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From Africa to India: Sidi Music in the Indian Ocean Diaspora
- The video begins in the Sidi Fort at Janjira Island, built during the heyday of Sidi powers in the Mughal...
- The video begins in the Sidi Fort at Janjira Island, built during the heyday of Sidi powers in the Mughal period.
- It then surveys the music and dances of African-Indian men, women, and children in Karnataka, Hyderabad, Bombay, and Gujarat...
- The video begins in the Sidi Fort at Janjira Island, built during the heyday of Sidi powers in the Mughal period.
- It then surveys the music and dances of African-Indian men, women, and children in Karnataka, Hyderabad, Bombay, and Gujarat.
- Exciting footage of ritual events shows the stages of music during ecstatic trance, exorcism, and celebratory rites, when both male and female Sidi Sufi saints are invoked through euphoric rhythms, voices, and communal dances.
- Musical instruments such as footed drums, coconut rattles, armpit-held drums, and braced musical bows show the retention of African musical practices.
- In excerpts from a conference for Sidis and scholars, Sidis present their own views on their history, contemporary issues, and future prospects.
- The film concludes with exciting concert footage from the first international Sidi tour of England and Wales in 2002.
Narrated by UCLA ethnomusicologists Amy and Nazir Jairazbhoy.
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The SIDI Malunga Project - Rejuvenating the African Musical Bow in India
This 42-minute documentary chronicles a one-week malunga training camp held at Desert Coursers Nature Resort in Zainabad, Gujarat in February 2003. Prior research by the Jairazbhoys had revealed that fewer than ten Sidis (African Indians) could still play the instrument, all of them elderly.
The purpose of the cam...
This 42-minute documentary chronicles a one-week malunga training camp held at Desert Coursers Nature Resort in Zainabad, Gujarat in February 2003. Prior research by the Jairazbhoys had revealed that fewer than ten Sidis (African Indians) could still play the instrument, all of them elderly.
The purpose of the camp was to bring together some of these elders to teach the basic techniques of malunga construction and performance to 16 Sidi youths, s...
This 42-minute documentary chronicles a one-week malunga training camp held at Desert Coursers Nature Resort in Zainabad, Gujarat in February 2003. Prior research by the Jairazbhoys had revealed that fewer than ten Sidis (African Indians) could still play the instrument, all of them elderly.
The purpose of the camp was to bring together some of these elders to teach the basic techniques of malunga construction and performance to 16 Sidi youths, selected from different parts of Gujarat.
Scenes include:
- assembling 16 malunga bows especially made for the camp
- group instruction in playing techniques along with singing and dancing
- worship at a Sufi shrine in natural context
- spontaneous comic disco dancing
- brief excerpts from the final costumed Sidi performance
- interviews with the students
- concludes with a return to Gujarat one year later to evaluate the impact of the camp on the participants
