Browse Titles - 5 results
See details
Aidyo, ghosts in the forest
of University of Oxford. Pitt Rivers Museum, in The Louis Sarno Archive, Film; interview by Nick Lobley, fl. 2013 (Oxford, England: University of Oxford. Pitt Rivers Museum), 1 min,
Source: web.prm.ox.ac.uk
Source: web.prm.ox.ac.uk
The video clip shows Louis Sarno talking about meeting forest spirits in the rainforests of the Central African Republic, and is part of a series of video interviews with Louis that were recorded in April 2012. Bayaka believe in a divine creator, Kumba, who created the world and then retreated. Bayaka life in the...
Sample
of University of Oxford. Pitt Rivers Museum, in The Louis Sarno Archive, Film; interview by Nick Lobley, fl. 2013 (Oxford, England: University of Oxford. Pitt Rivers Museum), 1 min,
Source: web.prm.ox.ac.uk
Source: web.prm.ox.ac.uk
Description
The video clip shows Louis Sarno talking about meeting forest spirits in the rainforests of the Central African Republic, and is part of a series of video interviews with Louis that were recorded in April 2012. Bayaka believe in a divine creator, Kumba, who created the world and then retreated. Bayaka life in the rainforests is intimately connected with many different types of spirit, many of which must be propitiated for ecological and social we...
The video clip shows Louis Sarno talking about meeting forest spirits in the rainforests of the Central African Republic, and is part of a series of video interviews with Louis that were recorded in April 2012. Bayaka believe in a divine creator, Kumba, who created the world and then retreated. Bayaka life in the rainforests is intimately connected with many different types of spirit, many of which must be propitiated for ecological and social wellbeing. Some spirits, such as bobé, appear in leaf form, sometimes even glowing in the dark. Some spirits, such as the women's Lingboku spirit, are heard but not seen. Other spirits are believed to be present in birds such as owls. In this clip Louis Sarno talks about meeting spirits in the forest.
Show more
Show less
Date Written / Recorded
2012-04
Field of Study
World Music
Content Type
Archival footage
Contributor
Louis Sarno, 1954-2017
Author / Creator
Louis Sarno, 1954-2017, Nick Lobley, fl. 2013
Publisher
University of Oxford. Pitt Rivers Museum
Person Discussed
Louis Sarno, 1954-2017
Topic / Theme
Spirituality, Ghosts, Occultism, Aka
Copyright Message
Material sourced from the Louis Sarno Archive, Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford. Copyright © Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.
×
See details
Ovahimba Years Project, Keep the Dance Alive
written by Rina Sherman, fl. 2006; directed by Rina Sherman, fl. 2006; produced by Rina Sherman, fl. 2006, in Ovahimba Years Project (Watertown, MA: Documentary Educational Resources (DER), 2007), 1 hour 15 mins
A unique voyage through the music, dance and spirit possession practices of the Ovahimba people of north-western Namibia and south-western Angola, Keep the Dance Alive features remarkable footage of how dance and spirit possession is integrated into everyday life from infancy to death. The documentary presents a s...
Sample
written by Rina Sherman, fl. 2006; directed by Rina Sherman, fl. 2006; produced by Rina Sherman, fl. 2006, in Ovahimba Years Project (Watertown, MA: Documentary Educational Resources (DER), 2007), 1 hour 15 mins
Description
A unique voyage through the music, dance and spirit possession practices of the Ovahimba people of north-western Namibia and south-western Angola, Keep the Dance Alive features remarkable footage of how dance and spirit possession is integrated into everyday life from infancy to death. The documentary presents a singular vision of the Ovahimba people, that of director Rina Sherman who filmed the lives of an Omuhimba family for seven years. A uniq...
A unique voyage through the music, dance and spirit possession practices of the Ovahimba people of north-western Namibia and south-western Angola, Keep the Dance Alive features remarkable footage of how dance and spirit possession is integrated into everyday life from infancy to death. The documentary presents a singular vision of the Ovahimba people, that of director Rina Sherman who filmed the lives of an Omuhimba family for seven years. A unique voyage through the music, dance and spirit possession practices of the Ovahimba people of north-western Namibia and south-western Angola, Keep the Dance Alive features remarkable footage of how dance and spirit possession is integrated into everyday life from infancy to death. The documentary presents a singular vision of the Ovahimba people, that of director Rina Sherman who filmed the lives of an Omuhimba family for seven years. She focuses on how singing, rhythm and voice work together with dance and spirit possession to compose a complete imaginary universe and a dense and complex social structure. Keep the Dance Alive is part of The Ovahimba Years Project, a long-term multi-disciplinary ethnographic study of the Ovahimba and other Otjiherero-language-speaking peoples of northwestern Namibia and southwestern Angola
Show more
Show less
Field of Study
Anthropology
Content Type
Documentary
Contributor
Rina Sherman, fl. 2006
Author / Creator
Rina Sherman, fl. 2006
Date Published / Released
2007
Publisher
Documentary Educational Resources (DER)
Series
Ovahimba Years Project
Topic / Theme
Himba (Ovaherero, Ovahimba), Women, Dance and dancing, Rural population, Tribal and national groups, Religion, Religious rites and ceremonies, Spiritual possession, Dance, Ethnography, Simba
Copyright Message
© Documentary Educational Resources
×
See details
Reel 3: The annual Nowruz festival and pilgrimage at the great mosque, held at the spring equinox. Place: Mazar-i Sharif.
of Wesleyan University. World Music Archives, in The Mark Slobin Fieldwork Archive, Music in the Afghan North, 1967-1972, Film Footage and Monographs, Settings and Landscapes (Middletown, CT) , 2 mins
Iranian or Persian New Year celebration, Nowruz
Sample
of Wesleyan University. World Music Archives, in The Mark Slobin Fieldwork Archive, Music in the Afghan North, 1967-1972, Film Footage and Monographs, Settings and Landscapes (Middletown, CT) , 2 mins
Description
Iranian or Persian New Year celebration, Nowruz
Field of Study
World Music
Content Type
Archival footage
Contributor
Mark Slobin, 1943-
Author / Creator
Mark Slobin, 1943-
Person Discussed
Imām 'Alī, 0601-0661
Topic / Theme
Pilgrimage, Islam, Mosques, Worship, Afghans, Iranians
Copyright Message
Material sourced from the World Music Archive, Wesleyan University. Copyright Mark Slobin.
×
See details
This is A Music: Reclaiming An Untouchable Drum
directed by Zoe C. Sherinian; produced by Zoe C. Sherinian (Sherinian Productions, 2011), 1 hour 13 mins
This ethnomusicological documentary is about the psychological and economic transformation of a group of Dalit [formerly called outcaste or untouchable] parai frame drummers from a village near Paramagudi, Tamil Nadu, South India. The internal shift in the self-perception that these drummers undergo includes three...
Sample
directed by Zoe C. Sherinian; produced by Zoe C. Sherinian (Sherinian Productions, 2011), 1 hour 13 mins
Description
This ethnomusicological documentary is about the psychological and economic transformation of a group of Dalit [formerly called outcaste or untouchable] parai frame drummers from a village near Paramagudi, Tamil Nadu, South India. The internal shift in the self-perception that these drummers undergo includes three interwoven threads of musical identity: the identity of the drum, of the music they play, and of the status of the drummers. Through t...
This ethnomusicological documentary is about the psychological and economic transformation of a group of Dalit [formerly called outcaste or untouchable] parai frame drummers from a village near Paramagudi, Tamil Nadu, South India. The internal shift in the self-perception that these drummers undergo includes three interwoven threads of musical identity: the identity of the drum, of the music they play, and of the status of the drummers. Through the lens of rarely filmed folk performances and the experience of an American female ethnomusicologist who comes to study with the group Kurinji Malar, we see a group of nine drummers trying to eke out a living while negotiating ongoing caste discrimination in their village. The Hindu caste system constructs parai drummers and their drum as polluted because they play for funerals. As they have professionalized, however, they reconstruct their performance as “music” and their identity as “worldly.” The film also explores the economic options of these musicians as laborers. Two of the best drummers are tempted to limit their “drumset” performances to auspicious festival occasions because they are able to make enough money and gain social status as construction workers. Other members who work as field laborers or shepherd goats are completely dependent on drumming to supplement their income. The narrative of this film focuses on the cultural debate among these drummers over whether they should reclaim the term parai (associated by many with the drummer’s “degraded” caste name Paraiyar) or they should continue to use the English term “drumset,” which carries middleclass status. When the drummers get an opportunity to go to the large cosmopolitan city of Chennai to participate in the Chennai Sangamam folk festival, they experience very different treatment at the hands of both the festival organizers and the multi-caste, multi-class urban audience. On their way to the festival they are shocked to find the extensive use of the term “parai-attam” or parai dance in all of the festival advertisement. One of the drummers asks, “Why do they still associate us with the ‘Paraiyan’ caste? Why won’t they let us walk freely in society?” When we interview them soon after they arrive and then at the end of their festival week in Chennai, we see, however, that their overwhelmingly positive reception has greatly shifted their self-perception and value of village based folk artists. Further, they decide to (re)embrace of the term “parai.” It becomes clear that experiencing this appreciation helps the Kurinji Malar drummers reinforce a sense of pride in their drumming as valued music where as previously it was easy for them to internalize these practices as degraded. The question then becomes; can they sustain these changes back in the village? This film shows that changing how parai drummers identify their art reflects the process of changing self-identity through musical performance possible for those still considered by many as “untouchables.” However, this case ultimately shows that complete change in presentation of self in the village context is difficult because of the economic dependence of outcaste drummers on the village middle castes who continue to practice casteism. Woven throughout the film are dynamic and rare examples of village folk dances like karagattam, kummi and oiylattam, oppari funeral lament, stick fighting, and drumming as well as the voices of the drummers and local activists, who tell the story of the process of working for the economic and social liberation of the oppressed Dalits of India through the folk arts.
Show more
Show less
Field of Study
World Music
Content Type
Documentary
Contributor
Zoe C. Sherinian
Author / Creator
Zoe C. Sherinian
Date Published / Released
2011
Publisher
Sherinian Productions
Topic / Theme
Folk music, Spirituality, Religious beliefs, Ethnomusicology, Drums, Tamil
Copyright Message
Copyright (c) 2011 Sherinian Productions LLC
×
See details
Unmasked, Boyobi and Ejengi
of University of Oxford. Pitt Rivers Museum, in The Louis Sarno Archive, Film; interview by Nick Lobley, fl. 2013 (Oxford, England: University of Oxford. Pitt Rivers Museum), 3 mins,
Source: web.prm.ox.ac.uk
Source: web.prm.ox.ac.uk
Sample
of University of Oxford. Pitt Rivers Museum, in The Louis Sarno Archive, Film; interview by Nick Lobley, fl. 2013 (Oxford, England: University of Oxford. Pitt Rivers Museum), 3 mins,
Source: web.prm.ox.ac.uk
Source: web.prm.ox.ac.uk
Date Written / Recorded
2012-04
Field of Study
World Music
Content Type
Interview
Contributor
Louis Sarno, 1954-2017
Author / Creator
Louis Sarno, 1954-2017, Nick Lobley, fl. 2013
Publisher
University of Oxford. Pitt Rivers Museum
Person Discussed
Louis Sarno, 1954-2017
Topic / Theme
Spirituality, Hunting, Singing, Dance and dancing, Religious rites and ceremonies, Aka
Copyright Message
Material sourced from the Louis Sarno Archive, Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford. Copyright © Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.
×
