variety of situations and statuses occupied by musicians who perform amplified music. With Oneyed Jack, Julien played in bars and small concert halls, youth cultural centers, and clubs, all sites that specialized in producing rock music, as well as smaller music festivals or modest stages in the afternoon at larger festivals. With No One Is Innocent, he moved to playing larger and more prestigious venues, including the Zenith, La Cigale, The Olympia in Paris, and the Transbordeur in Lyon. He played large music festivals, performing at primetime at 9 p.m. on the main stage. With MC Solaar, Julien performed in the same locations as No One, including the Bataclan in Paris, the Espace Médoquine in Bordeaux, the Transbordeur in Lyon, the Aéronef in Lille, and the like and at large festivals that also featured musicians like David Bowie and Ben Harper. He went from uncomfortable, dangerous mini-van trips with Oneyed Jack to a tour bus with No One Is Innocent and finally to planes and TGV bullet trains with MC Solaar. He experienced improvised housing on sofas and small hotels with Oneyed Jack, modest touring conditions with No One, and luxury hotels with MC Solaar. His musical activity initially covered a vast range. Like musicos, he accepted or contributed to an array of more or less thankless tasks, in addition to composing, rehearsing, and playing, including moving and setting up sound systems, helping local technicians set up sound and lights, doing sound checks, tuning and maintaining his instrument by changing strings, and helping plan and manage tours. As his stature and that of the groups he played with grew, he was decreasingly involved in such tasks. When he moved from Oneyed Jack to No One Is Innocent, he began to specialize, no longer serving as roadie, technician, sound and light guy, moving man, manager, organizer, copilot, and so on and focusing exclusively on being a bass guitarist. As a full-time musician, he was finally a full member of a professional context and no longer just one of a group of pals with rank amateurs serving as managers or agents and mutual assistance between fellow band members. With MC Solaar, he was specialized to the point of no longer even plugging in or tuning his instrument and became completely dependent on his backliner for maintaining his guitars. After he was firmly established as a musician and recognized as a bass guitarist, Julien began branching out in new directions such as directing movies, acting, composing music for films, designing sets, and working as the musical director for Christophe Mali. He focused primarily on nobler and higher-paid creative activities instead of craft or technical skills. In this way, he replaced one form of

Julien 191 versatility with a new, more prestigious, and more lucrative cluster of activities associated with the status of “intermittents indemnisés ‘multi inserés’” (Coulangeon, 2004: 191).18

Notes 1 RMIstes are people who benefit from RMI, the French minimum integration income, created in 1988, the purpose of which is to guarantee a minimum level of resources and to facilitate the integration or re-integration into society of persons with a low income. 2 See Jean-Marie Séca (1988 and 2001) and his analysis of engagement in the practice of rock music as a conduit form compensation. 3 Musicos are instrumentalists who devote their lives to the practice of music and “only do that,” playing in bars and at festivals and dances, as they navigate between official, paid gigs and undeclared work. The term was first applied by Perrenoud (2007: 8) and originated in the vocabulary of the musical and peri-musical field. It designates “ordinary” musicians taken as a whole, those who are “regularly in a situation of playing in front of the public in exchange for remuneration but [. . .] who are relegated to the bottom rungs of the professional pyramid.” 4 See Tassin (2004: 218), who demonstrates that the first group is often composed of beginning musicians who learn to play together. Fabien Hein (2006) has observed that rehearsals provide a three-layered experience: Producing and creating music with fellow musicians, testing and adjusting one’s musical equipment, and developing a shared project with other members of the group (p. 47). During early rehearsals, one also learns to hear oneself, tune and adjust one’s instrument and the volume of an amplifier, and to adopt rocker attitudes, such as playing standing up and not seated as one might at home, and, as Marc Perrenoud very appropriately phrases it (2007: 57), “to play and to be together, or maybe to play at being together as a ‘rock group.’” 5 Julien is among the 46% of popular music performers who never study music formally (Coulangeon, 2004: 128), which is consistent with the image of the self-taught artist and anti-institutional rebel. He taught himself for years by practicing daily. His apprenticeship bears some similarities to that of an ascetic conservatory student in requiring self-regulation and discipline. This learning model contrasts significantly with that of “inspired grandeur” that is spectacular and out of the ordinary. (Perrenoud, 2007: 49). 6 A minimum number of performance vouchers is needed to remain eligible for the French official status of intermittent. Intermittent refers to a status specific to the French entertainment industry. Intermittents du spectacle are artists and technicians in the entertainment industry who work under fixed-term contracts. They work intermittently, alternating between periods of employment and periods of unemployment. Once they can document a certain number of hours, they can be eligible for this status, which pays national unemployment benefits to compensate for a period when they are not working. To be eligible, artists and technicians are required to provide evidence of working 507 hours, the equivalent of 43 cachets, (performance vouchers) within the previous 319 days. 7 In fact, Julien’s father was a jazz trumpet player, but he denies that this influenced him or provided any musical sensitivity. 8 The findings of Philippe Coulangeon’s study (2004: 109) confirm the importance of the peer group, “high school buddies,” in engagement in “non-academic” musical practices. 9 In this sense, Julien resembles jazz musicians during their period of joining the jazz scene, when they devote themselves to an array of peer social activities in the scene (Buscatto, 2007: 27).

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10 Hein (2004) stresses the routine, the close quarters, and painful living conditions in his descriptions of daily life touring with a rock band. 11 Menger’s hypothesis is that they are claimed as such. 12 Julien made 600 francs a month for the first five years with Oneyed Jack and afterwards 600 euros a month. The state unemployment agency [Assedic] paid him twenty euros per day when he was not playing. 13 The drummer with Zazie, Indochine, H.-F. Thiéfaine, Alizée, Trust, Mylène Farmer, MC Solaar, Raphael, C. Willem, and Grégoire, among others . . . 14 The drummer with Thiefaine, Alizée, Trust, Mylène Farmer, M.C. Solaar, Raphael, Gregoire. 15 Among concert venues, Guibert (2007: 306) distinguishes locations involving popular education or socio-cultural stages like youth cultural centers and neighborhood meeting halls; locations that belong to the profit-centered private economy, such as caféconcerts; marginal places like squats; and institutionally sponsored locations such as SMAC (Scènes de Musiques Actuelles or Contemporary Music Stages). Hein (2006: 63), divides performance spaces into specialized venues – large and small concert halls; discotheques and non-specialized locations – bars, café-concerts, squats, FNAC auditoriums, and universities; and multi-function spaces and youth cultural centers. 16 This hierarchical organization of labor remains more flexible than in high-culture music. Separation into performance, management, interpretation, and creativity was less pronounced and less rigid, and Julien participated to a certain extent in the production of his collective. The systematic specialization and hierarchical arrangement of jobs that characterize high-culture musical orchestras in fact have no equivalent in other musical fields (Coulangeon, 2004: 54). 17 Few musicians experience as wide a variety of career changes as Julien. At each stage of his life story, he could be said to be typical of musicians who reach that stage, but his itinerary as a whole is exceptional because of the length of each phase and therefore the relatively infrequent transitions. 18 Intermittents multi-insérés participate in significant ways in the entertainment/performance industry. These individuals participate in several networks, thus multiplying their opportunities for employment and employment offers. For a definition of “intermittent”, see note 6.

References Becker, Howard S. Outsiders. Étude de sociologie de la déviance, “Observations”, Paris: Métailié, 1985. Brandl, Emmanuel. “Figures du musicien régional des ‘Faits Musicaux Amplifiés’,” ethnographiques.org, n°1 (avril 2002). http://www.ethnographiques.org/2002/Brandl. Brandl, Emmanuel. L’ambivalence du rock: entre subversion et subvention. Une enquête sur l’institutionnalisation des musiques populaires, Paris: L’Harmattan, coll. Logiques Sociales, 2009. Buscatto, Marie. Femmes du jazz. Musicalités, féminités, marginalisations, Paris: CNRS Éditions, 2007. Coulangeon, Philippe. Les musiciens interprètes en France, Paris: La Documentation Française, 2004. Guibert, Gérôme. “Les musiques ampli_ées en France. Phénomènes de surfaces et dynamiques invisibles,” Réseaux, 25, n°141–142 (2007): 297–324, UMLV/Lavoisier. Hein, Fabien. “Ethnographie d’un groupe de rock en tournée aux États-Unis,” ethnographique. org, n°5. http://www.ethnographiques.org/2004/Hein.html. Julien. Un bassiste sur les routes.

Julien 193 Hein, Fabien. Le monde du rock. Ethnographie du réel, “Musique et société_”, Paris: Mélanie Seteun/IRMA, 2006. Le Guern, Philippe. “En arrière la musique ! Sociologie des musiques populaires en France,” Réseaux, 25, n°141–142, (2007): 15–45, UMLV/Lavoisier. Lehmann, Bernard. L’orchestre dans tous ses éclats. Ethnographie des formations symphoniques, Paris: La Découverte, 2002. Menger, Pierre-Michel. “Rationalité et incertitude de la vie d’artiste,” L’Année sociologique, 3e série, 39 (1989): 111–151. Menger, Pierre-Michel. Portrait de l’artiste en travailleur, Paris: Seuil, 2002. Moulin, Raymonde. L’artiste, l’institution et le marché, Paris: Flammarion, 1992. Nathalie Heinich, L’Élite artiste. Excellence et singularité en régime démocratique. Paris, Gallimard, 2005. Perrenoud, Marc (dir.). Terrains de la musique. Approches socio-anthropologiques du fait musical contemporain, Paris: L’Harmattan, coll. Logiques Sociales, 2006. Perrenoud, Marc. “Ne faire que ça. Les musicos: Identités professionnelles, habitus musiciens,” in Terrains de la musique. Approches socio-anthropologiques du fait musical contemporain, directed by dans Perrenoud R., 133–161, Paris: L’Harmattan, coll. Logiques Sociales, 2006. Perrenoud, Marc. Les musicos. Enquête sur des musiciens ordinaires, Paris: La Découverte, coll. Enquête de terrain, 2007. Rouget, Gilbert. La musique et la transe. Esquisse d’une théorie générale des relations de la musique et de la possession, Paris: Gallimard, coll. Tel, 1990 (1980). Seca, Jean-Marie. Vocations Rock, Paris: Méridiens Klincksieck, 1988. Seca, Jean-Marie. Les Musiciens Underground, Paris: PUF, 2001. Tassin, Damien. Rock et production de soi. Une sociologie de l’ordinaire des groupes et des musiciens, Paris: L’Harmattan, coll. Logiques sociales, 2004. Touché, Marc. “Les lieux de répétition des musiques ampli_ées,” Les Annales de la, n°17 (1996): 58–67, Recherche Urbaine.

Part II

From singulars to plural

Circulations As socio-cultural phenomena, music and dance ebb, flow, and circulate according to the rhythms of their practitioners and audiences. The specific mechanisms underlying the mobility of such cultural practices are not well understood, however, and they have rarely been considered from a comparative perspective. The authors of this volume are attempting to address this gap by exploring how people, objects, genres, and knowledge in the fields of music and dance circulate.1 We consider different kinds of movement, from social mobilities to changes in status and context, each of which tends to be tied to geographical mobility. We divide circulation into categories including physical circulation and the forces that shape it, changes in context associated with circulation, and the knowledge that influences and is influenced by circulatory flows. The following questions have motivated our collective effort to add to what is known about these types of cultural circulations: What are the mechanisms, driving forces, and triggers underlying circulations? What kinds of spaces are used and what factors and consequences explain moves from one performance context to another – from the stage to the street or from artistic practices to religious performance? How are such changes negotiated among the various participants? What changes of scale are involved when a particular set of musical or dance practices shifts from a local or regional level to national or international distribution systems and networks? How do individual mobilities from or toward “original” locations of music and dance practices actually take place? Through these questions, this volume explores the various modalities of circulation of artists, music, and dances. What are the underlying forces that drive circulation? Encounters An important vector of circulation among musicians and dancers involves encounters with other people. Individual meetings can permanently redirect the narratives that musicians and dancers create surrounding their life stories and play a

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critical role in both the nature and content of their accounts. Encounters with other figures in the dance and music worlds can play a determining role in whether an artist joins a project, musical group, or dance troupe or becomes involved in a new deal, network, or contract. Encounters are a crucial feature of artists’ life stories that can trigger a move from one circle, network, or project to the next. Even a seemingly chance encounter can sometimes have enormous impact on an individual artist’s itinerary and career. Encounters are highly variable, and they can range from serving as mere stepping-stones to launching lasting and even intimate relationships. The most decisive moment in Damily’s “career”2 occurred when he met Yvel, who eventually married him and who facilitated his move from Tulear, Madagascar to France without the customary professional halt in the capital, Tananarivo, or other intermediate projects. After becoming his partner and “manager,” Yvel helped Damily join new networks and establish a professional profile, essentially transforming his itinerary into a two-person project. When Linda met the Creole musician Danny Poullard in California in the 1990s, their meeting gave her the courage to overcome her inhibitions and take up the fiddle. Poullard mentored a variety of amateur musicians who now play French Louisiana music and played a critical role in the development of their passion and skills. Blair Kilpatrick’s book retracing the pleasure she felt in learning the accordion and singing (2009) eloquently describes Poullard’s fundamental influence on her transformation into a musician. Kilpatrick also describes how she later accompanied the maestro during the final days of his life. The concept of networks or webs of interpersonal relationships allows researchers to emphasize processes of distribution and organization that can be observed in the life stories explored in this volume. Relationships that develop in even the smallest network can extend beyond trans-local and transnational levels to include exchanges between network participants who are geographically remote from each other, promoting extremely rapid circulation. One example of this kind of transnational flow can be observed in networks of performers of the AfroCuban repertoire analyzed by Kali Argyriadis in the Veracruz area of Mexico. Local networks such as these can rapidly expand to a global level, even via a single teacher and his or her pupils with different nationalities and origins. In addition to their significance in specific local contexts, encounters can generate positive representations and discourses. Indeed, some artists present their trajectories as a godsend, minimizing the influence of networks and successive appropriations. The theme of the encounter is a key feature of Julien’s life story, for example. As a French rock bass player with little idea of what a “career” might involve in terms of plans, strategies, objectives, calculations, and projections, Julien’s narrative resembles a winding path that he improvised as it unspooled to the rhythms of fate or luck. Seen in this light, Julien’s musical career conforms to a romantic image of the musicians’ lives that casts them engaged in an organic process that determines the shape and direction of their careers. The generally modest involvement of formal institutions in the music professions – involving successive episodes of cooptation and gradual integration into professional

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circles – contributes to a widespread emphasis on particular individual encounters as key incidents in a foundational mythology of their career paths. Olivier presented the three important phases of his life story, for example, by emphasizing encounters that began on Reunion Island and spanned several geographical shifts. The first phase involved encounters in his childhood neighborhood, casting encounters within a web of relationships with “old-timers,” a handful of activists, organizers of sèrvis kabaré, and musical contemporaries. The second phase was propelled when Olivier met important cultural brokers, club owners, and record producers who contributed to Lindigo’s recognition on the entire island. Gaining access to World Music events also meant developing and diversifying skills and resources – logistical, administrative, and artistic – as well as relationships with national and international collaborators, including producers, tour managers, and musicians. These key moments that either opened the path toward or directly introduced him to geographical mobility helped Olivier blaze a trail as his international fame gradually increased. Instead of the decisive encounters or retrospectively reconstructed episodes that shaped Olivier’s life story, Ahmad’s existence in Cairo involves intense peregrinations among the streets and alleys of the city that are punctuated by myriad social encounters in an endless quest for prestige while dodging financial problems. Like other non-academic musicians in Cairo, Ahmad is unable to elude the maxim expressed by one Cairo resident: “Poverty drives this city.” In an economically unstable environment, physical and social mobility are resources that help individuals cultivate access to urban resources. Because they help enlarge circles of professional acquaintances, multiple encounters also create opportunities through chains of intermediaries and connections that can solve an administrative problem or lead to a performance. Attaining the rank of music master did not relieve Ahmad of “public relations” responsibilities, a central feature of every artist’s professional identity. His trajectory illustrates how meeting people and cultivating membership in multiple chains of acquaintances has allowed him to build a career as a performer within Cairo’s intricately complex music scene. Ahmad’s many frequentations constitute what might be described as “a cartography of fame.” The ability to adapt his musical performance to a range of social settings, which Ahmad learned hanging out on the city’s fabled Mohamed-Ali Avenue, combined with his capacity for circulating fluidly across a variety of social levels, ultimately allows him to participate in Cairo’s “encounter-based economy.” In France, the development of a market for teaching tango and the invention of ballroom tango dance in the early 1990s were made possible by a handful of encounters that revived connections between Buenos Aires and Europe that were latent in Argentinian history of Argentina and of tango. The spatio-temporal scope of these encounters was narrow, and they were made possible by a sort of ricochet movement between Buenos Aires and Paris. These formative encounters eventually generated a broader movement that gave rise to the contemporary tango. After traveling to Buenos Aires, tango amateurs and contemporary dancers like Michèle Rust and Nathalie Clouet returned to France and organized performances

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and other events that included ballroom dances and workshops. This led to the involvement of Argentinian dancers in Paris; some of them eventually settled permanently in the city after finding that they could earn a living teaching and performing the tango. The prominence of encounters in performers’ life stories raises the question of whether they are a specific attribute of the lives and careers of artists. Clearly, culture workers’ highly diverse recruitment and career paths are part of an informal environment driven to a large extent by relationships. The importance that participants attribute to encounters and their influence over their careers suggest the existence of an occupation-specific paradigm that perpetuates a romanticized view of artists’ and culture workers’ careers. Key places Like encounters, key locations play formative roles in artistic life stories, marking changes in status and allowing artists to join relational networks. Passages through these spaces can take on a performative aspect, generating types of circulation that impact legitimacy. This is true of musicians who aspire to join the world music scene in which “encounters” such as Womex (The World Music Expo), the Essaouira Festival, and the Portomusical de Recife in Brazil are “mandatory passages.” Olivier considers several of his voyages as decisive moments in his life story. These trips often involved brief tours or cultural exchanges funded by cultural institutions. In Olivier’s view, the travels that resonate most are connected to his relationship with his ancestors and the distinct cultural path that this bond has made possible. Since 2007, his band, Lindigo, has been involved in a variety of projects in Madagascar, South Africa, and Brazil, locations understood as nodes in the band’s web of historic bonds and cultural kinships (which are occasionally very remote or even reconstructed). Each location also involves potential musical affinities with Reunion Island. Framed as part of a “return to the roots,” every trip is the instruments the group uses, the musical forms and processes it employs, and the language and references it borrows. Such crossroads3 generate further geographical encounters and circulations that help artists construct and sustain legitimacy. Not every place occupies the same rank in the eyes of musicians and dancers, who use a range of criteria to assign hierarchical rankings. The concept of circuits is a useful analytical tool for those key places and moments where practitioners of a particular music or dance meet. It can also be used to draw a cartography that reflects the density of their displacements and their trajectories.4 Some of the researchers represented in this volume focused on individual life stories, while others described the networks and circuits that articulate between personal life stories and a set of musical and/or choreographic practices. In Afro-Cuban circuits, for example, being originally from Havana confers greater prestige and recognition on a percussionist or dancer than on a Jalapeno percussionist, who is in turn thought of as “better” than a musician from the

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Mexican city of Veracruz. Until the Cuban revolution, the port of Veracruz was the entry point into Mexico of Cuban music (García Diaz, 2009), but it presently seems like a dead-zone in the regional circuit of apprenticeships and “Afro” artistic events compared to the state capital, Jalapa, the nexus of the contemporary movement to promote the Mexican repertoire. By contrast, musicians, dancers, and cultural promoters see Havana and Cuba in general as the Holy Land and international matrix of the “Afro-Cuban” genre. For fans of French Louisiana music, music and dance workshops are viewed as essential to the development of their life stories and networks. Ashokan, which is held in New York State, Augusta in West Virginia, and, since 2001, the Balfa Camp in Louisiana are important sites for fans and recognized Louisiana musicians to meet each other. Participants often speak of such encounters as critical to their decision to learn an instrument and travel – and sometimes move permanently – to Louisiana. Hierarchies of such places are not fixed but instead evolve over the course of personal life stories. The pilgrimage to Louisiana and the eventual decision to move there alter this classification system. Although faraway camps and concerts remain prized destinations, they never reach the rank of Louisiana events. As musicians and permanent residents, Lori, Linda, and Andrea acquired legitimacy among Louisiana musicians that was essential to their roles inside local networks. They became involved in organizing and creating local musical events such as jams, regional festival, concerts, and workshops, and keeping far-away fans up to date. As transplants to the crucible of French Louisiana, music, with its unshakeable, almost mythic status, provides them with growing legitimacy, not only in the eyes of Louisianans but also among of national and international fan networks.5 Numerous locations can enhance status. Reputations and geographical situations ensure authoritative validation. They signal the passage from regional to national levels and from anonymity to popularity and fame. Not everyone successfully climbs this ladder, whose rungs are key places and encounters, however. Musical skill is not the only factor that determines individual careers, because performers also have to master the codes specific to each circuit and network. When Damily moved to France, he initially occupied a marginal position outside formal circuits, like Federico. To learn to operate as a musician or dancer and how to take advantage of being uprooted, Damily and Federico were both forced to incorporate new circuits through the influence of mediators who, in both cases, were also their partners. By establishing a bond and marking trajectories, encounters, and networks, key places and circuits play critical roles in mobility by transforming power relations and original hierarchies. This symbolic efficacy is powerful enough to allow mobilities that change actors’ positions, allowing them adapt to these transformations. Changing contexts Circulation is closely connected to change in performance contexts, from the ritual to the show or from the street to the stage. Regardless of specifics, such

200 From singulars to plural passages are not mere changes of décor, as every next move requires learning the ropes all over again and adapting to new audiences, new stages, and sometimes new repertoires. Thomas Turino distinguishes between “participative performances” in which both musicians and audiences participate (such as dance music or music linked to a particular religious practice) and “presentational performances” involving producing music for an audience.6 Far from being hermetic, since numerous musics and dances move from one context to the other, these categories are located on a continuum that allows a focus on artistic roles and goals. Although they intersect, these musical fields are distinguishable from each by specific practices, values, and ideologies and the expectations surrounding them. Associated from the beginning with what has been termed nomadization (Pelinski, 1995: 77–107), tango dancing has moved across several spatial and geographical sites, distancing itself each time, only to return from a different angle. Its initial phases entailed a cluster of social and territorial mobilities from working class street-dances and conventillos, eventually evolving to include private parties and bourgeois European salons. During the inter-war period, tango joined other couples dances offered by European dance schools. Tango teachers were not preoccupied by a particular tradition at the time. The genre’s contemporary resurgence resulted from a triangle-shaped circulation. The “Argentinian” danced tango returned to Europe via the stage, following a theatrical Pantheon of exalted figures in a romanticized history – the esquina, the lampadaire, the whore and the bad guy, lost love – while also reviving ties to choreographic forms inspired by the milongas of Buenos Aires.7 The tango returned from the stage to the dancehall thanks to the rise of academic tango teaching that encouraged improvisation and contrasted starkly with the strict codification of the interwar period. In the case of music associated with ritual ceremonial practices, the crossing from “sacred” to “profane” and from the ceremony to the stage is not accompanied by radically different practices but via pathways requiring adjustments to new constraints and new combinations of religious involvements within artistic careers. This adjustment process is well illustrated by tsapiky, a musical genre from Madagascar that is played in ceremonies such as funerals, weddings, and circumcisions. Tsapiky musicians sometimes play for as long as three uninterrupted days, with songs centered on interactions between the musicians and the families dancing or marching in raucous processions. Several timeframes combine to shape and be shaped by the music, including the time of drunkenness, that of the ancestors, the dead and the sacred, the time of the living, of prestige, and of alliances. Only after he moved to France did Damily begin to experience the stage, shows, and world music circuits and festivals. Damily, his wife Yvel, and the band’s other musicians aspired to international careers while also seeking to perform in alternative spaces that allowed them to approximate the musical experience of the original Malgache ceremonies. All-night dance parties and private concerts in apartments or gardens freed them from time limitations, removed the stage, and allowed closer and more informal interaction with audiences, all of which encourage creativity.

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As Michel Leiris observed, there is a powerful, systematically theatrical dimension inherent in ceremonies involving trances of possession (1958: 73). As a consequence, the “passage” from ritual to stage, where sacred and profane dimensions coexist, can be associated with specific problems. This back-and-forth can create tension between participants and awaken debates about a suitable match between the music and the performance context. Questions of legitimacy and authenticity lie at the heart of such controversies and debates. On Reunion Island, the notion of “sacred maloya” as musicians use it is a source of friction and involves discourses of justification that are often ambivalent and even contradictory. Olivier’s group, Lindigo, has been criticized (along with other groups) for playing and profiting from performing “sacred” songs on stage. Olivier defends himself from this accusation, describing “sacred songs” as specific pieces used exclusively in the sèrvis at specific moments during the ritual. He readily acknowledges that much of the music he composes is “in the spirit” of ancestor worship, some of which is performed during sèrvis. Considered as a contributing factor in his success, the ancestors are omnipresent in Olivier’s music. Debates about the matters reflect maloya’s position in the Reunion music scene since the genre’s revival in the 1970s. The discussions tend to center on the following questions: 1. Memory and the search for origins, 2. Activists’ demands for cultural reform, and 3. Individual musicians’ repertoires. The diversity of contexts (ancestors, live shows, recordings, and Creole activism) has allowed these various faces of maloya to coexist without necessarily creating a specific repertoire for each variety. Repertoires, scenography, and choreography appear to be both polysemic and porous. One example is in Cuba, where artistic practices (including concerts, shows, and lessons) and religious practices are inextricably related (including ceremonies, initiations, and the attainment of ranks within the ritual hierarchy that allow ritual drums to be played or entering into a trance via dance). Indeed, complementarity has become a pre-condition for affirming an “authentic” national tradition, because Cuban performers of the “Afro-Cuban” repertoire are nearly all initiates. This same complementarity is rejected by Jalapenos and Veracruzanos, however, for reasons related to their local identifications but also to the perception that Cuban-ness is “too close” and thus somehow dangerous. Becoming an initiate means deep involvement in practices that Cuban professors of the repertoires claim as a national cultural heritage. Becoming initiated is therefore equated with “becoming Cuban,” renouncing one’s status as a Jarocho. Knowledge Circulation involves individuals and practices but also knowledge. From teacher to student, from an ancestor to a contemporary musician, or from the cradle to one’s new country as an immigrant, these knowledges, via their displacement in time and space, are appropriated and reinvested with new meanings and play a crucial role in establishing legitimacy. The circulation of knowledge generates power struggles among knowledge bearers who situate themselves on a continuum of value and legitimacy.

202 From singulars to plural In the case of musics tied to a specific “tradition” or heritage, knowledge is transmitted by becoming part of the legacy of the “ancients,” the pioneers, family lineages, or, in the case of musics linked to religious practices, it takes place via the ancestors or initiation into a ritual lineage. It is common for Louisiana musicians – and by extension for transplants – to position themselves within the musical legacy of family dynasties – Dennis McGee, Clifton C. Chenier, Boozoo Chavis, as well as the Balfas, the Ardoins, and the Carrières, among others. This is expressed both through discourses and musical practices, in how the ways in which songs are interpreted and arranged constitute musical homages to celebrated figures. It is as the “son of” or “disciple of” these figures that innovation becomes possible, and creativity becomes credible by first assimilating the musical canon. Affiliation with a specific style and lineage then allows musicians to broaden the spectrum of their choices and creative activity. Because they are rooted in tradition, they can preserve legitimacy with respect to the music industry and local audiences while also targeting a specific market (a point that will be returned to later). The desire to initiate the circulation of knowledge does not always involve loyalty to “old-timers” or transmitting an “important message, culturally significant and endowed with an active force or a predisposition to reproduction” (Lenclud, 1987: 6). Federico does not mention transmission or tradition, nor does he complain about the fragmentation of tango or the crisis of transmitting the practice. To become a dance teacher, he wondered about his posture and the tools available to him that would allow him to construct his identity as a teacher. Because he was far away from tango’s cultural and territorial heartland, he developed his own interpretation of dance figures, steps, and the notion of guidance8 that took Westerners’ rational approach into account. His teaching nevertheless flows from the mission of preserving and transmitting the tango by perpetuating techniques and ways of socialization from the past into the present, thus transposing these practices into new cultural and social environments.9 In some musical genres, the learning process is more a question of apprenticeships than formal teaching and learning. Knowledge transfer transpires in a pluralistic way, both alone and among musicians. Learning involves visual and auditory absorption through observing and learning from others, including peers who offer guidance or demonstrate techniques. Learning can also include learning to read musical scores and arrangements. In addition to technical skills, learning entails becoming familiar with the codes, duties, and obligations of a specific musical environment and mastering social relationships with the entire array of participants. In short, it involves mastering the musician or dancer’s “trade” or “status” by acquiring its habitus and incorporating a corpus of specific, structured – and structuring – dispositions shared by fellow musicians and dancers (Perrenoud, 2007). Julien’s apprenticeship transpired primarily through informal social interactions in the world of rock music. Like many rock musicians, consistent with the mythology of the artist, he emphasizes the auto-didactic character of his learning process and the fact that he learned to play the bass and “make” music “by doing

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it.” For Julien, learning simultaneously meant learning practices related to being a musician and gradually mastering the instrument itself but also more technical expertise such as how to maintain and tune the instrument and use amplifiers, special effects pedals, and other technical matters. He also had to acquire the physical gestures involved in performances – and playing standing up) – the postures and gestures of the bass player in a band – a veritable corporeal hexis. Julien also learned to rehearse, play with others, and find his place within a physical space and soundscape while learning how to play before an audience, along with numerous other skills acquired along the way. The methodology of the life story allows us to distinguish rhetorics that give primacy to legacy from those that favor auto-didactic knowledge or creativity. It reveals the various modalities by which musical knowledge and skill are transmitted and that come either from elders, from ancestors and rituals, from peers or jams or folklore groups, from records or CDs, videos, the media, local shows, stages, cultural activists, or sound archives.

Changes in status and categorizations Regardless of level, geographical mobility is inseparable from social mobility. The mobilities of musicians and of musical performances and choreographic styles confer increased prestige on musicians and their cultural fields and practices. This chapter focuses on what we have learned about the effects of these circulations. A wide variety of participants contribute to changes of status among musical genres, as do the life stories of musicians, public officials, tourist organizations, record labels, producers, festival organizers, and members of the media, in close collaboration with middle-men or cultural entrepreneurs, impassioned amateurs, and intellectuals. This process of valorization and validation cannot be envisioned in terms of univocal control but instead as a system of compromises and adjustments between the producers’ intentions, performers, and audiences’ sometimes contradictory feedback. Examining changes in status involves critical reflection about the construction of the categories used in different contexts, such as the music industry, tourist institutions, experts, the medias, or academic circles. We are particularly interested in how new categories are developed, how they evolve, their degree of flexibility, and their variations depending on contexts of enunciation and the factors involved. Social mobility and recognition Amusician’s status changes after being on tour for a while. The term “displacement” – applied to people as well as performance venues – describes a change of position that is both geographical and social. Displacement thus invokes processes of hierarchization that can be influenced by a number of factors. Transportation conditions are one of the indications of a change of position in the hierarchy of the musical professions. musicos,10 – a French slang term for “ordinary” musicians – as they gain recognition, traverse a sequence of “anarchical,” disorganized

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displacements before they arrive at a level at which matters are orderly and rational.11 As they ascend the hierarchy, touring becomes better organized and less tiring as power relations evolve between the supply – their music – and demand for music venues (Hein, 2004). With the band Oneyed Jack, Julien traveled with five other musicians and three technicians in a minibus. The uncertain nature of this kind of travel caused anxiety but is also associated with a lack of privacy, boredom, tense relationships, and moral and physical fatigue. As Julien changed groups, levels, and statuses within the hierarchy of the trade, the minibus eventually grew to the size of a “tour bus” that contained individual sleeping compartments for each musician. While time on the road had previously felt wasted, now it felt restorative and peaceful. With MC Solaar, everybody traveled by plane. Julien traveled alone or with other musicians but never with the technicians. His only obligation was to show up ready to perform a half-hour before the concert began. In many cases, mobility can be perceived as a measure of success and even skill. In Cairo, Egypt, this correlation is clearly internalized by the professional culture of the musicians along Mohamed-Ali Avenue. It is also a key to understanding Ahmad Wahdan’s convoluted urban life story. Compared to academic musicians whose audiences attend performances in concert halls, for example, “little musicians” are the ones who attend the party along with the guests. Geographical mobility at the level of the city provides access to distinct social circles, each of which is a potential source of professional opportunities. Chains of relationships allow a performer to shape his own local reputation – one close contact at a time. The cumulative prestige or social capital acquired in this way encourages musicians to avoid “musical hypogamy,” i.e., playing with a musician who is not of one’s same rank,12 which would signify a loss of social positioning in the local professional hierarchy. The vernacular concept of “place” (makân) is a good example of the importance of social position and its connections to mobility. “Keeping a seat” at one of the cafés along Mohamed-Ali Avenue – i.e., occupying a specified place, was long synonymous with maintaining an established position in local musical circles, although there was also a hierarchy among cafés. This economy of displacement allowed a system of rank-ordered positions that expresses itself on intra-urban, regional, national, and international levels. This intricate system also involves many situations and careers in which a particularly prestigious accomplishment – a trip abroad, a notable gig – inevitably increases power. Exporting one’s performance often granted an increase in prestige, while also adding luster to the local performance scene. But the correlation between mobility and recognition, although frequently seen in a positive light by musicians, is also rife with contradictions and shattered illusions. For example, although the first time Lindigo toured on the continent was interpreted as a sign of recognition and a boost for Olivier’s career prospects, travel conditions and weather created significant complications for the group. Olivier also learned that concert venues varied widely and that audiences were not always friendly. These challenges later

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took on a positive spin as Olivier began to see them as a means of testing and reinforcing the group’s cohesiveness. In other instances, mobility is perceived from the outset as a new challenge. Traveling from Tulear to Paris meant passing from being well-known in a local circuit to total anonymity. Damily was transformed overnight from being a local “star” to being an unknown with everything to prove. Gains in prestige can also alternate with dry periods, which became familiar to Julien when he was playing with Oneyed Jack. After several years of touring and a steady ascent in the hierarchy of the trade, the group began to suffer from tour fatigue and the quality of their performance began to deteriorate. Audience sometimes became critical, gigs became less frequent, and relationship problems among the musicians developed. Julien alluded to “professional depression,” remembering half-full halls, the empty gaze in the lead singer’s eye, the lighting technician’s tricks to make the music venues appear less empty, and the closer sequencing of songs to prevent audiences from expressing their frustration. Julien’s narrative reveals considerable narcissistic suffering and a sense of exposure in front of his audiences. In musics that have a memorial function, upward mobility needs to be matched by a commitment to transmitting and spreading recognition of the musical genre. Olivier’s life story illustrates this dual commitment to memory and to transmitting maloya to future generations. It also demonstrates the impact of local and international recognition and professional factors on his career, including access to venues, economic support, and preserving the status of intermittent.13 In fact, this seems to be one of Olivier’s most important collaborations. Throughout the projects and encounters that he orchestrated, a systematic effort can be observed to promote the symbolic aspect of maloya and the genre’s artistic visibility. In tandem with his position in a competitive musical environment, Olivier also expresses his desire to “be helpful” and support his cousins, former colleagues, and emerging groups from his neighborhood and region by playing with them, ultimately weaving a network based on these collaborations. Changes in status transform performers’ relationships with audiences, and increased prestige can augment social distance. When he began performing, Julien was like his audiences. They were part of the same generation and shared similar experiences and tastes and musical practices. Julien played with a group of his friends for audiences of friends on stages or performance spaces with no backstage area in a house or a banquet hall or bars, which encouraged contact with the audience. Becoming a working musician is accompanied by changes in status, altering relationships with the public, who want their money’s worth and can even be mean-spirited if they feel they are short-changed. Physical proximity and status nevertheless remain major aspects of the trade. Joining a group based on a star radically changed Julien’s life, transforming him from a musicos into a “gadget musician” who was recognized solely for his skill as an instrumentalist. As a musician paid to provide a very specific service, he had much less contact with the audience. Conversely, Egyptian musicians derive pride from performing for prestigious audiences, and a gig for politicians, diplomats, or businessmen

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is seen as proof of professional success. In addition to the fact that these gigs expand networks of influence, they also elevate a musician’s social rank, which is a resource for artists who seek to profit from associating with “big shots.” Distance from audiences is less typical among “folk” and “traditional” musics, where proximity between artists and their audiences remains the trademark of authenticity. Musicians in Louisiana are judged by their accessibility, ability to participate in or lead jams with mixed ability levels, attentiveness, and affability to fans. These qualities are the basic requirements for respectability regardless of status or professional success. When Louisiana musicians begin to hire bodyguards or make other moves that call attention to their celebrity, they are discredited in the eyes of audiences. The recognition that comes from touring nationally and internationally does not automatically translate into local support. Indeed, local respectability and participation shape the Louisiana musicians’ legitimacy in a culture in which participation is the central criterion in the symbolic contract with dancing audiences. Belonging to a transnational network can be a huge advantage in achieving social mobility (which does not rely solely on geographical mobility), purchasing power, and access to modern communications. Musician-initiates of Cuban music, for example, maintain a position of dominance in the local hierarchy, despite non-existent financial resources in the early phases of their careers and problems accessing the Internet and circulating either on or off of the island. Their training and musical skills, combined with their international traditional legitimacy, make them highly competitive with other Latin American musicians. This is true of Cristóbal Guerra, who decided to remain in his humble home in the popular Havana neighborhood of Los Sitios and never leave it again after touring internationally with the Danza Contemporánea troupe. He “reigns” as uncontested maestro of an important transnational network of ritual allies, godsons, and students. Every member of the network, regardless of nationality, keeps Guerra informed about their careers and encounters, consulting him or soliciting approval whenever they face major decisions. Mastering a body of knowledge and living and working “in a network,” and, more broadly, learning to assimilate and use several cultural codes, are thus more important for a successful career than eventual material comfort. While remaining physically stationary, transnational networks make it possible to virtually “move” beyond geographical spaces and local and national contexts (Argyriadis, 2009). The plurality and lability of status Regardless of terrain, it is difficult to define status in any clear way because of the enormous variety of practices, situations, and distinctions. In this section, we interrogate the categories that are most commonly used by Western societies and transposed to other societies. Our intention is to demonstrate the overlapping nature and proliferation of participants’ positions while also honoring their own perspectives on statuses and distinctions.

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Problematic categories The boundary between a “professional” and an “amateur”¹³ is highly porous (Coulangeon, 2004; Guibert, 2007; Le Guern, 2007; Leveratto, 2000; Perrenoud, 2006; Seca, 1988). This suggests that artists shift between opposite poles on a continuum according to the vagaries of their trajectories. Marc Perrenoud emphasizes that there is considerable confusion surrounding the “professional” category, which implies a level of skill that can be difficult to reach but also the lack of a fully legitimate status for professional musicians (although salaried musician positions do exist).14 The intermittence system, a unique French government subsidy for artists, includes Julien and applies to a range of culture workers, although in reality it constitutes “a status by default.” In the absence of objective criteria, musicos and other performers and artists (Moulin and Passeron, 1985) are compelled to create and manage their self-representations through interactions with audiences, peers, tour managers, and venue directors. Significantly, Julien uses the formula currently in use among his peers to describe his status, stating that he is “only doing music” (as opposed to “having a job on the side”) (Perrenoud, 2006), instead of citing the distinction between professional and amateur. His self-designation suggests that this binary terminology does not adequately describe the status of musicians. It appears to have little relevance for Julien, who readily acknowledges that he has sometimes behaved “non-professionally.” In reality he is making a binary distinction between immature conduct and dilettantism and adopting a more serious and committed stance. In his view, it is possible to be committed to a “trade” without necessarily acting or thinking like a “professional” or being perceived as one. Personal investment, serious behavior, and specialization are in any event not guarantees of being perceived as a professional artist. “Dance” and “dancer” are equally problematic categories with specific meanings in Western societies. Institutions and governments play important roles in defining the status of music and dance practices. In France, a historical, institutional, legal, and esthetic distinction is drawn between performance dances and participatory dances,15 art works, festive occasions, art and leisure, trade and passion, dancer and amateur, and finally between that which is beautiful versus that which is merely entertaining. “Dance” typically describes the most widely produced choreographic productions at the time, and it is a privileged label used in France as a label for roughly a few thousand dancers.16 The status of “dancer” is granted only to those who perform on stage or in professional settings, which excludes the majority of dancers from the heterogeneous world of those who earn their livings from the trade. Viewed from the lofty perch of a well-regarded performance dancer, a ballroom dancer like Federico is not likely to be thought of as a “dancer.” Nor could he make a claim to being a dance professor, because the occupation of tango professor is not on the list of disciplines covered by the 1989 law that defines the teaching of dance.17 As a result, tango teachers operate in a deregulated market defined by a lack of official recognition. Instead, their jobs are regulated by the legal framework of France’s 1901 Association Law (non-profit

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association), which has no provisions for such labor benefits as collective bargaining (Apprill et al., 2012). Employment can be highly structured in other settings. Cuban musicians and dancers have the rank of civil servants who are directly employed by the Ministry of Culture, a status that is directly linked to their professional designation as agents of the State. Some performers are selected as early as eleven years old to be enrolled in arts academies in their specific fields and to pursue their preparation at the university-level Instituto Superior de Arte,18 which hosts students from around the world. This well recognized ranking comes with a salary and opens the way to touring abroad. In exchange for such benefits, artists are expected to contribute to the public good, performing social services such as teaching, performing, and providing artistic support for political events. Official artists in Cuba must also obey hierarchical superiors, who have the power to grant or deny permits to travel or perform in prestigious or desirable venues that offer better pay, such as luxury hotels and restaurants. This is far from the image of the “free, creative” artist, which is why many musicians and dancers, including Tino, take advantage of a tour or contract to “stay” abroad, even at the risk of financial problems. There is a powerful rivalry in Afro-Cuban circles between those who maintain allegiance to the institutions that granted them their legitimacy and continue to see themselves as “cultural ambassadors” and others, often exiled since the 1960s, who accuse the former of “betraying religion” to avoid being persecuted by the Cuban revolutionary regime or being suspected of delinquency (Hagedorn, 2001: 152). Status is a question of how one is seen by others. From one cultural environment to another, the status ascribed to a musician by outsiders can be quite different from their situation at home. For musicians of the developing “South,” international access via “world music” circuits, competitions, and residencies often leads to the perception that they need to become “professionalized” or develop their “creativity” through musical “encounters,” despite the fact that they are already recognized, legitimate professionals in their home cultural environments. This pressure to adapt to norms and formats that ostensibly appeal to the expectations of the Western market systems essentially rules the world music market. Practices that are considered valorizing vary depending on context, and in some cases their image can be reversed for a musician playing as a leisure activity. In Arab countries there is a certain level of defiance about professional status, particularly in popular cultural settings in which performers tend to originate in the lower rungs of the music trades. In these countries, the trade of musicians is widely considered archaic or morally questionable, and it is belittled in popular expressions such as alâtî, “instrumentalist,” which refers to a wily or slightly twisted individual. On the other hand, amateur performers who are perceived as artistically advanced, enlightened, or modernist are esteemed because they are thought of as satisfying the basic cultural needs of the masses. The roots of this polarity, in which statuses and positionings intersect, are in the twentieth century, when a group of leaders had progressive ideas about modernizing Arab music. Still, in Cairo’s music circles, acquiring the status of the “professional” musician

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is prized, and it allows a performer to be seen as a member of a guild who has the legitimacy and skills to ply their otherwise ill-reputed trade. In Argentina until the 1980s, tango teachers were unnecessary because transmission took place primarily through informal, non-academic teaching in families or the milonga system. Dancing at a ball at the time was seen as an activity without economic aspects. In France, Federico helped “invent” the occupation of tango teacher because, from a Western point of view, he does not see the profession as creativity or performance but from the point of view of a Buenos Aires native. He is a professional in an occupation that until recently was entirely defined by amateurs. Because he finds himself in an ill-defined occupation, he acknowledges his unique emotional experience when he dances in an improvisational context that does not consider the ballroom and the creative process as contradicting each other, unlike the domain of cultural action, which sees the two domains as separate. Different degrees of professional organization have developed in different national settings, in turn determining how status distinctions are configured. Informal mechanisms – playing with a certain musician, or performing in such and such a place – can also contribute to legitimacy while opening other pathways for developing a reputation. Valorization and recognition: a multiplicity of experiences Other distinctions sometimes join the factors that determine status, relegating differences between exclusive commitment versus leisure activity or committed artists versus dilettantes to the background or even eliminating them as sources of legitimacy. The most important debates among promoters of the “Afro-Cuban” repertoire, for example, are between initiates and non-initiates and one specific lineage and another. In French Louisiana, respectability and accessibility are the most important criteria for musicians’ legitimacy, a side effect of the typically casual nature of “folk” music environments. Transplants have helped raise French Louisiana musicians’ profile outside the region, however, which has further polarized status distinctions. Transplants confer a level of prestige on musicians that is more difficult to achieve with local audiences. Accessibility does not diminish transplants’ happiness and even awe when they are able to hang out or jam with well-known musicians. Their proximity to pillars of Louisiana and old-time musical performance during workshops and their increasing prominence within roots networks bring transplants recognition – as well as influence – that may be less easy to achieve in other musical genres. Transplants are sometimes able to circumvent problems related to status, and certain connections and involvements – with a particular festival or organization, for example – are associated with greater prestige than others. In tandem with enhanced status, the distinction between native Louisianans and transplants clearly persists. Friendship, complicity, respect, and gratitude can be combined to an ambivalent feeling. There is far less distance between locals and performers who have moved to Louisiana to make their livings from music by joining popular local groups. The transplant label is never applied to such newly-arrived

210 From singulars to plural artists, who are often in their twenties when they settle in Louisiana and are thus considerably younger than most transplants. In addition to these generational differences, there is a hierarchical relationship between non-Louisiana residents who earn a living from music and those who play as a pastime. Specialization can also open the door to changes in status that take place gradually. When changing status, musicians and dancers adapt to new norms. The move from “leisure practice” to “exclusive commitment” (Tassin, 2004) – from passion to profession – entails a new world of duties, obligations, and limitations. Julien, for example, abruptly encountered a strictly organized routine that regulated band members’ personal and professional lives, imposing a period of composition, rehearsals, demo, and album recording sessions before each tour. He suddenly found himself facing a rigid way of operating and rules, timetables, and commitments to peers, audiences, and professional groups with little room for improvisation or spontaneity. He observed a stark difference between how his initial band had functioned and a confining atmosphere to which he was forced to adapt. This new repetitious, constraining framework in a successful band is completely inconsistent with the image of the Bohemian artist. He realized that the initial euphoria of his early experiences playing rock music had gradually given way to the harsh reality of routine and disillusionment. These changes also freed Julien of a number of thankless tasks, however. From engaging in a variety of creative, support, and maintenance tasks – composing, performing, setting up, managing sound and light, tuning instruments, organizing tours, and promoting the group – he had gradually shifted to a far narrower range of activities. Once he started touring with MC Solaar, Julien only played his instrument, and he had no further responsibilities for technical tasks as technician, rigger, roadie, manager, or co-pilot. He no longer even tuned his instruments or did sound checks. He had crossed over from an environment in which musicians were jacks-of-all-trades to an extreme division of labor. Specialization involves not only musicians’ roles but also those of their audiences. As his career progressed, Olivier continued to play “all over the map” with Lindigo – performances, ceremonies, private parties, discotheques, and popular festivals. His entourage sometimes considered limiting Lindigo’s activities to more prestigious local and international stages, but that level of specialization made Olivier uneasy for symbolic as well as material and pragmatic reasons. He preferred remaining artistically diverse and versatile to narrowly specializing. Managing the transition from versatility to specialization is not necessarily a linear process, and it can fluctuate. Indeed, trajectories are reversible. While it is true that success tends to reduce a musician’s responsibilities simply to performing, life stories can also involve returning to earlier phases and multiple responsibilities. In Egypt, this kind of reversal is not necessarily considered a sign of failure, particularly when it means that performing is no longer one’s primary source of income. Given the social devaluation of the trade, engaging in other, presumably more legitimate activities such as repairing instruments or organizing weddings can be economically rewarding and socially valorizing. This pattern is also observable when French musicians attempt to establish a lucrative “bizness”

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in the name of economic stability without submitting to the endless need to accumulate “cachets” (French intermittents’ performance vouchers). This phase of an artist’s life story can entail disillusionment and a growing sense of failure as the initial passionate commitment collides with harsh economic and professional realities. Musicians in this adjustment phase sometimes pursue alternate paths that involve peripheral musical fields or even other professions altogether. Concerns about finances as well as legitimacy have led Louisiana musicians to become increasingly versatile, often combining performance careers with other trades or teaching music, creating recording studios, producing CDs, or making and repairing instruments. In addition to ensuring artistic independence, diversification allows musicians to participate in the revival of the image of the folk musician who has little formal musical education and who relies instead on an intuitive knowledge of the music. Regardless of their degree of specialization, many musicians accumulate resources by engaging in a wide range of activities. Some musicians invest their energies in the entire musical chain of production, combining roles as performers, composers, sound engineers, producers, graphic artists, and/or teachers. Others work in entirely different fields or, for younger musicians, pursue higher education while continuing their musical careers in order to protect themselves financially but also in terms of legitimacy. The Western stereotype of an artist wholly engaged in practicing his or her artistic activities eventually tends to clash with far more complicated realities. Exclusive commitment is far from the only professional solution, as demonstrated by the range of situations and activities and shifting relationships that surround the question of status. The artistic life stories sketched in the previous chapter reveal the complexity and variety of statuses that musicians and dancers adopt in the course of their careers. Factors that determine passage from one status to another, rather than being limited to frequently-referred to categories such as “amateur” and “professional” and their corollaries, can also include the income associated with their activities, employment settings, degrees of involvement and specialization, practitioners’ accessibility to their audiences, and their religious affiliations. This proliferation of criteria for what qualifies a musician or dancer as “legitimate” sheds doubt on the use of tightly defined categories. Our analytical approach, which attempts to examine broad processes such as differentiation, adaptation, and hierarchization, allows us to be more sensitive to changes in status and patterns of professional circulation. This does not mean that we deny the value that participants themselves attach to less empirically balanced categories or delegitimize their convictions about their own statuses. While rendering performers’ own perceptions, we chose to explore the continuum of statuses and the observable processes that bind them to each other. Imaginary and self-representational life projects Being actively involved in music or dance results from career strategies and life projects inspired by diverse imaginaries: The desire to emulate a known or

212 From singulars to plural idealized artist, to answer a calling, aspiring to lead a life that corresponds to a particular world view, ideology, or imaginary guide the evolution of individual trajectories. Pragmatism and opportunism influence adjustments along the way, as well as different attempts and experiments. Disappointment, financial concerns, marginalization, and stigmatization can also influence performers’ sense of dignity and self-image, bringing the imaginaries and idealized views that propelled initial projects into contact with harsher realities. The Western imaginary often depicts artists and musicians’ lives as enchanted. Julien’s decision to make music reflected his desire to belong to a group and be part of a greater whole. He was also responding to the seductive idea of the life of a rock musician. This image – of an artist who is free, independent, and lives a Bohemian lifestyle combined in a heady mix with an image of fraternity and protracted adolescence rebelling among like-minded peers. Anyone could make music according to the “Do It Yourself” punk ethic, regardless of their lack of musical skill or talent, but this ideal was sorely tested by the daily grind of musicians on the road. The positive representation that drives individuals to commit themselves to music can also be genre- and ideology-specific. Transplants decided to move to Louisiana based on a roots music imaginary cultivated by practitioners of French Louisiana music. Perceived as an alternative to a society of consumption and competition, Southwest Louisiana is thought of as a place where culture takes precedence over money and status is not based on career or material possessions. In the wake of the 1960s “folk revival,” when the American urban middle class appropriated representations associated with the working class and poor AfricanAmericans, French Louisiana music continues to project an answer to the search for authenticity, conviviality, and simplicity rooted in rural origins and the specific characteristics of the music itself. The priority on sociability as opposed to performance and the focus on music “from the heart” – a trait that both transplants and locals consider intrinsic to local music – helps satisfy transplants’ expectations of personal transformation when they move to Louisiana. For Hesmondhalgh, this ideal of self-actualization is part of a process of individualization common in contemporary capitalist societies.19 Although music provides esthetic pleasure and personal identification, it is also summoned as an answer to the need for ongoing self-renewal. Self-realization through music translates into a sense of achievement and completeness, via a lifestyle whose emotional facets are filtered through music. The quest can in turn become competitive among individuals striving to attain a lifestyle that is deemed more valuable. One could argue, however, that Hesmondhalgh’s perspective applies more to music consumers than practitioners – which is the case with Southwest Louisiana transplants. The idealized vision regarding their lifestyle choices and the imaginaries associated with them among fans and promoters of certain musical genres do not necessarily shape the teaching of music and dance. Indeed, teaching methods can be subject to a variety of influences. Because of its century-old European roots, the tango is commonly thought of as associated with eroticism and sensuality, as well

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as stereotyped images such as macho men with slicked-back hair and evocative foundational myths, including that tango “first developed in bordellos” or “was danced among men.” Argentinian dancers have helped update this time-honored image due to a desire to “promote tango culture.” In France, this has given rise to a network of associations that focus on amateur ballroom dancing as opposed to earlier networks of professional dancers who emphasized stage performances. Present-day networks tend to emphasize tango’s roots and “Argentinian” identity, associations that were advantageous for a young dancer like Federico and enabled him to portray himself as being from its birthplace. His self-representation, however, centered primarily on tango as a dance that was comparable to other dances and that demands pedagogical techniques that respect the nature of the dance itself as well as its audience’s tastes and predilections. Instead of exploiting representations that are traditionally associated with the tango, he developed his teaching techniques by analyzing movement, basing his career on the emotional feeling of being transported almost to exaltation and rapture that can be produced by improvising on stages and dance floors. From an elevated to a degraded self-image, self-representations depend on outsiders’ gaze, social positions, and relations of domination associated with a specific set of cultural practices. The positive value attributed to certain musics and their representations conflict with a recurrent tendency toward self-deprecation among musicians and dancers. Several factors cause musicos not to consider their practice to constitute “work,” for example. A long catalogue of factors influence such attitudes, including chronic financial instability linked to status, short gigs, intense competition, numerous employers, mobility and flexibility, a lack of recognition, the dulling effect of routine, and the position of being dominated – as well as the context in which they learned their trade (whether self-taught or with buddies), endogenous practices (hazing by technicians and stage managers), the shared representation of an activity such as “playing rock” as a leisure activity, a passion, and the festive setting of the stage encouraged Julien to develop an unflattering view of himself as an “impostor,” “bum,” or “loser.” Some artists appropriate perceptions that are sometimes mirrored by journalists, technicians, venue managers, or even members of the group. The glow of success that follows an evening in front of an audience quickly fades, and it rarely lasts long enough to counter a negative self-image. Only after years of playing and much recognition did Julien begin to think of himself as a “real musician,” and it took even longer for him to call himself as a “professional.” Julien’s narrative of the evolution of his self-image is a perfect illustration of the complexity and fragmented nature of a musician’s sense of self. The simultaneously exogenous and endogenous self-denigration of members of the musical profession can also be seen in the Arab world. So-called professional musical activity has long been seen as socially suspect and even morally questionable in the region, especially when it clashes with religious norms (Rouget, 1990 [1980]: 451 n1; 468–473).20 Local musicians also view their profession from an ironic perspective, sometimes expressing guilt when their professional positions clash with their self-images. This is particularly noticeable among non-academic

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musicians in Cairo because their lifestyle is so inconsistent with middle class Cairene social conventions. In this complex, deeply stratified cultural setting, bonds that are occasionally developed with foreign audiences, however modest, can become vectors of legitimacy. The outsider perspective and contact with foreigners play a powerful role in the acquisition of cultural validation and legitimacy among Cairo’s street musicians. The 2009 campaign organized by the Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations in the southern French city of Marseilles to collect musical traditions among social groups reflexively excluded by Egyptian cultural institutions allowed some of the city’s musicians to escape from local hierarchical views of musical traditions. In such cases, reception is less based on esthetics than on how a particular musical practice fits a movement driven in part by cultural relativism. Musical performance is not evaluated based on taste or convention but on how much local traditions are able to appeal to prestigious international institutions. The internalization of relations of domination is only one possible outcome of the search for fame, recognition, and legitimacy. Musicians who find ways to distance themselves from questions of official legitimacy can sometimes discover alternate ways of being recognized. Self-representations are unfailingly complex, particularly when individuals migrate to entirely new cultural contexts. Traveling directly to France from Tulear and the “tsapiky system” and playing in an entirely new setting for audiences completely unfamiliar with his music forced Damily to become a “spokesperson” and “cultural ambassador” – like Tino the Cuban – of a genre that had deep ties to a specific region. The changes that occur under such circumstances can involve conflicting self-representations that require adjustments – “bricolages” – and redefined references that give meaning to a dramatically altered lifestyle and life story. For Damily, in addition to financial considerations and his need to internationalize his music, playing music means “healing” people, a perception that is tied to his grandfather’s role as a traditional Malgache healer. Multiple and occasionally colliding imaginaries lead to career strategies that necessitate adjustments and adaptations. Olivier’s musical collaborations – “residencies,” co-productions, solo performances – demonstrate his desire since 2007 to maintain his local popularity in order to ensure his continued local legitimacy as well as his income. They also show his effort to participate in international networks, a complex balancing act. The “authentic” and “cultural” facets of Damily’s music are perceived as necessary for his projects to succeed economically and to develop his career. Whether Lindigo performs in residence with a troupe of dancers from South Africa or shares a stage with a ragga dance hall band from Reunion Island, his relationship with the “people” and “roots” seems equally essential to the successful realization of his projects. Some encounters can be critical to musicians’ lives and careers. Meeting Catherine, a choreographer and dancer, helped Federico join the choreographic landscape of France and rub shoulders with performers with stage experience who were part of a nationwide network of venues and stages in France. When they

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later became a couple, Catherine encouraged him to promote his gestural abilities and techniques by performing and to take advantage of dancer-performers’ legitimacy – which Federico does not see as particularly important – by developing his ability to analyze movements and appreciate the tango esthetically. Although geographical mobility and belonging to an international network can contribute to upward social mobility and greater legitimacy, they can also create obstacles. After arriving in France, Damily gradually became aware that he could not function without the other members of his band who had remained behind in Tulear. This meant that he faced the problem of raising money to bring them to France and organize a tour, which in turn compelled him to find compromise solutions that ended in an attempted return to Madagascar that ended in failure and disillusionment. He then tried to divide his time between France and Madagascar but ultimately concluded that he needed to refocus his career in France and accept the inevitable financial and musical constraints associated with that decision. Even when one is not a “professional” musician, underlying strategies can surface. For transplants and other musical migrants to Louisiana who are involved in music as a hobby, it often becomes a life project, in turn leading to major career shifts like early retirement or new lines of work that can entail reduced income, complex real estate transactions, and severance pay, for example. Moving to Louisiana leads to gradual integration into the Louisiana musical landscape, including promoting it and participating in its evolution. Transplants start sharing a sense of mission and sometimes gain a degree of celebrity that gives their lives an enhanced sense of significance and intensity.

From “métissage” to adjustment Circulation obviously has important ramifications for people, but it also affects musical and dance practices themselves. The paradigm of métissage is prized by the media and tourist industries and by social scientists. This concept has often shaped the discourses surrounding the circulation of cultural objects and the transformations that they cause. In the following section, we attempt to offer a critique of this paradigm by illustrating its flaws as an explanation for the circulation of music and dance. Métissage is often a source of controversy among researchers. One problem is that is has been interpreted in a variety of ways, but it also tends to be instrumentalized by those in search of legitimacy as well as market share. As a result, the concept and its corollaries – hybridization and creolization – tend to adopt contradictory or unclear positions. Rather than basing our approach on this ambiguous concept, we have sought to draw on direct field observations to understand the mechanisms underlying such processes and concepts as transformation, creativity, adaptation, and adjustments (not an exhaustive list). This has enabled us to re-introduce the individual into musical interactions, as opposed to research that limits itself to a culturalist approach. Our project here was to reframe the effects of mobility in terms of geography and status as elements of social change based on a variety of factors.

216 From singulars to plural Questioning a paradigm The social sciences have applied a variety of terms for what they call cultural interactions, including métissage, hybridity, and creolization. These labels have caused considerable controversy among researchers with opposing positions on their validity and applicability. Each label depends on other constructs, somewhat like nesting Chinese boxes. Our purpose is not to catalogue these concepts or retrace their origins and etymology.21 Instead, we propose to field-test different concepts in our respective fieldwork by examining how they are actually negotiated, circumscribed, and appropriated at the local level. The analytical value of métissage in the study of social interactions often collides with the inherent paradoxes of the concept, which refers to processes that are ostensibly inherent in cultural dynamics while also relying on a biological interpretation of society. This confusion between the cultural and biological processes has led Amselle to question the use of the term métissage. In Au cœur de l’ethnie, he accepts the use of the notion by defending the postulate of an original syncretism, although without enthusiasm (1985). Fifteen years later in Branchements. Anthropologie de l’universalité des cultures he distanced himself from the term, however. Amselle explained the reasons for using the greatest caution with respect to the world’s métissage or creolization as they were being used, among others, by Ulf Hannerz in his conception of “global ecumenism.” [. . .] It is based on the postulate of the existence of discrete cultural entities named “cultures” that we arrive at an idea of the world that is post-colonial or post-Cold War seen as a hybrid entity. To avoid this idea of mixing through homogenization and hybridization, we must postulate on the contrary that every society is métisse and therefore that métissage is the product of already-blended entities, which definitively rejects the idea of an original purity. (Amselle, 2005) Bonniol has deconstructed biological métissage while also questioning cultural métissage. In his view, the former naturalizes perceived distance, while the latter is vague and applies to a wide range of contexts (2001: 10; 17). Although, as Elisabeth Cunin has argued, métissage does have a certain degree of heuristic potential in certain settings linked with the management of racial appearances, it is not exclusively applicable to racial and ethnic questions.22 The problem with these arguments in favor of the use of the term métissage can be summarized as an overlap between two dimensions: The multiplication of identifications and the process of adaptation to norms via the creative process. We believe that these two dimensions distort the analytical usefulness of métissage in contexts of music and dance. If the process to which métissage refers is assumed to be inherent in a society, it becomes problematic as an analytical category. In social science research,

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paradigms of this nature can cause disagreements at the intersections of scholarly, ideological, and esthetic factors. Since the 1990s, the rhetoric of “world music” has involved simultaneously valorizing the idea of hybridity in popular music studies while concealing racial imagination. Radano and Bohlman argue that “the transnational mix has not erased race from music, but rather it has recontextualized it,” strenuously objecting to the invisibility of race in the music field, “for it is in music that the racial resonates most vividly with greatest affect and power.” (2000: 37). According to Frith (2000), scholars of popular music tend to define hybridity as the new authenticity and as a form of creativity that is characteristic of the trans-nationalization of contemporary musics and their syncretic nature. Hall argues that “the aesthetics of modern popular music is the aesthetics of the hybrid, the aesthetics of the crossover, the aesthetics of the diaspora, the aesthetics of creolization” (Hall, 1997: 39), correlating hybridity with creolization by associating them with the diversity and heterogeneity that have given rise to these musical styles. There is a division among French ethnomusicologists regarding métissage that has created two nearly incompatible positions. The concept was already controversial in the late 1990s, when it led to a special 2000 issue of Cahiers de Musiques Traditionnelles entitled “Métissages.” Until then, ethnomusicologists had been influenced by monographic and museographical analyses of the musics of rural societies that were considered more “traditional.” Some researchers began critically exploring musics that were typically considered “métis,” “modern,” or “urban.” Other scholars, however, noting the conflation taking place between métissage, globalization, uniformization, and the loss of “authenticity,” lamented the revived interest in genres considered less legitimate than others. An idea developed that certain cultures are more hybridized than others, raising the vexed question of measuring métissage that had created assessments of “good fields” versus “bad” ones. Perceived by its defenders as an alternative to “salvage ethnomusicology” and its avowed mission of rescuing musical heritages, métissage, which is associated in the field with the analysis of contemporary processes, has prompted debates about the legitimacy of musical objects rather than the concept’s heuristic value. Such disciplinary schisms explain the various positions that métissage has inspired within the field of music. Ethnomusicologists who used this notion have been forced to justify their approach but also question its signification and analytical relevance. Other metaphors for cultural blending have encountered similar obstacles. Creolization, which was praised as a social model by the literary and political movement for creole-ness in the 1980s,23 is currently used by anthropologists and historians as an analytical concept but also as the basis for claims by some groups to creole identity. As a result, the term is as ideological as it is descriptive. This ambivalence is sometimes cultivated and “capitalized on” by historians and anthropologists who provide “scientific” justifications for activist and political commitments and vice versa. On Reunion Island and in Cuba, Mexico, and Louisiana, the proximity between social science research, activism, and institutions that promote local cultural heritage generates culturally and politically

218 From singulars to plural oriented discourses that blur facts with ideological positions concerning serious questions of memory and identity. The idealization of mixing that underlies the notion of Creole identity, which is inevitably seen as open, dynamic, and tolerant and, to a certain extent, exemplary, is one of the outcomes of this definitional problem. For many North American and European scholars of creolization, the concept, like all metaphors connected to cultural mixing (such as hybridity and métissage) includes the myth of origins and “racial” purity, necessarily implicating strategies of exclusion.24 Stewart stresses this racist heritage, arguing that too many researchers tend to ignore this troubling association, recalling that the term “Creole” is rooted in imperial history that links being born in the New World to “deculturation” (1999: 44). Rather than restricting the term to plantation societies, Hannerz (1989) has broadened its application within a macro-anthropological approach to the relations between center and periphery that structure contemporary cultural globalization. An eminent anthropologist of the Caribbean, Mintz has criticized this use of the term outside of historically specific contexts. Although métissage and its corollaries refer to processes rather than entities, they remain ambiguous and polysemic. They are broad terms that encompass a vast array of cultural phenomena across highly varied contexts that, in our view, were not appropriate for a comparative project.25 As ethnomusicologists, sociologists, and anthropologists, we have attempted to avoid using métissage, creolization, or hybridity as analytical categories. Instead, we have chosen concepts and labels that we believe are better adapted to describing and analyzing processes of transformation in contemporary musics. Because our research fields are so varied and we represent disciplines in which métissage, creolization, and hybridity are understood and applied in different ways, our position is that these concepts present too many challenges to be useful for our project. As a result, we have adopted a field-based, descriptive approach by focusing on reconfigurations, re-compositions, borrowings, adjustments, negotiations, and transformations. The use of métissage and creolization as vernacular categories in some of our fields has encouraged us, however, to analyze how they are used locally, with a particular emphasis on their various appropriations by different social actors and contexts, their multiple meanings, and the identity claims that are associated with them. Field-testing the paradigm Sometimes glorified and sometimes denied, interactions between different cultures are sometimes sources of tension in the societal contexts that are the focus of our research. The studies included in this volume have focused the impact of interactions on cultural phenomena such as music and dance by exploring performers’ life stories. This has meant taking every cultural actor surrounding these phenomena into account, including musicians, dancers, academics, activists, agents, cultural institutions, tourism bureaus, experts, and members of the media. It has also meant investigating the transversal nature of certain categories and concepts that these participants use. Musicians and dancers are constantly adapting, changing,

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and creating, and they frequently are asked to justify their choices and practices in the context of a specific cultural heritage. They thus accommodate a range of interlocutors from the music industry, tourist institutions, academia and journalism, and the media as they seek recognition. In Louisiana, cultural mixing is routinely celebrated, often through references to a culinary metaphor, gumbo, a thick, savory soup and regional specialty with ingredients representing European, African, and Native American contributions to this “unique culture.” Since the early 1990s, the Southwestern Louisiana artistic elite has emphasized musical exchanges between Cajuns and Creoles. Researchers working on the region become relays for the idea of a harmonious flow between these genres and the communities that they represent by applying the term creolization to the musical field. This emphasis on reciprocal influences works in tandem with a rhetoric of origins that perpetuates the racialization of the French Louisiana repertoire, which has been defined since the late twentieth century by segmented categories – so-called “Cajun,” “Creole,” and “zydeco” styles based on musicians’ ancestry and skin color. There is constant oscillation between the metaphor of blending, adaptation, and creativity and rhetorics of origins and the naturalization of difference. A taxonomic consensus that includes researchers, musicians, specialized journalists, and tourism and museum officials is founded on this dialectical relationship (Le Menestrel, 2015). But, although musical practices demonstrably illustrate the inter-connectedness of these two positions, as the terms creolization is used in Louisiana, it tends to be limited to polite references to a cultural process that is wholesome, benign, and completely devoid of divisive connotations and, furthermore, that only refers to the francophone cultural legacy. A different culinary metaphor for cultural mixing is used in Cuba – ajiaco – a thick soup made of multiple ingredients: At every moment, our people has had, like ajiaco, new raw elements that have just been added to the pot to cook; a heterogeneous conglomeration of diverse races et cultures, of lots of meat and vegetables, that moves, becomes blended, and disaggregates in the same social stew. [. . .] A métissage of races, métissage of cultures. (Ortiz, 1939: 6) According to this view, Cuban-ness is the product of the gradual mixing of a variety of ingredients that is still in the process of “cooking.” In the 1940s, Fernando Ortiz developed his arguments about the concept of transculturation, which he prefers to acculturation, a term developed by his contemporary and colleague, Melville Herskovits. According to Herskovits, the transcultural process occurs in five phases: A hostile phase, a transitory phase, an adaptive phase, a proclaiming phase, and an integration phase: This is the phase of tomorrow, of a tomorrow whose dawn is already beginning. It is the final one, the one when all cultures have melted together and conflict has ended, leaving behind a third term, a third entity and culture, and a

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From singulars to plural new, culturally integrated community in which racial factors have lost their dissociative malice.26 (Ortiz, 1945: 225)

This more overtly political position is consistent with that of José Martí, the brain behind Cuban independence who promoted the idea that “to be Cuban is to be more than white, more than mulatto, more than black” in the late nineteenth century (Martí, 1893). As the basis of contemporary Cuban national identity, the goal of transcending historical racial and cultural conflict underlies every discourse about national cultural heritage, including Cuban music and choreography, which are thought of as local creations. This provides Cuban artists with their legitimacy, eluding any kind of allegiance to “Mother Africa,” unlike their African-American students and colleagues. Clearly, however, this position obscures persistent, widespread racial discrimination in Cuba. Identity-based movements based on skin color have always been harshly suppressed in Cuba. Since the 1990s in Mexico, however, a movement called the “Third Root” has been calling for recognition of the African contribution to the Mexican national identity, in a field long dominated by the image of the “métis,” a blend of indigenous peoples and Europeans, the paradigm of the modern Mexican and the “cosmic race.” This movement, which was inspired primarily by North American pan-Africanist and Afro-heritage activists, also targets a specific population that is both ancient and contemporary: The “Afro-métis,” i.e., descendants of “metis” and Africans, as well as their cultural manifestations. It is therefore understood as a generic term that refers to any artistic initiative related to this set of militant arguments. Questions pertaining to origins and cultural mixing on Reunion Island also permeate most interactions that concern identities and culture. Like Louisiana gumbo and the Cuban ajacio, the Reunion Island dish zambrokal, a stew of rice, beans, and meat seasoned with turmeric, is frequently cited as a metaphor for the cohabitation of the island’s many cultural sources. After it first surfaced in the 1970s, the idea of “zambrokal people” is currently associated with the celebration of cultural pluralism, particularly in the domains of tourism, the arts, cultural activism, and celebrations of cultural heritage. Social science research has been implicated in the promotion of this movement, repeatedly exploring the concept of métissage in the 1990s (Alber, Bavoux, and Watin, 1992) and, to a lesser extent, creolization. Although the concept has been subject to a great deal of criticism among researchers (Benoist, 1996), métissage has not been entirely abandoned. It has been more or less replaced among social science researchers by the terms creolization, which has generated the coalescence of identity-oriented cultural movements and local research. This resonance between the two domains – research and heritage movements – partially explains the complex semantics that prevail in how these labels are used in present-day cultural discourses on Reunion Island. Because they are located at the crossroads of memorial, scientific, identity-based, and political positions, such discourses often cast diversity and creolization in a positive, creative light, avoiding more divisive dynamics such as racism by promoting cultural origins such as those that often underlie Reunion Island musical genres.

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By emphasizing métissage and creolization, musicians and other members of the musical field sometimes validate representations that appeal to a specific racial imaginary. Rather than viewing such discourses as contradictory, field observations suggest that for participants these conflicting concepts are inextricably bound to each other. Identifying particular styles, techniques, or instruments with a specific origin or tradition often reinforces the blending metaphor, as Wade has found with Costeño music in Colombia: “As is always the case with mestisaje, music is seen as a symbol of fusion, of the overcoming of the difference, but the representation of that symbol involves the continual reiteration of difference (2000: 66). Wade shows how symbolic characteristics associated with supposed origins are inseparable from the symbolism surrounding mixing: “I am arguing that mestizaje has both difference and sameness, homogeneity and heterogeneity, inclusion and exclusion as constitutive elements” (2005: 255). In Western societies, the importance attributed to “racial” and “ethnic” cultural dimensions in differentiation between different groups and practices echoes the celebration of “diversity” that has become ubiquitous in Western societies since the 1980s. Diversity has in fact proven to be highly profitable, particularly in the arts and music. Citing origins as the basis for musical categories and content is part of a focus on “respecting” and promoting “racial” and “ethnic” identifications while consuming “cultural” differences that are rarely acknowledged as sources of conflict or discrimination. While musical genres and creativity are often depicted as products of cultural heritage and specific traditions, this focus is markedly less prominent in sociological and socio-economic terms: Questions of upward mobility, legitimacy, and market-driven interests actually shape musical choices and sounds, professional strategies, and personal projects. Such fundamental questions are often completely circumvented in the discourses of commercialization and cultural promotion (Le Menestrel, 2015). Although the Louisiana and Reunion Island contexts illustrate vernacular uses of creolization to frame cultural mixing, this use of creolization is far from universal. In other societies, local beliefs about exogenous contributions and the transformation processes that they cause have freed cultural actors from these paradigms or expressed themselves in other ways. In the case of the tango, for example, although they are prominent in the historiography of the dance, the notions of métissage and hybridization have been largely excluded from the discourses surrounding the contemporary tango market. Before it earned UNESCO recognition in 2009, preserving the “authenticity” of tango since the 1980s encouraged the circulation of tango dancers and the spread of the dance throughout the world based on a shared vocabulary and sense of sociability. Within the international community that maintains the vibrancy of tango on all five continents, there appears to be a desire to minimize hybridization in order to retain the image of a transnational genre and avoid having variations associated with twentieth-century migrations, such as Greek, Italian, French, or English tango. The precursors of the tango revival started drawing distinctions (between Argentinian tango and salon tango, for example) in order to forestall changes in representations of tangos past or future. In addition to numerous generalist schools for couples’ dances,

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a network of non-profit associations developed. In a field dominated by professional salon teachers who were the heirs of a secular tradition, amateur dancers like Federico gradually became professionalized. Amateurs and teachers improvised the choreographic codes that are not used in national and international competitions, inventing ballroom tango dancing and subsequently tango marathons. This standardization process was accompanied by a discourse about hybridization that was both vernacular and scientific.27 Like most dance environments, the rhetoric of origins is central, fueling virulent nominalist debates but also suggesting a range of influences – European, Caribbean, and Black – that participated in the emergence of tango. Among these influences, Black origins are especially prized. Paradoxically, the tango-canción that developed in the 1920s reflects themes associated with white immigration (Vila, 1995). The rhetoric of mixing that is inseparable from the past happens to be rejected in the discourses surrounding the rise of the contemporary dance market. It is replaced by the more commercial appeal of Argentian-ness. Simultaneously standardized and de-territorialized, tango proclaims its Rioplatense origins while also constituting an international community that shares the same codes and techniques, oscillating between processes of renewal and folklorization. Métissage is not a particularly noticeable feature of the discourse surrounding community building in Egypt. The question of cultural circulations is associated with a mosaic of distinct societies that developed from great civilizations in conflict with each other. Social changes considered as manifestations of external influence can elicit different reactions, for example those concerning the vague system of borders within the zone designated as “the West.” Such discussions invoke the opposition between cultural objects and practices that emanate directly from a country and its traditions – which is considered proof of cultural authenticity – and those that develop outside of the home culture or that result from cultural blending. Change or social innovation that involves blending, depending on the context, can be seen as falsification of local practices. This conception of alterity does not remove forms of recognition that contact with the West provides. A European tour, artist’s residence, or involvement in a French museum project about Egypt can confer legitimacy on musicians, whereas most cultural entrepreneurs devalue music that is considered too Westernized. Recognition by foreigners does not contradict the devaluation of métissage, which is primarily perceived in terms of deculturation. Nor is it necessarily opposed to the supposed superiority of Arabic music, which is seen as better adapted than Western music to expressing human feelings because of its micro-intervals and ornamentation. Instead, the observation of cultural exchanges and the different forms that they take across time illustrates that cultural borrowing is a far more complex process than some scholars believe. Individual adjustments as a beginning Whether conceived of as métissage or creolization, processes of transformation, creation, and adaptation caused by geographical and social mobilities are

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optimally understood through field-based research, which allows a focus on the interactions that are the matrices of such processes. For this reason, our approach does not describe the fusion of distinct cultural universes but is directed first of all toward transformations of musics and dances in circulation, modifications and their meanings, and the diversity of their interpretations. We are also interested in understanding change in the context of reception, production, and diffusion and the new logics of hierarchization that they produce. Working on musicians’ life stories has helped us transcend traditional binary oppositions (global village/fixed traditions, métissage/original purity, commercial/ authentic product). Clearly, the position of researchers who attempt to rescue cultural actors’ traditions, relegating the actors themselves to passive roles deprived of initiative, is untenable. We also attempted to distance ourselves from analyses that categorize musics as “traditional,” “urban,” or “hybrid” based on notions about origins, purity, or authenticity. The life stories presented in this book demonstrate that musicians actively participate in developing their trajectories as musicians. The notion of “musical cosmopolitanism” posits this kind of agency – an individual actor’s capacity for action and autonomy – although it is circumscribed by pre-constraints: “Musical cosmopolitanisms create musical worlds and new musical languages, but they do so within systems of circulation that determine to a large extent what is available and how (and in which direction) musical elements move.” (Stokes, 2007: 15) Such concepts as métissage, borderless mixing, and “musical encounters” are endemic to the ideology of “world music” (Mallet, 2002), where one finds concrete mechanisms of “formatting” both by and for a Western market. Nevertheless, some musicians’ desire to broaden their horizons and participate in an exchange while acquiring recognition that surpasses their initial circuits is real, just like their aspirations to make their livings from their art or submit their creativity to new, stimulating challenges. Damily’s experience is typical of this kind of formatting. It demonstrates the compromises linked to his passage from the Malgache context to France and from performing at ritual ceremonies to “world music” networks. Damily adapted the length of his songs and his repertoire to the norms of this new context. He also experienced moments of incomprehension amid sound technicians who did not know how to optimize his music using their equipment. Having to conform to an established norm also caused him to resist suggestions that he adapt his music in what he considered esthetically incompatible ways. In addition, while pursuing a career and gaining access to “world music” circuits and other prestigious “stages,” Damily and Yvel have developed an alternative approach. Damily’s new networks allow the band to play with almost no time limits and to provide sustained, powerful interactions with audiences, creating an effervescent environment that is redolent of the dusty, several-day ceremonial dances at which he used to perform in Tulear. The formatting of the “Afro-Cuban” repertoire contributed to its evolution and patrimonialization in Cuba, a process that involved interactions between intellectuals inspired by primitivism and Negro Art and practitioners of stigmatized

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religions who created musical or choreographic activity during rituals (Argyriadis, 2006). At the end of the process, present-day Cuban artists like Tino are “exportable” guardians of a national “tradition” that has earned an international reputation. But in transporting their glorious heritage elsewhere, do they “transpose it” identically?28 Although this is their stated goal, it is doomed to failure. The artists of Jalapa who belong to the “third root” movement, in particular Javier Cabrera, have their own goal – the creation of their own “afrométis” repertoire. For this purpose they add indigenous membranophones such as the huehuetl to the trio of batá drums, as well as African instruments such as the djembé or the dundún. They also combine orichas dances with choreographic creations associated with repertoires taught to them by Guinean and Senegalese teachers. Initially tormented by this process, Tino ultimately sided with his students, who are also in part his employers, after agreeing that they, too, have the right to “invent.” Veracruz musicians no longer have anything to lose because they are “outside the circuit” and therefore free to attempt daring new combinations. Although these new combinations have had uneven results and have not gained wide audiences, their experimental nature is evidence of a greater creative freedom than that of their “maestros,” who remain tightly bound by tradition. This explains how Manuel Méndez “performs” new rhythms on his batá and new steps by entering into a mystic trance when he plays or dances and by launching himself into pure improvisation. More attached to his territory, which he proclaims as a source of legitimizing inspiration, one member of the group Lamento Yoruba attempts to use the trio of bimembranophone drums to create rhythms that he extracts from the sounds of nature: Roosters crowing, ranchos’ mules braying, and the rhythmic whistling of the train passing in the distance, ultimately finding “a wild rhythm.” “I was so proud of one thing,” he said, “I have a lot of imagination.” Even when they do not involve geographical movement, transformation and adaptation can be caused by social or contextual mobilities. After leaving Oneyed Jack so that he could play bass with MC Solaar, the bass player Julien was forced to change his musical approach, his way of thinking about his role in a group, and his technique. He actively participated in song-writing with Oneyed Jack and was free to create his own bass lines. With No One Is Innocent and to a far greater extent with MC Solaar, however, a “chief” or artistic director sharply limited these freedoms. With MC Solaar, Julien reproduced and performed lines that were already composed, playing scores according to instructions from the musical director. Playing was less about creativity than adapting to strictly defined standards, conditions under which Julien had never before played. Changing groups and venues meant that Julien was once again forced to adapt his playing. After performing for years in Parisian clubs like La Cigale, he was now playing in vast arenas like Bercy, which caused a series of negotiations and adjustments in terms of his musical practices and attitudes. These new environments implied changing his acoustic profile to “go for the basics,” be “efficient,” and avoid the kinds of subtleties that on smaller stages can enhance the band’s sounds but that are either inaudible or actually undermine the overall sound in larger spaces or festivals. Julien learned to follow a base line with perfect accuracy and to avoid appoggiatura.

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Limiting risk-taking and focusing on his parts, Julien realized that when he played with Oneyed Jack his close acquaintance with his partners and freedom performing on stage made it possible to make minor improvisations and use a range of strategies in case a musician made a mistake. His fellow musicians typically followed him in an unanticipated bridge or B part at that point in the song or in an unexpected triple eighth-note. Such real-time adaptation ability represented a safety net that encouraged musicians to take risks. Once he began working for MC Solaar, however, Julien quickly understood that a mistake meant that he would be “naked” and “abandoned” by the other musicians, who would continue to play their parts without adjusting their playing to cover his mistake. He was compelled to show absolute respect for the artistic director’s instructions, avoiding error and risk-taking and concentrating on his own musical parts. Relationships between the musicians on stage also changed, necessitating additional learning and negotiations. The complicity between the members of Oneyed Jack and their physical proximity on smaller stages made it possible to communicate with each other via simple gestures or even a glance. Each member played turning toward the others and hearing them on the monitors. Musicians were sometimes far away from each other on the enormous stages that they shared playing with MC Solaar and were blinded by light shows that caused them to feel even more isolated. In fact, because they wore ear monitors and could choose to listen either to a particular musician or to everyone, they were potentially disconnected from the sounds of each other’s playing, although they were able to communicate with each other using microphones. Managing these new ways of communicating with the band involved a considerable learning curve and tended to “freeze” the performers. Julien’s contact with fellow band members was less direct and more mediated, and some musicians even left the stage during voice and guitar duos. Performing on stage was no longer an uninterrupted adventure shared by the entire band, because of these scenic entrances and exits. Managing the additional challenge of these breaks entailed mastering some of the songs so that he could really “get in the groove.” International careers often involve overlapping geographic, social, and contextual mobilities and frequent changes in musicians’ repertoires. Collaboration, travel, and musical encounters, generally corresponding to performers’ professional entourages, drive changes that can have long-lasting impact on musical creativity. For Olivier and Lindigo, the gradual transition from a small neighborhood group that performed at sèrvis kabaré to being a popular band on the Reunion music scene implied far-flung musical and performance projects that expanded their careers both locally and far beyond Reunion Island. This was particularly noticeable in a competitive environment, especially in Lindigo’s more recent collaborations, which included South African dancers and a French accordionist named Fixi, a former member of the group Java. Although these partnerships did not radically change Olivier’s approach to composing music – he continued to compose in a style intended to be simple and effective – they did encourage him to rethink certain esthetic aspects of the band’s sound. Changes included adding new instruments brought back from tours, like the diatonic accordion and kabosy29

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from Madagascar or Brazilian percussion instruments, or they were introduced by musicians in the band, such as the kora, a West African xylophone. Collaborators who played the chromatic accordion and saxophone also introduced Olivier to new instruments, some of which added new melodies and harmonies to Lindigo’s neo-traditional maloya sounds. These diversified musical arrangements were first introduced by Lindigo and later adopted by others and had implications for how the group’s performances were staged, with increasingly elaborate sets and choreography. This trend illustrates Olivier’s desire to deepen the connections between maloya and other musical fields, including Africa, Madagascar, Brazil, and, to a lesser degree, Europe. Establishing these connections was motivated by Olivier’s travels and interest in increasing collaborations with other musicians and genres. It also helped him acquire the financial resources to continue to develop his music. The most important changes in amplification, lighting, and set design were primarily used during larger shows such as CD release parties or international tours. Technical modifications tended to be more difficult when the group was performing on smaller stages or in in discotheques and popular festivals. The transformations that result from mobility are not limited to playing, composing, or collaborating, however. Circulation also causes the formations of new hierarchies. In Louisiana, an interest in roots music and especially French Louisiana music has nourished an imaginary that has reconfigured long-standing ethnic and social divisions rather than revolutionizing them. Linda and Andrea quickly abandoned their initial passion for zydeco dancing and musicians in favor of a few Creole musicians who practice a “more musical” traditional style than zydeco, which is considered to be “dance music.” Their attraction to simpler and more rustic musical styles – either called French, old-time Cajun, or old-time Creole – exemplifies a hierarchical process in French Louisiana music. The fact that only a small handful of Creoles have adopted this style only reinforces the attraction, because scarcity is perceived as increasing authenticity. From the sensuality of zydeco to Creole music’s leaner style, black exoticism is no longer embodied in dance but also applies to the music. Creole and zydeco have been objects of shifting esthetic as transplants’ interest moved from dance toward the music itself, adding new layers to the hierarchization between dance music as opposed to listening music. Like the French Louisiana music scene, changes in how tango circulates have generated a number of rich re-combinations, some of which have disturbed established hierarchies that until recently seemed unshakeable. The ball has been at the center of two important transformations, and the appropriation of dance culture and its codes has impacted styles, sociability, and musical programming. Some of these repercussions are related to formal properties of tango dancing. For example, clashes between generations tend to be focused on stylistic controversies, which have become vectors for both vernacular and scholarly questioning of the distributions of masculine and feminine roles. As a couples-based form of dance, the tango traditionally presumes heterosexuality that can be doubly questioned by contemporary tango practices. Inspired by innovative currents of Dance Contact Improvisation,30 fans of Tango Contact are exploring role reversal

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(“guide”/“guided”) that defuses the gender polarization that is the basis of the tango heritage, including both how it is practiced and how it is taught and learned. This variation on “tradition” far beyond the traditional cradle of tango, the banks of the Rio de la Plata, reflects the voyages of the practice that have enabled it to incorporate aspects of other dance cultures. Other ways of organizing dances have also evolved into changes in how tango represents and codifies gender relations. In emphasizing the distribution of male and female roles, for example, Queer Tango explores every imaginable combination outside of heterosexual norms. Following this Western trend, the tango scene in Buenos Aires now features homosexual milongas and a “queer” tango festival. Although still somewhat small compared to the wider tango community, such developments exemplify the reconfigurations that are challenging the orthodoxies of “the Golden Age of the 1940s” and the activist mindset of the earlier generation of pioneers who revived the tango in Europe during the 1980s. Geographical displacement also influences the territories in which practices are transplanted. Open-air tango balls are signs of these changes and their effects. One of the first tango balls was held along the banks of the Seine River in Paris in 1992, coinciding with Federico’s first trip to France. Since that time, once the weather outdoors is pleasant, public squares and sidewalks of European cities are often colored by a red efflorescence of tango balls. Some, including the Festival of Sitges, are held near the sea. This type of ball is entirely foreign to tango’s origins, and street dancing in Buenos Aires remains primarily a touristic activity. Itinerant balls are sometimes held in connection with urban marches, taking over lawns, vacant lots, and industrial wastelands, where fine ladies’ shoes and polished men’s’ shoes dance alongside athletic shoes, flip-flops, and bare feet. . . . By becoming more nomadic, the tango has entered a new phase, extending its trajectory far beyond salons and conventional venues. The musics of Egypt have not yet been subject to outside influences on a similar scale to tango or Louisiana music. They remain locally anchored in a system of connections with practices and behavioral patterns that are perceived as being subject to outside influences. Identification with foreign practices is relatively complex and requires close observation in order to perceive subtle influences on musical practices and discourses. Discussions related to foreign influences unfold on two levels. First, there is the assumption of an Egyptian “we” as opposed to a them – “the West” – a shared binary conception of perceiving the world. However, at the discursive level, a certain degree of differentiation on the local scene can be detected. Cultural exchanges are sometimes simply the results of borrowings from socalled scholarly music instead of signs of modernization due to supposedly Western influences. The creation of neo-mawwal in the early 1970s, for example, began with the tradition of chanted poetry that was part of a rhythmic popular singing style that was transformed to accommodate new technologies and evolving tastes. At first, this inspired bitter criticism about the redirection and alleged Westernization of a local musical tradition. It is currently more popular and sometimes even upheld as a contribution to the Egyptian national genius.31 In other settings,

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Egyptian musicians unhesitatingly express their closer relationships with Western music. For example, a violinist’s excellent playing is sometimes attributed to an ability to adapt the “romantic” from the Western sonatas to Arabic music. Traces of such cosmopolitanism can sometimes be recognized in a range of Arabic musical genres, including a growing nostalgia for the inter-war period and the subtle influence of Latin music on Arab songs. The Italian origins of maestro or prova (brûva, rehearsal) can also be heard in music-centered Arabic conversations. Under the Arabic veneer of these discussions, vernacular musical terms often stem from a multi-lingual or international musical terminology that offers concrete evidence of the various circulations that have long fanned throughout the Egyptian capital. This explains the use of the Western musical notation (C, D, E, flat, etc.), numerous Italian terms, and, more recently, Arabicized English words that include drums, guitar, bass, sound, echo, and reverb. These borrowings are attributed locally to the power of Arabic music, which is reputed to have achieved greatness by incorporating multiple musical legacies. The first step in the process is the Arabization of external influences, beginning with the importation and modification of instruments, including filing accordion reeds to produce quartertones and the specific D-G-D-G tuning of the Eastern violin. The borrowing/modification approach reinvents foreign imports as Arabic instruments, which can then express the rich emotional palette of Egyptian Arab music. Having become “Arab,” their exogenous aspect is gradually effaced as they become integrated into local practices. The diversity of practices and discourses surrounding them, as well as the temporal and historical traces that they evince, are essential to understanding the ways in which externality is codified, yielding changes that in other contexts might be perceived as examples of métissage or hybridity.

Conclusion Creating a meta-conversation between the ethnographic life stories of musicians and dancers from seven distinct geographical and cultural fields has provided an exceptional boost in our joint effort to understand contemporary cultural phenomena. The deeply local, field-based level of our observations has revealed individual practices and patterns while shedding light on the displacements and exchanges that are sometimes ascribed by our colleagues and dance and music practitioners to processes of globalization. The wide range of situations that we explored across a diversity of countries and continents has provided glimpses of similarities and differences in the mobilities at play around the world as well as their influences at geographical, social, status-based or contextual levels. Circulations involve musicians and dancers as well as their cultural productions, but they also apply to the representations and knowledge that they circulate and participate in. Their encounters and the places that they pass through function as triggers for these displacements and circulations rather like ripples in a pond. As they cross the borders between social, local, regional, or national levels,

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cultural workers and their products – with good fortune, skill, and the proper circumstances – are able to gain prestige and recognition, despite the fact that the resulting validation is sometimes associated with contradictions and lost illusions. Using life narratives as our basic unit of analysis has allowed us to follow individuals from anonymity to fame and sometimes back again within the framework of mobilities and migrations. Circulations of performers and musics engender shifts in status from “amateur” to “professional,” from local popularity to international stardom, or from stigmatized social positions to greater recognition. One of our most important conclusions is that changes in status sometimes reconfigure prevailing hierarchies and legitimacies. The new discourses and practices produced by change are often outside of pre-existing or well-established categories and are flexible and overlapping. Career plans, imaginaries, and selfrepresentations also adjust to new realities as interactions with peers, audiences, the media, cultural institutions, and the music industry unfurl over time, in turn exerting their own influences and unleashing still further reconfigurations. By reinvesting their practices with new meanings, actors contribute to deliberations surrounding the key question of inter-cultural borrowing and influence. Between the rhetorics of origins and celebrations of blending and “diversity,” such discussions underscore the problematic construction of that which is shared (commonality), and that which is not (alterity). Our intention has not been to refute our participants’ statements about their engagements in order to focus on what they do instead of what they say. On the contrary, we have focused on categories in use as our participants employ them. We have confirmed our belief that the concepts of métissage and hybridization, while they have informed some of their identifications and individual and collective positionings and strategies, are inadequate and even misleading as analytical categories. Preconceived, blanket categories like these two concepts raise questions by inviting generalizations and broad interpretations whose ideological underpinnings are either concealed or ignored, whether voluntarily or not. We hope that this collective research project has shown that the vocabulary of circulation and transformation is far more precise than the categories often applied to contemporary socio-cultural dynamics. The ambiguous, tainted term “métissage” does not help us understand how musics and dances circulate and are transformed, whereas in our view, less loaded concepts such as adjustments, adaptations, and negotiations, although they are inevitably associated with compromises, tensions, and conflicts, have greatly enriched our work. Articulating connections and bonds, these processes are in turn tied to different forms of legitimation, each of which is inevitably influenced by geographical and cultural displacements. On a broader level, the realities that our field-based life stories have uncovered and that we have tried to summarize in this chapter cast shadows over the shortand long-term cultural consequences of globalization. Caught between different stakes and practices and mobilizing knowledge and expertise on local, regional, and international levels, the musicians and dancers who contributed to this study share aspirations that, while clearly not identical, are at least analogous to each

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other. Among various other aspirations, their shared desire for recognition, legitimacy, and fame as well their status as practitioners of collective cultural forms and practices are the driving force behind each of these life stories. Artistic life stories also gave us almost intimate glimpses into the actual day-to-day functioning of human and institutional resources such as peers, networks, cultural industries, institutions, political authorities, and the media. These interactive human resources are intricately bound to processes of cultural globalization in which circulations at various levels play critical roles. Interpreting these interactions, however, remains a singular, case-by-case process that depends on contrasting historical, cultural, and political contexts. As this “family” of studies confirms, the many levels at which individuals negotiate and sustain belonging and the range and intricacy of the interconnections surrounding artists and performers illustrate the inherent complexity of contemporary artistic environments. Our life stories have revealed an ever-shifting equilibrium between acting and enduring and between artistic autonomy and adapting to specific contexts, whether cultural, social, religious, political, or commercial. Seen from as close to the ground as possible and with the greatest possible respect for ethnographic density, we have tried to portray our participants’ life stories while avoiding enclosing them in pre-determined roles or categories or uniform, shared cultural patterns. The lives in music and dance presented in this volume reveal the richness – in similarity as well as in singularity – of experience. Artists’ lives – their ordinary, everyday lives, with their many twists and turns – sketch contemporary circulations at the same time as being produced by them. From singulars to plural.

Notes 1 Although they increasingly influence our fields in different ways, digital circulations are beyond the scope of this project. 2 First names mentioned in this chapter refer to itineraries presented in Chapter 2. 3 Castells (1999) refers to a “nodal place.” 4 In a study of the “neo-esoteric circuit” of the city of Sao Paulo in Brazil, Magnani (1999: 34–37) distinguishes trajectories or itineraries that he defines as “individual routes based on the totality of the offer, a particular syntagm that enables identification of the kinds of users of spaces, as well as the products and practices” specific to a particular circuit, which he defines as “a boss of distribution and of the articulation between establishments that enable the exercise of a sociability on the part of regular users, which does not necessarily suppose spatial contiguity, but an articulation via typical practices.” 5 After its tenth year, the Balfa Camp began to promote its territorial rootedness in Louisiana: “There’s nothing like our Dewey Balfa Cajun and Creole Heritage Week! We’re ready for the best week of Cajun and Creole culture on the planet and we want you there with us!” 6 This distinction has been noted by Heinrich Besseler. See Keller (2011). 7 Milonga refers simultaneously to a dance that belongs to the tango genre and the ballroom dance. 8 By facial changes, simply by moves, by the abrazo, or by the nature of the relationship between the two partners, usually a man and a woman. 9 These new perspectives include the development of an informal, unregulated teaching market, changes in gender relations and the relative liberation of women, and the appearance of new forms of socialization, such as dance marathons in Europe.

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10 Despite the multi-faceted lack of similarity between contexts, the definition of the musicos is related to the Egyptian term mezikati. This applies to musicians of lesser stature who are limited to less prestigious jobs and employ a more familiar, popular register. The change in status leads to a requalification of their professional designation, and from mezikati one rises to the rank of musîkî (musician) or even ustaz (teacher) or maestro. 11 This term was first used by Perrenoud (2007: 8) and originated in the vocabulary of the musical and peri-musical field. It designates “ordinary” musicians as a whole who are “regularly in a situation of playing in front of the public in exchange for remuneration but [. . .] who are relegated to the bottom rungs of the professional pyramid.” 12 The term hypogamy refers to marriage with a person of lower social status. 13 Intermittents du spectacle are culture workers in the entertainment industries who are employed under short-term contracts. They work intermittently, often alternating between periods of employment and unemployment. After they can document a certain number of hours of culture work, they can qualify for this status, which pays national unemployment benefits through the Assedic, an inter-professional support fund. Eligibility for intermittent status requires artists and technicians to document 507 hours, or 43 cachets (performance vouchers) within the most recent 319 days. 14 Regarding the notion of amateurs, see in particular Gomart et al. (2000). 15 Coulangeon (2004: 190–191) identifies six musician profiles: Vulnerables (unpaid intermittents), Peripherals, Quasi-permanents, the Multi-integrated (paid intermittents), Accumulators (paid intermittents, orchestra members, and teachers), and Occasionals (salaried orchestra members and teachers). The last two categories represent one fourth of musicians. Unlike these four categories, they include performers of “high-brow,” as opposed to “popular,” music, salaried orchestra members, and teachers more than they do intermittent artists, who are distributed among the four remaining profiles (75% of musicians in France in 2002). 16 Dances and participating in dance performances are distinctions formalized by Kaeppler (1978). 17 There were approximately 5,000 professional dancers in France in 2006 (Rannou and Roharik, 2006). 18 This law contributed to the development of an employment status regulated through a system of level 2 certification, employers (conservatories or municipal schools) that are part of the public cultural services, a collective bargaining agreement, salary charts, a system of specific pay scales (Annex VIII and X of the Assedic), appropriate venues that respect health codes, etc.; these rights are available to classical and jazz, and it can be difficult to obtain official recognition as “culture workers.” Many must have jobs in addition to dancing. They are legally prevented from busking or performing unofficially, which is categorized as begging in Cuba and is not allowed. 19 Hesmondhalgh (2007) borrows the ideas of individualization and “organized selfactualization” from Axel Honneth. 20 See Rouget, in particular, for an extended discussion of the licéité of music in Islam. The priority in this field is not so much normative production revealed by centuries of controversy as how individuals position themselves depending on specific situations and on their own interpretations of norms and conventions (Puig, 2009). 21 See particular studies conducted by Charles Stewart (1999, 2007). 22 Within the framework of racial identifications and claims of multiculturalism in several Latin American countries that brought recognition to “African-American populations,” E. Cunin introduced the notion of “métisse skills” that “correspond to this capacity to play with color and its meaning, to contextualize racial appearances to adapt to situations, to pass from one norm to another. This ability is not deployed within a social space lacking rules, constraints, or determining factors: Specifically, it relies on the faculty of knowing and adapting to codes” (2001: 23). 23 The authors of the manifesto In Praise of Creoleness define “Creoleness” as a double process of adaptation to the New World and cultural confrontation, resulting in the creation of a syncretic Creole culture (1993: 31).

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24 See in particular the forum in American Ethnologist (2005) and Stewart (2007). 25 With respect to the notion of “identity,” the American sociologist Rogers Brubaker suggests that researchers reserve using it to refer to what social actors make of it and to use the terms identification, categorization, and self-understanding (self-representation and self-identification) (2004: 28–63). 26 Text of a speech delivered on December 12, 1942 at the Club Atenas, composed exclusively of people “of color” and of which Fernando Ortiz, who is of Spanish origin, was exceptionally elected an honorable member. 27 In the first pages of her essay, Savigliano (1995: xv) mentions the encounter of opposites that never should have met each other as properties of the tango that became the source of conflict. 28 See Csordas (2007: 261), concerning “transportable” and “transposable” practices. 29 A Malgache lute. 30 “Contact Improvisation: A democratic form of duo that borrows from martial arts, ballroom dancing, sports, and children’s games.” (Banes, 2002: 105). 31 The Egyptian president of the union of music workers in the 2000s, Hasan Abu Sa’ud, was one of the best-known composers of this music.

Conclusion

Creating a meta-conversation between anthropological life stories of musicians and dancers from seven distinct geographical and cultural fields has provided an exceptionally rich resource in our efforts to understand and elucidate contemporary cultural phenomena. On the one hand, the deeply local, field-based level of observation has proven crucial as a way of revealing individual practices. It has been particularly well adapted to the displacements and exchanges that tend to be attributed instead to processes of globalization. On the other hand, the wide range of situations – representing a diverse array of countries and continents – helps shed light on the variety of mobilities at play from one world to another and their effects at every level, whether geographical or social, status-based or contextual. Circulations involve musicians as well as their musics and dance practices, but they also apply to the representations and knowledge that they convey. Encounters and passages through key locations function essentially as triggers for these and further displacements and circulations, rather like ripples in a pond. In crossing boundaries among and between levels – social, local, regional, or national – musics and musicians acquire prestige and recognition, despite the fact that the resulting validation is also associated with contradictions and lost illusions. Our use of itineraries as the basic unit of analysis for our collective research endeavor has helped us keep track of transitions from anonymity to fame – and sometimes the reverse – within the framework of mobilities and migrations. These circulations of performers and musics and dances are accompanied by multiple shifts in status – from “amateur” to “professional,” from local popularity to international stardom, and from stigmatized social positions to wider recognition. Among our most important observations is that changes in status can reconfigure prevailing hierarchies and legitimacies. The new discourses and practices produced by such changes tend not to be included in pre-existing or well-established categories but instead to be flexible and supple as well as over-lapping. Career plans, imaginaries, and self-representations must also adjust to new realities as interactions with peers, audiences, the media, cultural institutions, and the music industry unfurl over time, in turn exerting their own influences and unleashing still further reconfigurations. By reinvesting their practices with new meanings, actors contribute to deliberations surrounding the question of cultural borrowing. Between rhetorics of origins

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and celebrations of blending and “diversity,” these discussions underscore the problematic construction of that which is shared (commonality) and that which is not (alterity). Our intention has not been to refute actors’ statements about their engagements and to focus on what they do instead of what they say. On the contrary, we have focused on how categories are actually used by our individual participants. The concepts of métissage and hybridization, while they have informed identifications and individual and collective positionings and strategies, have shown themselves to be highly problematic as analytical categories. Preconceived, blanket terms tend to raise more questions than they answer because they encourage generalizations and broad interpretations whose ideological underpinnings are either implicit or completely ignored, voluntarily or not. We hope that this collective research project has demonstrated that the vocabulary of circulation and transformation is more precise than the broad categories typically used to explain contemporary socio-cultural dynamics. The ambiguous, tainted term “métissage” is thus far less useful to understanding how musics and dances circulate and become transformed than adjustments, adaptations, and negotiations, each inevitably associated with compromises, tensions, and conflicts. These processes for articulating connections and bonds are in turn tied to different forms of legitimation, each inevitably influenced by spatial and cultural displacements. On a broader level, this reality, exemplified in these seven field-based life stories and synthesized in this book, call some of the cultural consequences of globalization into serious question. Caught up in a range of stakes and practices and mobilizing knowledge and expertise on local, regional, and international levels, the musicians and dancers who contributed to this study share aspirations that if not identical are analogous to each other. Among other aspirations, their quests for recognition, legitimacy, and fame, pursuing their careers and their status as practitioners of collective cultural practices are the driving forces behind these life stories. Artistic itineraries also offer glimpses into how human and institutional resources such as peers, networks, cultural industries, institutions, political authorities, and the media actually work. These human and interactive resources are intricately bound to processes of cultural globalization in which multi-level circulations play a crucial role (often unilaterally). The way in which these interactions and levels are interpreted in each individual case, however, remains singular and depends on sometimes wide contrasts between historical, cultural, and political contexts. As we have confirmed in the course of this study, the many levels on which individuals negotiate and sustain belonging – and the range and intricacy of the interconnections surrounding artists and performers – illustrate the complexity and potential polysemy of cultural positions inherent in contemporary artistic environments. These life stories thus demonstrate an always-shifting equilibrium between acting and enduring and between artistic autonomy and adaptation to specific contexts, whether cultural or social, religious, political, or commercial. Understanding the vast array of circulations involved and explaining their effects have motivated our project as we have attempted to summarize it in these pages. Seen

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from as close to the ground as we could manage and with full respect for ethnographic density, we have endeavored to portray these itineraries in their full complexity and thickness while avoiding enclosing our participants in specific, pre-determined roles, categories, or uniformly shared cultures. The lives in music (and dance) that we have presented here reveal the richness of experience in terms of similarity as well as singularity. Artists’ lives – their plain, everyday lives, with their many twists and turns – portray contemporary circulations at the same time as being products of them. From singulars to plural.

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Stewart, Charles. “Syncretism and Its Synonyms: Reflections on Cultural Mixture,” Diacritics, 29, n°3 (Autumn 1999): 40–62. Stokes, Martin. On Musical Cosmopolitanism, Institute for Global Citizenship, The Macalester International Roundtable, 2007. Stokes, Martin. The Republic of Love: Cultural Intimacy in Turkish Popular Music, Chicago, IL and London: University of Chicago Press, 2010. Tassin, Damien. Rock et production de soi. Une sociologie de l’ordinaire des groupes et des musiciens, Paris: L’Harmattan, coll. Logiques sociales, 2004. Tcherkézoff, Serge. Le mythe occidental de la sexualité polynésienne, 1928–1999. Margaret Mead, Derek Freeman et Samoa, Paris: PUF, (Ethnologies), 2001. Vaughan, Umi. Carlos Aldama’s Life in Batá, Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 2012. Vila, Pablo. “Le tango et la formation des identités ethniques en Argentine,” in Tango Nomade, directed by dans Pelinski R., 77–107, Montréal: Editions Tryptique, 1995. Wade, Peter. Music, Race, and Nation: Musica Tropical in Colombia, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. Wade, Peter. “Rethinking Mestisaje: Ideology and Lived Experience,” Journal of Latin American Studies, 37 (2005): 255. Zemp, Hugo. Écoute le bambou qui pleure. Récits de quatre musiciens mélanésiens (‘Aré’ aré, Îles Salomon), Paris: Gallimard, 1995. Collection L’aube des peuples. Znaniecki, Florian W., and Thomas, William I. Le Paysan Polonais en Europe et en Amérique – Récit de vie d’un migrant, Paris: Armand Colin, 1998 [1919].

Index

abakuá 102, 103, 116 accessible/accessibility 164, 209 adaptation 46, 56, 91, 137, 211, 215, 216, 219, 222, 224, 225, 231, 234 adolescence 18, 177, 212 “Afro” 96, 105, 106, 108, 109, 110, 111, 196, 199 Afro-Cuban 5, 9, 94, 95, 96, 97, 103, 108, 109, 110, 114, 116, 117, 198, 199, 201, 208, 209, 223, 237; religious practices 94, 95, 201; repertoire 9, 95, 96, 100, 105, 106, 111, 115 amateur 34, 71, 78, 80, 110, 149, 151, 159, 160, 163–167, 190, 196, 197, 203, 205, 211, 213, 222, 229, 233 ambassador 57, 95, 214 añá 100, 102 ancestors 15; sèrvis kabaré 16, 23, 26, 30, 33, 38, 39, 40, 197, 225 artists 105, 121, 230, 23; Bohemian 168, 175, 176, 177, 178, 210, 212; mezikati 231; Musicos 66, 191, 203, 205, 207, 213 audition: casting 197; contest 84 authenticity 30, 82, 84, 85, 137, 201, 206, 212, 217, 221, 222, 223, 226 babalao 100, 102, 103 backliner 180, 190 band (music) 16, 19, 26, 27, 31–35, 37, 45, 47, 51–57, 65, 71, 72, 74, 83–86, 88, 89, 99, 110, 167, 169–172, 174–179, 181, 183, 185–188, 190, 192, 198, 203, 204, 210, 215, 223–226 belonging (sense of) 5, 9, 92, 94, 109, 111, 112, 114 body 7, 10, 22, 48, 49, 72, 129, 133, 148, 151, 152, 159, 163, 164, 165, 184, 206 bricolage 214 broadcasting 17, 81, 92, 180

café 92, 110, 125, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 144, 192 category: analytical 216; vernacular 38, 102, 204, 218, 221, 222, 226, 228 celebrity 10, 33, 37, 121, 206, 215 circuit 54, 55, 57, 59, 95, 110, 129, 153, 183, 198–200, 205, 208, 223–224, 230 codes 9, 11, 55, 56, 57, 63, 85, 112, 115, 132, 140, 150, 156, 199, 202, 206, 222, 226, 231 community 81, 92, 93 comparsa 7, 99 composition 10, 11, 28, 46, 96, 210 conservatory 128, 191 cooptation 196 creativity/creation 4, 39, 80, 100, 106, 143, 160, 162, 163, 178, 192, 200, 202, 203, 208, 209, 215, 217, 219, 221, 222–224, 227, 231 Creole music 90, 196, 226; see also French Louisiana music Creolization 27, 217, 235, 238 cultural promoter 11, 95, 96, 103, 199 dance: Cajun 82, 84; folk 87; one-step 82; tango 9, 3, 10, 143, 144, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 156, 157, 159, 160, 161, 164, 165, 165, 197, 198, 200, 202, 207, 209, 212, 213, 215, 221, 222, 226, 227, 230, 232, 235, 238, 239; tango-canción 222; two-step 70, 82, 84; waltz 149; Zydeco 219, 226 dancehalls 74, 82, 110, 150, 154, 163, 164 danzón 98, 118 desire 8, 17, 20, 26, 35, 37, 76, 95, 98, 138, 144, 147, 149, 151, 154, 161, 164, 168, 171, 202, 205, 211, 212, 213, 214, 221, 223, 226, 230 destiny 182, 183 differentiation 185, 187, 211, 221, 227

Index discotheque 16, 192, 210, 226 displacement 203 distribution 34, 55, 66, 94, 196, 227, 230 emotion 6, 7, 33, 135, 170, 144, 148, 209, 212, 213, 228; “from the heart” 212 empathy 6 employment see profession eroticism/sensuality 90, 165, 212, 226 ethnomusicology 13, 217 family 19 field method/participant-observation 6 fieldwork 2, 95, 216 filiation 20, 94, 113, 150 folk/traditional music 67, 69, 93, 211 format 35, 178 French Louisiana music 9, 93, 237; Cajun music 68, 83, 84, 86, 91; French music 89, 90, 210; Zydeco music 68, 70, 78, 84, 85, 86, 89 friend/friendship 6, 7, 8, 11, 46, 48, 49, 56, 65, 70, 71–73, 81, 88, 103, 108, 111, 144, 185, 187 gender 169, 227, 230, 237 generation 22, 23, 62, 144, 150, 157, 205, 227 globalization 4, 63, 116, 140, 217, 228, 230, 233, 234 guitarist/guitar player 43, 66, 78, 186, 190 heritage 40, 75, 93, 230 hierarchization/hierarchy 81, 89, 91, 103, 112, 115, 128, 129, 131, 132, 137, 162, 163, 167, 177, 187, 201, 203–206, 211, 223, 226 Hinduism 19 hip-hop 83, 89 hybridity 1, 140, 216, 217, 218, 228 identification/identity 227; collective 64, 113–115, 217; individual 62–65, 129, 148, 188, 202; national identity 95, 96, 98, 109, 213, 220 ifá 102, 115 improvisation 161, 163, 226, 232 individuality 64, 69, 188 initiation 21, 23, 96, 106, 113, 156, 202 instability 123, 168, 213 instruments: accordion 22, 78, 81, 90, 92, 93, 225, 237; banjo 78, 92–93; bass 47, 48, 51, 53, 78, 92, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 177, 182, 184, 186, 190, 196, 202, 203, 224, 228; guitar 44, 46, 48,

241

49, 56, 57, 62, 71, 78, 86, 92, 93, 111, 137, 168, 169, 170, 171, 190, 225, 228; harmonica 21; lute 28, 121, 126, 135, 232 (kabosy 28, 225); mandolin 78; oud 121, 131; percussions/percussionist 95, 96, 100, 102, 105, 106, 110, 111, 128, 133, 198 (balafon 37; batá 96, 98, 100, 102, 106, 116, 117, 118, 224, 235; batucadas 37; cajón 8, 114; clave 111; djembé 37, 224; dum dum/dundún 8, 37, 114, 224; kayamb 24, 30, 37, 39; pikèr 30, 37; quinto 8, 114; roulèr 24, 30, 37, 39; snare drum 25, 78; tambours malbar 22; tit fer 92; tit fer (triangle) 78, 92; triangle 37, 78; tumbadora 8, 114; violin 127, 128, 131, 135, 228; washboard 92); synthesizer (urg) 121, 127; ukulele 78, 86; violin 132, 228 interview 10, 48, 69, 70, 71, 72, 79, 81, 102, 103, 116, 144, 151, 165, 176 jam 7, 78, 79, 89 jarocho 98, 100 legitimacy 21, 23, 25, 31, 88, 102, 115, 127, 143, 152, 156, 159, 160, 184, 198, 199, 201, 202, 206, 208, 209, 211, 214, 215, 217, 220, 221, 222, 229, 233–234; recognition 121, 158, 222 lineage 19, 101, 109, 113, 125, 138, 202, 209 manager 17, 34, 35, 177, 182, 183, 184, 186, 188, 190, 196, 197, 207, 210, 213 marginality/marginal 5, 44–45, 63, 66, 110, 151, 177, 192, 199 medias 203; journalist 176; radio 17, 48, 49, 53, 62, 69, 87, 98, 112, 148, 174, 177, 182; television 25, 103, 169, 177, 182 mediation 52, 55, 57, 65 memory 18, 39, 58, 61, 64, 88, 126, 139, 148, 201 methodology 2, 3, 5, 13, 124, 144, 203 métissage 215, 222, 235; mestizaje 118 milonguero 142, 143, 150, 151, 154; Caning 146, 147, 150, 151 mixing (cultural) 218, 219, 220, 221; see also métissage music market 52, 132 music scene 16, 25, 37, 68, 76, 88, 126, 127, 167, 168, 184, 188, 197, 201, 225, 226 myth 3, 114, 175, 197, 199, 202, 213, 218

242

Index

negotiations 3, 8, 10, 55, 132, 218, 224, 225, 229, 234 neo-mawwal 227 network 1, 5, 7, 8, 9, 26, 34, 45, 46, 54, 55, 58, 63, 68, 72, 73, 76, 77, 80, 81, 84, 87, 88, 91, 92, 94–96, 100–102, 103, 105, 106, 108, 110–116, 124, 127, 129, 171, 182, 183, 192, 195, 196, 198, 199, 205, 206, 209, 213–215, 222, 223, 230, 234 New Age 75, 93 orichas 95, 96, 100, 106, 116, 224 palero 95, 102 palo-monte 116 pan-African/pan-Africanism 35, 109, 220 passion 163, 165, 238 patrimonialization 137, 223 personal transformation/well-being 75, 212 popular (music) 16, 19, 92, 121, 150, 191, 217 popularity 33, 43, 83, 84, 143, 199, 214, 229, 233 portrait 7, 40, 63, 120, 123, 139, 140, 178, 238 position/postures (researcher’s) 4, 38, 129, 203 prestige 54, 81, 121, 129, 131–133, 143, 159, 171, 197, 198, 200, 203–205, 209, 229, 233 production/producer 8, 34–35, 39, 52, 55–56, 68, 80, 87, 92, 117, 135, 139, 140, 165, 167, 178, 193, 197, 203, 207, 211, 223, 231, 239; self-produced 49, 171 profane see sacred profession/job/employment 8, 46, 65, 70, 71, 76, 104, 105, 110, 123, 127, 139, 151, 153, 156, 157, 165, 170, 175, 176, 184, 192, 207, 208, 231; unemployed 123 promotion 51, 53, 68, 105, 121, 180, 153, 176, 220, 221; self-promotion 139 public 237; fans 10, 2, 68, 72, 73, 74, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 88, 91, 95, 185, 199, 206, 212

45, 46, 47, 48, 50, 52, 66, 171; CD 24, 33, 35, 37, 38, 45, 46, 52, 53, 54, 56, 65, 171, 174, 183, 188, 203, 211, 226; clip 81, 92, 180; disc 55; DVDs 87, 180, 183; studio 182, 211; video-clips 19, 43 record label 182 reflexivity 6, 10 rehearsal 7, 8, 17, 32, 53, 119, 169, 171, 172, 191, 210, 228 religión 9, 115 renewal 30, 39, 91, 138, 164, 222 repertoire 9, 21, 23, 25, 26, 56, 57, 66, 68, 83, 87, 88, 89, 95, 96, 97, 100, 105, 106, 110, 111, 112, 115, 116, 159, 164, 169, 171, 172, 186, 188, 196, 199, 201, 209, 219, 223, 224 rhetorics (of origins) 219, 229, 233 ritual lineage 8, 100, 105, 202 rituals 30, 100, 114, 116, 121, 143, 146, 203, 224 rock 170, 193, 238, 239 roots music 212, 226 rules 54, 100, 112, 124, 135, 159, 172, 175, 177, 186, 208, 210, 231 rumors 49, 58, 59, 123

qualifications 102, 156

sacred 30, 31, 62, 63, 64, 100, 102, 109, 134, 200, 201 sacrifices 31, 45, 100, 161, 171, 175, 178 salsa 95, 99 santería 117, 237 santero 105, 116 sensitive 7, 10, 211 sociability 81, 90, 124, 140, 212, 221, 226, 230 solidarity 140, 153, 188 sound 22, 37, 55, 91, 137, 221, 224, 225, 226; sound archives 203; soundscape 203 son 165; son jarocho 106, 117 strategies 8, 9, 11, 37, 57, 92, 95, 164, 196, 211, 214, 215, 218, 221, 225, 229, 234 subjectivity 6 success 19, 33, 34, 37, 56, 59, 68, 91, 97, 121, 127, 132, 169, 170, 201, 204, 206, 210, 213

rational 144, 147, 164, 171, 202 reconfigurations 134, 218, 227, 229, 233 recording 4, 11, 25, 26, 31, 33, 37, 45, 46, 47, 52, 55, 56, 68, 86, 91, 139, 171, 172, 182, 210, 211; album 7, 15, 16, 17, 18, 26, 28, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 46, 47, 49, 53, 60, 69, 78, 93, 128, 172, 174, 178, 182, 188, 189, 210; cassette 9, 43,

tanguero 144, 151 taste 68, 86, 88, 89, 98, 121, 163, 214, 205, 213, 227 teaching 73, 85, 96, 102, 143, 144, 148, 154, 156, 157, 159, 164, 165, 197, 198, 200, 202, 207, 208, 209, 211, 212 technician 152, 168, 172, 175, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187,

Index 190, 204, 205, 210, 213, 223, 231; sound engineer 46, 52, 53, 55, 186, 187, 211 territory 121, 227, 126, 224 tour 8, 35, 45, 55, 61, 152, 160, 167, 171, 172, 175, 179, 180, 181, 183, 189, 190, 198, 210, 225, 226 tradition 3, 5, 9, 11, 20, 23, 24, 26, 30, 31, 37, 38, 40, 57, 64, 65, 67, 69, 75, 89, 91–93, 95, 96, 98, 108, 114, 117, 143, 148, 150, 164, 200, 201, 202, 206, 214, 217, 221, 222–227, 235, 237 training 80, 96, 98, 103, 106, 110, 112, 128, 149, 152, 154, 156, 158, 165, 206 trance 38, 39, 175, 201, 224 transmission 20, 23, 143, 148, 151, 154, 156, 165, 202 transnational/transnationalization 9, 95, 100, 117, 118, 236 transplant 77, 85, 86, 88, 90, 91, 209, 212, 215 travel 26, 33, 37, 52, 53, 55, 61, 68, 80, 91, 100, 103, 106, 115, 122, 138, 174, 177, 179, 183, 184, 198, 199, 204, 205, 208, 214, 225, 226 vazaha 52, 56, 59, 62–64 vocation 143, 163, 166, 177, 183 well-being 75 Western/Westerners 3, 5, 52, 56, 57, 60, 66, 122, 131, 134, 135, 136, 138, 146, 202, 206, 207, 208, 209, 211, 212, 221, 222, 223, 227, 228, 137 world music 46, 54, 55, 57, 65, 198, 200, 208 writing 4, 2, 6, 7, 10, 11, 91, 172, 186, 187 Yoruba 95, 103, 109, 110, 111, 112, 115, 117 Zydeco club 74, 82; see also dance; French Louisiana music

Locations Africa 26, 27, 35, 37, 39, 90, 106, 108, 198, 214, 220, 226 Argentina 143, 146, 148, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 197, 209, 236; Buenos Aires 143, 146, 147, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 165, 165, 197, 200, 209, 227, 236 Brazil 16, 35, 40, 106, 108, 198, 226, 230 Cuba 5, 95, 96, 98, 99, 100, 101, 106, 108, 109, 112, 116, 117, 118, 199, 201, 208,

243

217, 219, 220, 223, 231, 235; Havana 9, 100, 102, 103, 110, 115, 198, 199, 206 Denmark 53 Egypt 10, 13, 127, 134, 135, 138, 204, 210, 222, 227; Cairo 3, 5, 8, 119, 120, 121, 122, 127, 128, 132, 136, 138, 139, 197, 204, 208, 214; Mohamed Ali Avenue 8, 121, 125, 128, 131, 132 Europe 35, 45, 69, 94, 96, 101, 102, 143, 152, 156, 164, 182, 197, 200, 226, 227, 230, 239 France 5, 7, 8, 9, 13, 16, 35, 42, 43, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 138, 143, 144, 149, 151, 152, 156, 159, 160, 164, 165, 165, 174, 176, 184, 192, 193, 196, 197, 199, 200, 207, 209, 213, 214, 215, 223, 227, 231, 235, 236, 237; Bordeaux 53, 174, 190; Corsica 26; Marseille 53, 174; Nantes 53; Paris 1, 2, 8, 9, 10, 35, 40, 46, 53, 66, 68, 117, 118, 138, 140, 141, 143, 144, 152, 164, 165, 167, 169, 170, 172, 174, 179, 190, 192, 193, 197, 198, 205, 227, 235, 236, 237, 238, 239 Great Britain 117 Louisiana 5, 7, 8, 9, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 109, 114, 196, 199, 202, 206, 209, 210, 211, 212, 215, 217, 219, 220, 221, 226, 227; Arnaudville 7, 72, 77, 79, 81, 84, 87; Eunice 75; Lafayette 70, 71, 74, 76, 77, 80, 86, 87; New Orleans 71; Thibodeaux 70, 73 Madagascar 5, 9, 16, 17, 22, 25, 28, 34, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 52, 53, 56, 57, 58, 60, 61, 64, 65, 66, 196, 198, 200, 215, 226; Antananarivo 35, 43, 53; Diego 28, 30, 82; Tongobory 43, 44, 48, 61; Tulear 5, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 49, 50, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 59, 60, 61, 64, 65, 196, 205, 214, 215, 223 Mexico 3, 5, 9, 92, 94, 95, 96, 98, 100, 101, 102, 105, 106, 108, 109, 110, 113, 115, 116, 196, 199, 217, 220; Catemaco 7, 94, 109; Xalapa 8, 95, 96, 97, 105, 107, 108, 109, 111, 112, 115, 117 Morocco 16, 53, 164

244

Index

Netherlands 53

Guillotine (Montreuil, France) 7, 53, 58

Portugal 53, 54

Hélico (Paris) 53, 65, 66

Reunion Island 7, 10, 15, 16, 17, 20, 25, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39, 53, 197, 198, 201, 214, 217, 220, 221, 225

La Goutte d’Or en fête 53

Switzerland 16, 53

New Morning 53 New Orleans By the Bay (Californie) 71 Newport Folk Festival (Rhode Island) 67, 91 Nuits du Piton (Saint-Joseph, La Réunion) 34

United States 25, 54, 68, 69, 94, 95, 100, 101, 126, 127, 138; California 71, 73, 74, 75, 76, 78, 80, 82, 83, 84, 91, 116, 141, 196 (Bay area 72; Berkeley 91, 141; San Diego 70, 82, 83; San Francisco 68, 72, 75, 80, 91); Miami 100, 103; New York State 7, 68, 69, 74, 89, 93, 199

Mardi Gras (Louisiana) 73, 78

Olympia (Paris) 190 Paléo Festival 54 Quai Branly Museum (Paris) 46

Veracruz 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 94, 95, 96, 98, 99, 101, 103, 105, 106, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 196, 199, 224, 235, 236

Gigs, festivals, workshops, dancehalls, labels Aéronef (Lille, France) 190 Afro-Caribbean Festival (Veracruz, Mexique) 97 Arhoolie Records 91 Ashokan (New York State) 7, 69, 73, 77, 85, 86, 88, 89, 93, 199 Augusta (West Viginia) 88, 93, 199 Balfa Camp/DBCCHW (Chicot State Park, Louisiana) 88, 199, 230 Bataclan (Paris) 190 Bellevilloise (Paris) 53 Black Pot Festival (Louisiana) 88 Blue Moon (Lafayette, Louisiana) 75, 76, 79, 87 Cigale (Paris) 8, 179, 190, 224 Cité des Arts (Lafayette, Louisiana) 80 Clifftop (West Virginia) 88 Crawfish Festival (Breaux-Bridge, Louisiana) 70 Day of the Sorcerers 109 Espace Médoquine (Bordeaux, France) 190 Festival International/A tribute to Cajun music (Lafayette, Louisiana) 73 Festival Musicas do Mundo 54

Sakifo (Saint-Pierre/Saint-Leu, La Réunion) 34 Sitges 227 Transbordeur (Lyon, France) 190 Universal 186 VIP 52, 53, 65, 181 Whirlybird 80, 81 Womex 46, 53, 65, 198 Yellen Music 182

Musicians, dancers and bands Alizée 192 Araste, Olivier 5, 7, 11, 15–40, 165, 197, 198, 201, 204, 205, 210, 214, 225, 226 Balfa, Dewey 67, 68, 81, 91, 230 Balfa Toujours 81 Bazary sy groupe 44 Beastie Boys 172 Beausoleil 88 Berbessou, Catherine 8, 11, 144, 155 Cabrera, Javier 7, 11, 94, 105, 106, 109, 110, 111, 224 Castello, Puppy 147 Castle, Linda 11, 67, 71–79, 82, 83, 86–91 Cieri, Rodolpho 157 Cimendef 34, 40 Clapton, Eric 169

Index

245

Clash (the) 169 Claude 7, 45, 47, 50, 51, 53, 65, 238 Clouet, Nathalie 144, 197

Méndez, Manuel 112, 224 Méndez, Norberto 110, 111 Mojo 178, 181, 182

Damily 5, 7, 11, 42–66, 196, 199, 200, 205, 214, 215, 223 Danza Contemporánea 102, 206 de Keersmaeker 159 DJ Dan 31 Doors (the) 169

Naivo 7, 45, 47, 50, 51, 65 National Folkloric Ensemble 97 Naveira, Gustavo 157, 165 NG la Banda 99 No One Is Innocent 8, 167, 178, 179, 180, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 189, 190, 224

Étincelles Panonaises 25

Obafemí 109 Oneyed Jack 8, 171–172, 192, 204, 205, 224, 225 Orí 7, 94, 109, 111

Farmer, Mylène 192 Fixi 225 Galán, Tino 11, 95, 96, 109 Ganygany 7, 47, 50, 51, 57, 65 Gayle, Daniel 7, 87 Gonzales, Graciella 148 Granmoune, Lélé 26 Greely, David 93 Grégoire 192 Groupe Folklorique de La Réunion 25, 39 Guerra, Cristóbal 11, 103, 206 Guimbert, Françoise 26 Henderson, Lori 11, 67–68, 73, 74, 77–87, 89, 91 Indochine 182, 192 Jaojoby 28, 30, 39 Kábulas 8, 114 Kaf Malbar 31 Keïta, Karim 8, 108 Kérgrin, Didyé 7, 31, 32 Lâche Pas 7, 86, 87 Lamento Yoruba 112, 224 Lava 47, 48, 49, 51 Lindigo 7, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 40, 197, 198, 201, 204, 210, 214, 225, 226 Lo Rwa Kaf 38 Luz María Martínez Montiel 109, 112 Malandain, Thierry 159 Mali, Christophe 167, 180, 190 Maloney, Missy 11 Masoandro 45 MC Solaar 8, 167, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 187, 188, 190, 192, 204, 210, 224, 225

Poullard, Danny 73, 88, 90, 93, 196 Powers, Madeline 11 Pugliese, Osvaldo 150 Rabaté, Mathieu 180, 182 Rage Against The Machine 172 Raíces Profundas 97 Rakapo 7, 44, 45, 49, 50, 51, 65 Raphael 192 Red Hot Chili Peppers 172 Red Stick Ramblers (the) 7, 89, 92 Reymond, Julien 11 Rodriguez Moreno, Federico 7, 8, 10, 142–164, 199, 202, 207, 209, 213–215, 222, 227 Rolling Stones (the) 88, 169 Route 66 169, 170, 171, 181, 190 Rubinstein, Andrea 11, 67, 74, 76, 79, 89, 91, 199, 226 Rust, Michèle 144, 152, 197 Safodrano 45 Sinimalé, Serge 40 Telephone 169 Thiefaine, Hubert Felix 192 Trahan, Horace 84 Trust 192 Tryo 167, 180, 182 Verón, Pablo 157, 165 Via Katlehong 35 Vieyra, Victoria 157 Wahdan, Ahmad 5, 8, 11, 8, 119, 120, 121, 122, 125, 129, 130, 135, 204 Waro, Danyèl 26, 34 Williams, Hank 71 Zazie 167, 180, 182, 192