magazine of the philadelphia folklore project

Volume 20:1/2 winter 2007 ISSN 1075-0029

African song / Fatu Gayflor War and wealth: song in Liberia Music for liberation: Seku Neblett Adeeb Refela: Egyptian oud All that we do Works in progress is the magazine of the Philadelphia Folklore Project, a 20-year-old public interest folklife agency. We work with people and communities in the

Philadelphia area to build critical folk cultural knowledge, inside sustain the complex folk and traditional arts of our region, and challenge practices that diminish these local grassroots arts and humanities. To learn more, please visit us: www.folkloreproject.org or call 215.726.1106. philadelphia folklore project staff 3 From the editor Editor/PFP Director: Debora Kodish 4 African song / new Associate Director: Toni Shapiro-Phim contexts: An interview with Members’ Services Coordinator: Roko Kawai Designer: IFE designs + Associates Fatu Gayflor Printing: Garrison Printers [Printed on recycled paper] 8 War and wealth: music in post-conflict Liberia philadelphia folklore By Ruth M. Stone project board 10 Music as a tool for Linda Goss Mimi Iijima liberation: Seku Neblett’s Germaine Ingram Ife Nii-Owoo Mawusi Simmons Yvette Smalls work in Philadelphia Ellen Somekawa Dorothy Wilkie By Elizabeth Sayre Mary Yee 12 The freedom to we gratefully acknowledge feel whatever you feel: support from: Adeeb Refela

The National Endowment for the Arts, which believes By Elizabeth Sayre that a great nation deserves great arts Pennsylvania Council on the Arts 14 All that we do Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission By Toni Shapiro-Phim The Pennsylvania Humanities Council and Debora Kodish and the National Endowment for the Humanities’ We the People initiative on American history The Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development The Humanities-in-the Arts Initiative, administered by The Pennsylvania Humanities Council, and funded principally by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts The Philadelphia Cultural Fund The William Penn Foundation Dance Advance, a program of the Philadelphia Center for Arts and Heritage funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by the University of the Arts Philadelphia Music Project, a grant program funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by the University of the Arts Philadelphia Cultural Management Initiative, a grant program funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by the Drexel University Arts Administration Program The Pew Charitable Trusts The Malka and Jacob Goldfarb Foundation Front cover: The Samuel Fels Fund Fatu Gayflor teaching at Independence Foundation the Folk Arts–Cultural The Philadelphia Foundation Treasures Charter School. The Douty Foundation Photo: James Wasserman The Hilles Foundation The Henrieta Tower Wurts Foundation Stockton Rush Bartol Foundation and wonderful individual Philadelphia Folklore Project members We invite your support: thank you to all from the editor

ast night was our annual “African Song / New Contexts” programs in particular “Dance Happens Here” concert last spring; Ruth Stone’s communities of color. Ideas and concert. The culminating essay was first presented in an artist common projects first mentioned program of our 20th salon this fall, part of an effort to at our TA workshops are often anniversary year, it contextualize that concert. early steps on a road to highly Lincluded premieres of great Anna, Antonia, and Fatu can be visible public programs, staged percussive dance: new and seen again in our current under PFP’s umbrella or challenging work by local artists documentary photography independently. who are deeply engaged in exhibition, “All That We Do: For 20 years we have used our shaping vital vernacular art forms. Contemporary Women, Traditional long-running programs—public The two featured groups, Arts.” James Wasserman’s events, technical assistance, arts Flamenco del Encuentro and tap photographs invite you to look education, this magazine and artists Germaine Ingram and more closely at some women in other documentary projects—to Ensemble, have pushed our region who retain a help keep local vernacular themselves to find their own commitment to folk and traditions accessible and places, voices, and sounds while traditional arts, truly against all sustainable. We continue to be respecting and remaining odds. We invite you to look again inspired by the seriousness of responsible to very particular great because we believe that these purpose of local artists working in traditions (and teachers). On artists and these vernacular discrete cultural forms, by the stage, they were spectacular and traditions require—and repay— power and continuing relevance inspiring; the pairing helped close attention. Arts and artists of “minority” traditions, and by people to hear and see them like these often seem to hide in the lively presence and differently and better. Such plain sight, an advantage when significance of diverse alternative occasional concerts are one strand they carry dangerous or minority artistic legacies in our of PFP’s work. We work in perspectives, but a disadvantage neighborhoods. We are privileged partnerships to create times and when they are overlooked and to be on this road together. spaces where people can be fully dismissed. In the labels for who they are, speaking, dancing, Wasserman’s photographs, the and playing in artistic languages artists’ own words begin to —Debora Kodish that allow deep histories to be suggest some of the values, December 9, 2007 fully present. And we invest in motivations, challenges and people’s capacity to sustain struggles that are part of the such processes. particular kinds of art-making in There is nothing like the magic which they are engaged. of great art happening in public: Musicians Adeeb Refela, and people can be transformed through Seku Neblett, also featured in this such moments. And these highly issue, have been participants in visible events get attention, building PFP’s technical assistance (TA) public knowledge of diverse forms program, which has served 68 of great, culturally meaningful art artists in the last three months happening here and now. But alone. In gatherings and behind these events stands workshops at PFP, artists share something even more significant: their dreams and visions, their what these events and genres allow, needs and issues. They consider the relationships and knowledge how to explain who they are and they build, the new pathways and what they do. And they are possibilities they open. coached in the necessary work of This issue of our magazine finding the material resources to directs you to some of these behind- realize their dreams. Over the last the-scenes matters. Three artists 20 years, more than 368 included in these pages—Anna traditional artists and cultural Rubio, Antonia Arias, and Fatu workers have participated in this Gayflor—have been featured in free program, raising more earlier Folklore Project concerts. than $2.73 million dollars for Anna and Antonia were part of the locally based folk and traditional December “Dance Happens Here” arts projects. Often these have concert just mentioned. Fatu was been the first outside dollars to be one of the artists performing in our invested in cultural heritage

2007-2008 Winter WIP 3 “Our songs, heard far from home, carry us back with memories, but they also inspire us and give us courage to go forward with our lives.” >artist*profile<

Fatu Gayflor at PFP’s African Song / New Contexts concert, spring 2007. Photo: Jacques-Jean Tiziou / www.jjtiziou.net

4 WIP Winter 2007-2008 by Toni Shapiro-Phim african song / new contexts: fatu gayflor

Over the past year, the Philadelphia Folklore Project has been marking our 20th birthday by paying close attention to how local communities and artists sustain diverse and significant cultural traditions. In April, we presented three noted local African immigrant musicians—Fatu Gayflor, Zaye Tete, and Mogauwane Mahloele—along with their ensembles in a concert performance. All of the featured artists are now practicing music in contexts that differ greatly from those in which they learned and performed in their homelands. They are making music that maintains a continuity with what came before, but also requires, inspires, and challenges people to open up to previously unimagined possibilities.

ach participating artist paramount importance to the lives of Vai and Lorma ethnicities.) As a young has experienced exile many who practice these traditions adult, she went out on her own, as a result of war and and revitalize city communities. Our founding the successful Daughters of social and political concert drew attention to the King N’Jola dance and music ensemble violence. Each has met significance and artistry of local in Liberia’s capital, Monrovia. She has stark racism and other immigrants; tables from activist and recorded three CDs and was prejudices in the service organizations provided showcased in Italy by the United process of carving out a information; and the artists themselves Nations World Food Program to bring life here—even while doing things that used the occasion to share some of attention to the plight of Liberians othersE might take for granted, such as their own perspectives. caught in civil war. In the United States buying and settling into a new home, Now living in New Jersey, Fatu since 1999, she has performed at or sending one’s child down the street Gayflor is a renowned singer and Liberian weddings and other to school. Each has had to figure out recording artist from Liberia. A singer gatherings, has taught through the the complex systems involved in and dancer from a young age, she Pennsylvania Council on the Arts/Arts getting one’s artistic accomplishments performed often in community in Education program, and is currently acknowledged as valuable far from the contexts, including the ritual Moonlight teaching Liberian music and dance at original contexts in which they were Dance, in her home village of Kakata. the Folk Arts-Cultural Treasures nourished. And each knows—through Later, as a member of Liberia’s School in Philadelphia. “It is important personal experience or that of friends National Cultural Troupe, which is that artists be heard,” she says: and relatives—the daunting barriers to based in the national artists’ village of “Our songs, heard far from home, family reunification, full citizenship, Kendeja, she was given the title carry us back with memories, but they and rebuilding a life. Part of PFP’s “Princess” in recognition of her also inspire us and give us courage to mission is to address issues of concern exquisite renditions of songs in most go forward with our lives. Each in the field of folk and traditional arts, of the languages of Liberia’s sixteen traditional song has a long, long history, and a just immigration policy is of ethnic groups. (She herself is of mixed [Continued on next page >]

2007-2008 Winter WIP 5 fatu gayflor/continued from p. 5

L-R: Fatu Gayflor and drummer Blamoh Doe. “ Each traditional song has a long, long history, with Photo: James Wasserman. Fatu performing complicated meanings. It is so hard to describe. Each is “Awoya” at PFP’s “African Song / New part of our whole way of being. The songs can add to Contexts” concert. Photo: the world’s understanding of Liberia. ” Jacques-Jean Tiziou / www.jjtiziou.net with complicated meanings. It is so war. Sung in the Vai language, The following interview with hard to describe. Each is part of our “Awoya” speaks of the suffering of Fatu Gayflor was conducted by whole way of being. The songs can add innocent people who were simply Timothy D. Nevin in the dance to the world’s understanding of going about their business when war studio space of ACANA, Inc. Liberia. I hope that, one day, more broke out and destroyed their lives. (African Cultural Alliance of local traditional artists will be Gayflor wrote this while living in exile North America), in Southwest recognized for what they give all in the Ivory Coast after the death of Philadelphia, on August 11, people, as well as what they give their her baby during the early days of 2006. own communities.” Liberia’s civil war. Singing it was, she In last spring’s concert, artists says, a way of focusing her grief, presented songs that reflect the beauty and releasing her tears. and the pain of moving forward in new —Toni Shapiro-Phim and sometimes unwelcoming surroundings. In other songs and other arts, immigrant artists’ experiences are less visible, but no less present. Gayflor, for example, closed the concert with a song she composed, “Awoya.” This is a plea for an end to

6 WIP Winter 2007-2008 A N INTERVIEW WITH F ATU G AYFLOR by Timothy D. Nevins

Tim: Fatu, if you don’t mind Nimba Burr, did not record in the ethnic groups were living on what land, me asking, how did you get the studio until much later, in the 1990s. and which groups had good relations title of “Princess”? Does this mean with each other. that you come from a royal family Tim: Did any of those early vinyl and that your father was a king? records survive the war? Do you Tim: Who was the director of the Fatu: Actually no, even though my have any of them with you still? Cultural Center when you arrived? father was a chief in a Vai village, I don’t Fatu:: Unfortunately, no, none survived Fatu: Peter Ballah was the director of consider myself to be actual royalty. I that I know of. the campus, and Mr. Zumana was the received the title of “Princess” when I stage director. was crowned Princess of Liberian Tim: How would you compare Folklore Music in 1984, during the time your music at the time to the Tim: Fatu, how did you support of President Samuel K. Doe. I was given funky hit songs of the “doyen yourself financially while part of that title for being the first woman to diva” of Liberian music, Miatta the Cultural Troupe? learn to sing folksongs in most of the Fahnbulleh? Fatu: At that time I received a monthly sixteen national languages. Fatu: Well, we both have a Vai ethnic salary from the government—the background, but her music was Department of Information, Cultural Tim: That is really interesting. “modern” and mostly sung in English, Affairs, and Tourism (ICAT)—as did So what was your first experience while ours was “traditional.” other members of the troupe. There in the recording studio, recording was also a school, a dormitory, and a that famous “golden voice” of Tim: So tell me, what was it like cafeteria on the campus. yours? living as a young teenager in the Fatu: Well, before 1980 no recording National Art Village at Kendeja Tim: I was surprised to learn that studios existed in Monrovia except for before Charles Taylor’s rebel while you were living in the the tiny “ABC Studio” with its two- invasion and the civil war National Art Village at the track recording device in the crowded destroyed the campus at the Kendeja Cultural Center, there Waterside Market. This set-up was very beginning of 1990? was also a Sande “Bush” School rudimentary and exploitative. Recording Fatu: I left the campus in 1985, so set up nearby that initiated young artists were only given a very small fortunately I was not there when the girls into the ways of their elders. amount of money in a lump sum after war reached the campus in 1990. My I normally associate Sande recording a song, and there was no memories are from before the war “Bush” Schools with rural areas in such thing as a recording contract. It came. One striking feature at Kendeja the Northwest of Liberia, not was pretty bad. The situation improved were the various examples of with metropolitan areas such as Monrovia. a little bit a few years later when a indigenous architecture. Traditional Fatu: Yes, there was a Sande Village second recording studio, called “Studio houses were built at Kendeja, including called Kenema for the instruction of the 99,” was opened by a Lebanese man homes in the Vai, Kpelle, Bassa, and young women. It was within walking named Faisal Helwani. Studio 99 was Mandingo building styles, all of which distance of Kendeja. One of the located on 5th Street in the residential are different. Many were built with the prominent instructors there was an Sinkor neighborhood. same materials, including thatch roofs, older woman named “Ma Gbessay” but with vastly different designs. It was (Gbessay Kiazolu). I personally was Tim: I am curious, what was your important that the Mandingos were never involved in the actual training biggest hit song during this early included there because many Liberians aspects. Remember, the Kendeja period? didn’t consider the Mandingos to be Cultural Center was not located in Fatu: My biggest hit song, “Si Kele We,” “true citizens” of Liberia even after downtown Monrovia; we were in the was recorded in 1984 with a total of living several generations in the country. country area to the south of the city, on only 25 vinyl records being pressed! They were a group that was the beachfront. These records were given as gifts to misrepresented through history lessons visiting foreign dignitaries. The rest of and generations of storytelling. People the recordings were only released on forget that all of us are from cassette tape and promoted by the somewhere else. The way African state-run radio station, ELBC. Other nations were carved up [by European Cultural Troupe members, such as imperialists] had little to do with what [Continued on p. 25 >]

2007-2008 Winter WIP 7 by Ruth M. Stone <

Photos (L-R): St. Peter’s Kpelle Choir, Monrovia, Liberia (two photos): Dancer at the Momo Kaine funeral, Sanoyea. Liberia. Photos by Verlon L. Stone, courtesy of Liberian Collections Project, of view Indiana University. * point > war& wealth: music in p o s t-conflict Liberia

left Liberia in the Charlotte, North Carolina. He talents were featured in a summer of 1989 returned in death to his wonderful concert here last knowing that the homeland. After a funeral in spring. I wasn’t able to join you political situation was Monrovia, his family brought him for that event, but I’m thrilled to shaky at best. The back to Sanoyea, some 90 miles share a few thoughts about my dictator Samuel Doe had in the interior. recent research trip to Liberia. Ijailed many relatives of the The 14 years of war and Although the country was Kpelle singers I worked with in destruction that followed are well devastated by war, and reports Monrovia, and these musicians known to the world. Vast often focus on the resulting often stopped by to relay stories numbers of people were killed; damage to the infrastructure, when they returned from visiting many more fled to other parts of I want to tell you what has been family members in prison. In Liberia, or the neighboring preserved—what has actually December 1988 my husband countries of Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, flourished—during the and I had filmed the funeral of Guinea, or Sierra Leone. Other 18 years I was absent. To an James Gbarbea where singers Liberians went farther, including ethnomusicologist the vitality of covertly protested political some who are living in the the music was impressive, a oppression with song lyrics such Philadelphia area. Philadelphia cause for celebration for all who as “Ku kelee be lii ee, Doe a pail has been fortunate in that several know Liberian music. ii, ee” (We all are going, Doe is fine singers, including Fatu Before I tell you about the going). Gbarbea, a former Gayflor and Zaye Tete, were music I experienced in June and government minister, had fled to among those refugees. And their July this past year, let me say that

8 WIP Winter 2007-2008 I visited Liberia for the first time dynamic female soloist who had Even more tightly coordinated when I was three years old and my been the choir’s sparkplug. As were the transverse horn family went to live in Bong County. various choir members saw me, ensembles we encountered in the After being home-schooled in the they came up to welcome me, hug Gbanga area of Bong County, some mornings, I accompanied Kpelle me, and relay the news that Feme 120 miles interior. We recorded people to the fields, went fishing was gone—she had traveled to one group in Baaokole, near with them, and sat with them by the Utah to visit her daughter. Gbanga. In the Baaokole group, cooking fires. My parents, who were The good news was that there each horn played only one or two missionaries for the Lutheran were now three dynamic young notes, and each player timed his church, took me and my brother to singers who could lead the singing in notes to create a part of the whole. Liberia, where we lived in Bong the choir. We were thrilled to record A drummer added another County until we left to obtain our a choir still bound together as a tight rhythmic layer to the richly high school and college educations. social group and greet some textured sound. The women

I returned in 1970 as a graduate members who had been in the choir dancers created visual rhythms that student and lived there on and off since the 1980s, such as Tono-pele. amplified the excitement of the until 1989. The horror of the massacre of players. This Baaokole group I planned this last June and July 1990, when soldiers of the Armed has been playing together since to visit sites where I had recorded Forces of Liberia killed more than the 1960s and continues today, before the war and to research the 600 people in St. Peter’s, seemed often getting invitations to play for performers and their music. I far away as the women sang in the county superintendent. While began my work at St. Peter’s their tight call-and-response in earlier years they might have Lutheran Church in Monrovia, arrangements accompanied by played in the chief’s official where we had worked with the their gourd rattles. This is how ensemble, in the twenty-first Kpelle choir—that bold group of musicians communicate and build century they are more women singers and male community. Kpelle people say, like freelance musicians. instrumentalists who sang about “Kwa faa ngule mu.” (We respond In nearby Suacoco we found a injustices in the late 1980s. I knew underneath the song). This same group that had added a struck metal that many members of the choir technique is used by both Fatu instrument to an ensemble had fled to the Bunduburam Gayflor and Zeye Tete in containing four horns and one refugee camp in Ghana during the their music. drum. The musicians told me that war. They had written me a letter In the summer of 2007, the St. they had painted their horns light from Ghana describing the music Peter’s choir was no longer blue, the color of the UN troops, that they were performing even in emphasizing protest against the because they had played at several those difficult times. government, as they felt they had functions for the Bangladeshi As I walked into the church on a to do in 1989. They proudly sang contingent now resident nearby, Saturday afternoon, when I knew the Liberian national anthem in helping to keep the peace. The there would be choir practice, I Kpelle and requested that we looked for Feme Neni-kole, the record it. [Continued on p. 24 >]

2007-2008 Winter WIP 9 < artist*profile >

Adeeb Refela. Photo: Elizabeth Sayre

10 WIP Winter 2007-2008 by Elizabeth Sayre Adeeb Refela: “The freedom to feel whatever you feel”

ADEEB REFELA IS AN ‘UD (OUD) PLAYER AND buying a guitar. By the age of 16, I had figured out how to violinist from Cairo, Egypt, resident in Philadelphia play. I didn’t know how to tune it at that time, and I since 2003. Understanding his musical world means asked one of my friends, he was a musician, how to tune crossing wide spans of time and space. One of his two it, and I got it very quickly. And I practiced. After that I specialties, the ‘ud, is a short-necked, pear-shaped, played the ‘ud. The ‘ud is the national instrument in our 1 Afretless lute; it dates from the seventh century. Some country. I used to listen to it on the radio; I used to like it of the melodies and types of pieces he plays on it are very much. So I decided to try it. When I started, I used more than a thousand years old. His other instrument, to go to some friends in the music field. They the violin, was introduced into Egypt and other Arab encouraged me; that’s why I kept going. Otherwise, I areas in the late nineteenth century during the British would have stopped. I was stuck in the second year of 2 colonial period. Most importantly, Refela grew up in a college for three years. I didn’t finish because I was dynamic, urban environment. Cairo is a regional distracted by music too much, because I love it! cultural capital, where musicians continually adapt Whoever goes on in this field has too much struggle with older genres and incorporate new ideas into their the culture and everything…and with their parents. If it work. Including old and diverse roots, representing wasn’t for love, they wouldn’t go on.” complex and cosmopolitan understandings, his music Growing up, he heard records, radio, and TV is very much born out of the moment in which it is broadcasts, and quickly developed an interest in played. Virtuosic melodic and rhythmic improvisations instrumental music: are characteristic of Arab music. “I used to know songs, but not the lyrics. I don’t Of his family, early life, and first experiences with know why. The music was more interesting to me music, Refela says: than the lyrics. Sometimes the lyrics didn’t mean “I was born on the 22nd of December, 1957, in anything to me. That’s what I thought when I was Cairo. My father was in the military. He had artistic young. The composer of music is deriving the feeling inclinations. My mother, too. My mother was a from somewhere else, not writing to the lyrics, housewife, and she used to sing as she was doing anyhow. That’s all over the globe. They derive the anything, washing dishes, or whatever. She sounded feeling, or the picture of unity of the composition, good. I have nine siblings; I’m number eight. from somewhere else. So the lyric is something [They all have] musical inclinations—they love music to fill in.” so much! My younger brother, he’s a singer. He Nonetheless, one of his major inspirations was a started after me. He’s a singer in Egypt, and he has vocalist who reinvented art song in the Middle East some albums. His name is Ameen Samy. and who drew much of her authority from childhood I was introduced to music by my [older] brother [Continued on next page >]

2007-2008 Winter WIP 11 adeeb refela/continued from p. 11

Adeeb Refela training in Qur’anic recitation century, many great Egyptian any language, yet he is famous and and his oud (an important verbal/vocal genre performers had little use for Western widely admired for his brilliantly (details). 5 Photos: governed by very specific rules of musical notation. Umm Kulthum, for structured compositions (many of Elizabeth Sayre pronunciation): example, was famous for teaching new which have been transcribed by pieces to her accompanists by rote— admiring students). At Dagher’s that is, by ear, through repetition. salon-like gatherings, Refela learned Although many musicians trained in these pieces, as well as more about Western classical music develop a bias the art of creating melody. that elevates the ability to read music In 1976, Refela began performing in over aural skills, musicians who play in public, and in the early 1980s he other styles recognize the advantages moved to the United States, joining of learning by ear. Refela comments family members in California. Early on, about his own process as a student: he experienced the typical mishaps of “I started by ear. Actually… if you negotiating a new environment in a want to learn music, and get the best foreign language: “I used to listen to Umm Kulthum. out of yourself, the logical way is to “I had difficulty when I came first to She’s legendary. She had fans from all learn by ear, because it’s like language. America. I lost my luggage, and I had over the Arabian countries, even the We spoke before [we] invented to deal with a worker in the airport. It Turkish people, even in Persia, Iran. written language. You get the feeling was difficult for me to describe. I told She passed away in 1975. So I didn’t and you get the ideas. Anyway, I her, ‘I lost my bags.’ She asked me, have the chance to… I was too young started by ear, but afterward I taught ‘Your luggage?’ I didn’t know what the to go to concerts, you know? My myself how to read and write by hell is ‘luggage.’ I thought she was favorite composer’s name is reading method books. By reading, and talking about something else. But, [Muhammad] ‘Abd al-Wahhab.” asking somebody if it’s right or wrong, anyway, they sent me the luggage on It would be hard to overestimate the some musician. It was too much work, the second day. I was successful in cultural impact of Umm Kulthum, but it’s more engrained in my brain giving them the address.” “unquestionably the most famous than [if I had been] led by somebody.” Working many different kinds of day singer in the twentieth-century Arab In Egypt in the mid-twentieth jobs, for more than six years he played 3 world. ” She and singer-composer century, highly visible professional three nights a week in nightclubs and ‘Abd al-Wahhab were of the same ensembles became more and more other venues in the Los Angeles and generation, born in the early 20th used to playing from written scores, San Diego areas. In 1988, in order to century, and were media stars, direct which also meant that the sound of comply with U.S. immigration rules, competitors, and eventually instrumental ensembles became Refela returned to Egypt. collaborators in the 1960s and 1970s. increasingly uniform and less In the early 1990s, two 6 In some ways they represented heterophonic. This change, in part due opportunities arose that were opposing trends in Egyptian music. to the creation of music important for his music career. The ‘Abd al-Wahhab was known as a conservatories with fixed curricula and first, in 1993, was an international ‘ud modernizer who borrowed from the resulting standardization of competition in Cairo; his sister read Western styles in his compositions, repertoires and styles, also meant that about it in the newspaper and while Umm Kulthum, always a educated musicians had to be suggested that he enter. Refela won savvy judge of her audience as well increasingly literate, in addition to second place (but, he notes, the first- as a spectacular performer, aurally skilled, in order to manage both place winner told him he should have positioned herself as an authentically traditional and Western-influenced won). Second, and just a few weeks 4 Egyptian traditionalist. musical jobs. after the ‘ud competition, he joined Both Umm Kulthum and ‘Abd al- While in college, Refela made an the National Ensemble for Arabic Wahhab lived at a time when Egyptian important connection with Music at the Cairo Opera House, a music, particularly music performed in a brilliant Cairo musician cultural institution somewhat like highly visible public venues or who exemplified the aural and Lincoln Center, with many different broadcasts, was undergoing a improvisational skills necessary to play subdivisions and ensembles. One transition in the uses of Western-style Arab music well. Abdo Dagher (b. hundred members strong, the National staff notation. Until the mid-twentieth 1936) did not read or write music or [Continued on next page >]

12 WIP Winter 2007-2008 adeeb refela/continued from p. 12

Ensemble played “the classical stuff, group performing at that place. I told artists Bruce Kaminsky, Bill serious compositions,” says Refela, on them, ‘I do this and this.’ And they Koutsouros, and Michele Tayoun, a variety of instruments, both Arab said to me, ‘Why not? Why don’t you Adeeb works as a violinist in the Spice and European. The European bowed join us?’ I performed the whole night Route Ensemble, one of the musical strings play Arab music: with them. Not for five minutes or ten groups affiliated with Musicopia “The base of our group is the violin. minutes, I performed the whole night (formerly Strings for Schools, an You can add as many as you [like], with them, because we got…engaged. organization that presents local because they sound good together. They knew what I did. They’re musicians in school residencies and We have the violin, and the cello, and American, second-generation performances).8 He has been an the double bass; we don’t have the Lebanese. Joe Tayoun was the first instructor at Al-Bustan Seeds of viola. The ‘ud is usually a solo person I knew. He played the drum Culture summer camp in Chestnut instrument; you can have only one, or and his brother played the second Hill, an organization that educates two at the most. And we have an drum, and there’s an ‘ud player, his youth of all backgrounds in Arabic instrument made from reed, it’s called name is Roger Mgrdichian. So I joined language and culture (“Al-Bustan” nay. Like a flute. They [make the them, and from that time, I used to means “the garden”). He also holes] in it in a certain way [so] that perform with them regularly. That was participates in “Intercultural Journeys,” a they reach our tunes, with the 2003, January. I performed with them Philadelphia non-profit organization that quarter-tones. The nay is solo, too; for six months. I had to go back to promotes cross-cultural collaborations, you have only one. We have the Egypt; because of my visa, I had to particularly between Arabs and Jews— qanun. The qanun is a zither, you leave after six months. I went back to the artistic director is Israeli cellist Udi pluck it. You hook picks to your Egypt and I came back after two Bar-David of the Philadelphia Orchestra. fingers with, like, opened thimbles. months. Not even two months. And Nonetheless, Refela is eager to expand And a percussive section—you have started performing with them again.” his teaching and sharing of Arab music; the tabla, and we have something like He has found performing for he would like to take his wealth of a tambourine, we call it ‘riqq.’ And we American audiences to be creatively knowledge to university students who have a bigger size [of frame drum]; we stimulating: want to know about the inner workings call it ‘duff,’ so we have the bass sound “Americans, by culture, look for of Arab music. of it.” what’s new. It’s not that they get He remained with this group for ten bored easily, it’s because they’re years and also traveled with smaller looking for progression, improving all groups to Austria and Germany and the time. So they look for something countries in the Arab region: Kuwait, else. Since this [music] is completely Bahrain, Lebanon, Syria, Morocco, and different from what they’ve heard, Tunisia. In 2003, however, facing they find it very unique. They interact economic difficulties despite these with us more than anyone else. That’s prestigious performance how I feel it. They get it more than opportunities, Refela made the other foreigners, our music. decision to return to the United The audience back home, they know States. This time he came to the stuff… So we have to be relevant Philadelphia, where one of his to whatever they know. You [can’t] go brothers lives, and where he found too far from what should be played. that it is easier for a newcomer to So they won’t be like, ‘Oh, what are Refela is known as a specialist in a make a living than in California. Refela you doing? You’re out of your mind!’ genre called taqasim, a solo instrumental very quickly connected with local Arab But here it’s more free. You can come improvisation that combines “traditional American musicians: up with different things because of the understandings of the Arab maqam “The first week I came here, my audience here.” system with the present-day brother told me, ‘Why don’t you go A permanent resident of the United performer’s individual creativity.9 ” to a place called The Nile?’ It was at States since 2005, Refela has readily “The word ‘taqasim,’ it’s an Arabic 2nd and Chestnut in Old City. I joined in others’ educational word and they used it afterwards in grabbed my violin and went there performance projects. Alongside Greece, [where] they call it ‘taksimi.’ Saturday night, and talked to the Jewish, Greek, and Lebanese American [Continued on p. 29 >]

2007-2008 Winter WIP 13 < pfp*exhibition > all17] that we do: contemporary women, traditional arts

On display at the Philadelphia Folklore Project, 735 S. 50th Street, Philadelphia through spring 2007, after which it is available as a traveling exhibition for rental. Call for details: 215. 726.1106. The full exhibition text is included here. Text and all photographs may also be viewed online at http://www.folkloreproject.org/programs/exhibits/wedo/index.cfm

Yvette Smalls. Photo: James Wasserman, 2007 (For more detailed caption, see exhibition text).

14 WIP Winter 2007-2008 by Toni Shapiro-Phim and Debora Kodish

their lineages), all while and elsewhere, they create and Introduction enmeshed in the fast-paced global perform on many more stages than The women pictured in this shifts that impact us all. And all an outside public can know, or than exhibition choose, against all while producing exquisite and a conventional biography might odds, to learn, practice and teach important art. reveal. Their balancing acts, cultural heritage—folk and In her own way, each of whether improvised or well- traditional arts—in the 21st the featured artists is planned, reflect responsibility to century. Here are nine exceptional groundbreaking: juggling a push at family, community, heritage, artistic artists, caught in moments that conventions (artistic and social) traditions, social justice, and more. while respecting canons, or hint at the complexity of their lives Yvette Smalls does hair: balancing a life-long dedication to 1] and arts: Antonia Arias, Fatu she is a master braider and a hair learning a cultural practice while Gayflor, Vera Nakonechny, sculptor, revealing the beauty isolated from other such Ayesha Rahim, Anna Rubio, within her clients. Here she practitioners, or insisting on Yvette Smalls, Michele welcomes the photographer, and constructive, positive self-imagery Tayoun, Elaine Hoffman Watts us, to her home in West in the face of racism and inequity. and Susan Watts. Art Philadelphia, 2007. forms represented include Nine women, out of hundreds flamenco, Liberian song, Ukrainian of artists with whom the Folklore 2] Saturday morning breakfast needlework, African American Project has worked over two for Liberian singer Fatu Gayflor crochet/crown-making and hair decades: this 20th anniversary and family (husband Timothy sculpture, Middle Eastern exhibition reflects ongoing and Karblee and daughter Fayola dance and song, and Jewish shared commitments to widening Thelma Karblee) at home in klezmer music, a small sampling of public knowledge about what Sicklerville, New Jersey, 2007. the vital contemporary counts as culture, to grappling Because of work schedules, the practice of traditional arts in with the continuing significance family can enjoy a morning meal Philadelphia today. Some of the of heritage in a fractured world, together only once or twice a women pictured were featured in and to creating (somehow, week. recent Folklore Project concerts, and together) systems and Anna Rubio (center) and salons or exhibitions; others will structures supporting meaningful 3] fellow flamenco dancer Gigi be featured in concerts this cultural diversity. Quintana stretch before a coming year. This exhibition rehearsal in the Rubios’ South takes viewers behind the scenes, Philadelphia rowhouse. Anna’s suggesting some of the ongoing son David is on the left, 2006. work behind polished Responsibility performances and exquisite craft, 4] Ukrainian needlework artist reminding us of the depth and and Balance Vera Nakonechny, wearing a breadth of relationships in which Come into their homes! Like the traditional embroidered shirt, these women work. Here are arts in which they excel, these are lights candles for Easter dinner artists honoring responsibility to women with many places they family and broader communities consider home. With roots in [Continued on next page >] (and to cultural practices and Liberia, Lebanon, Spain, Ukraine

2007-2008 Winter WIP 15 “Spirit comes and spirit talks. Spirit tells you where to put this color, this shell. So that’s basically how the hats were made…”— Ayesha Rahim

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About the photographer James Wasserman began his photographic career covering the life of the city, shooting for a Philadelphia weekly. Over the 20 years since then he has worked regionally, nationally and internationally. His photographs have appeared in Newsweek, Time, The New York Times, Far Eastern Economic Review, Le Nouvel Observateur and other publications. He has had one-man exhibitions at the Painted Bride Art Center, Old City Coffee, and Nexus Gallery. He has recently relocated to China, where he is exploring the impact of the changing landscape on peoples’ lives.

16 WIP Winter 2007-2008 5] 14]

26] 12]

L-R: Ayesha Rahim, Yvette Smalls, Anna Rubio and Antonia Arias, Anna Rubio and “I weave tradition, creativity Michele Tayoun, Elaine Wattts. Photos: James Wasserman. (For and love into my tapestry of natural detailed captions see the hairstyles; especially since generations exhibition text). of Black women have been taught to wage war on their coil…” — Yvette Smalls [Continued on next page >]

2007-2008 Winter WIP 17 all that we do/continued from p. 17

with her family, at home in they model lessons about the their guest teacher. Northeast Philadelphia, 2007. rewards and values of lives devoted to preserving and re-imagining 9] Fatu Gayflor, with J. Blamoh 5] Yvette Smalls in her home, a heritage. Doe on drums, 2007. Fatu and doing Patricia Green’s hair, with Blamoh worked together in Liberia. Karima Wadud-Green (right) 6] Anna Rubio with student Coming from an ensemble tradition, socializing while waiting her turn, Samantha Hogsten during a lesson in and now somewhat isolated from a 2007. Her studio is itself a work of Anna’s basement studio, 2007. “My pool of Liberian artists with their art, filled with culturally and friend [flamenco dancer] Fibi got skills, Fatu, Blamoh and local personally significant objects. The these shoes from Spain for my peers have had to adapt to smaller- copper plate on the wall, a girl wonderful student, Samantha. In this group community and concert braiding hair, from Tanzania, is picture, I’m explaining the features of performances. L-R: Fatu professional flamenco shoes. I call Yvette’s favorite image. She bought it "I really like the expression in this Gayflor, Vera at an African Liberation Day festival Samantha ‘La Joyita’ because of her Nakonechny, amazing smile, and because she’s a picture. I’m telling the audience that Susan Watts , in Washington, D.C. “Patricia comes gem, a jewel.”—Anna Rubio. “I don’t I am giving everything through my and Anna up from Maryland so that I can do song. I can’t be distracted; my Rubio with her hair. I give her a choice of hair have the words to describe what family. message and my art will come out oils, all of which I’ve mixed myself. Anna has meant to me. She’s my

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We take a tea and zucchini bread teacher, but also a role model, and, in loud and clear. There’s always so break (or whatever else I’ve made), some ways, a mother.” much to think about, to worry about: and when she’s back in the chair, —Samantha Hogsten relatives in Africa, work schedule, my someone else comes in. My sanctuary young daughter at home. I’m just Vera Nakonechny examining is my studio, and a gathering 7] doing my own thing in this picture. details of traditional Ukrainian place.”—Yvette Smalls That’s the only way to take control patterns with her student, Melania from the stage.”—Fatu Gayflor Tkach, 2007. In a context far from Ukraine, Vera figures out how to 10] Klezmer musician Susan Commitment explain the meanings and designs to Watts (center) with sister Eileen Siegel and father Ernie Watts, at a Minority traditions—discrete and someone who may continue to particular forms of artistic and practice and pass on the tradition. family Hanukah celebration, Eileen’s cultural expression—continue to basement, Havertown. 2006. Other have meaning because people make a 8] Fatu Gayflor teaching generations of this musical dynasty commitment to them, within families, Liberian song and dance to a sixth aren’t pictured, including Eileen’s over generations and also across grade class at the Folk Arts - son, Bradley, who takes drum boundaries and borders. Anna, Vera, Cultural Treasures Charter School lessons from his grandmother Fatu, Susan and Elaine are actively in Philadelphia’s Chinatown, 2007. teaching technique and larger Elaine. “I call this ‘Family Portrait, meanings about these arts, whether Young people previously unfamiliar With Chair’: I love the diagonal they are in performance, in an with Liberian arts have their world connecting my dad to two of his intimate setting with one cherished expanded through this exposure to daughters—me, the youngest, and student, or in a classroom. As well, songs, dances, and stories shared by Eileen, the oldest. We’ve continued

18 WIP Winter 2007-2008 all that we do/continued from p. 18

in the family business: klezmer.” and meanings. And paths for a hidden are the histories of these —Susan Watts next step… particular arts, and the women who practice them. 11] Susan Watts teaching at 13] Anna Rubio sewing KlezKamp, an annual gathering of costumes in her basement. She sews 17] Yvette Smalls doing the hair Yiddish arts and culture enthusiasts flamenco dresses as well as costumes of Estan Wilsonus El in her sanctuary from all over North America, upstate for the Kulu Mele African American at home, 2007. Through her hair New York, 2006. Dance Ensemble and other dance sculpture and her documentary film, troupes, “Hair Stories,” Yvette actively 12] Klezmer drummer Elaine opposes racism and negative self- Hoffman Watts teaching Curran 14] Anna Rubio, flamenco singer image: “Some of the techniques I Browning at Rosemont School of the Antonia Arias, Tito Rubio (guitar) in employ are over 10,000 years old… Holy Child, 2006. “This is a great concert at Amada Restaurant in Old I weave tradition, creativity and love picture. I’m showing Curran how to City, Philadelphia, where they into my tapestry of natural hairstyles; use his hand and wrist, not his arm. regularly work, 2006. especially since generations of Black I’m teaching the kid. That’s the whole 15] Middle Eastern dancer women have been taught to wage point, passing on the art.” war on their coil.” —Elaine Hoffman Watts and singer Michele Tayoun (left) rehearsing with the Herencia Arabe

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Project, which combines Arabic music 18] Separating the locks. Yvette and dance with flamenco, St. Maron’s Smalls, at home, 2007. Vision Hall, Philadelphia, 2005. What do we see and hear in public 19] Ayesha Rahim, crocheting at performance of folk arts? So much is 16] Anna Rubio (dancing), Joseph her home in North Philadelphia, 2006. likely outside the immediate Tayoun, Antonia Arias and Tito Rubio Her hats and “crowns” are widely experience of the onlooker. Yet, in concert at Amada Restaurant in prized in the community now; it took what we don’t notice has been part Old City, Philadelphia, 2006. years to find her way, to push past of the artists’ vision as they work institutions that diminished her gifts. toward a concert, festival, or ritual “My art is like spirit work. I was over event. The intensity of performance at Temple University selling the hats carries within it the passion of Courage and I was impressed because they rehearsal, long histories of The myriad aspects of behind-the- were telling me what part of Africa knowledge of a particular piece or scenes art-making are often unknown, they were from. I had no idea! Spirit rhythm, and the devotion to pulling or invisible, once a hair sculpture, comes and spirit talks. Spirit tells you together all the elements that go crocheted hat, embroidered shirt, or where to put this color, this shell. So into the spectacle the audience will musical piece is presented to the that’s basically how the hats were take in. Color, shape, sound, and world. Lock-by-lock, stitch-by-stitch, made… I used to say, ‘Whose hands movement coalesce at a certain note-by-note, and then over again did they give me?’ because they are so moment, in a certain place, after (sometimes starting completely over big! Lord God! Whose hands are extensive time and effort again): the process is part of the [Continued on p. 20 >] beforehand, creating beauty, magic, artistry. Also often unknown or

2007-2008 Winter WIP 19 all that we do/continued from p. 19

these? They didn’t look like the rest personal understandings emerge the women pictured on these walls of me to me! But God blessed me anew, keeping the arts dynamic. have each been improvising in the with these hands, I know that now. face of conflicting loyalties and He gave me a gift. My hands are 23] Antonia Arias (vocals) and responsibilities (to family, work, art, special, but I sure didn’t know that Tito Rubio (guitar) accompanying community and more). Some have then. But they are supposed to be Anna Rubio’s flamenco dance class, faced exile and war. Others dealt like this. These are my hands. But University of the Arts, Philadelphia, with racism, disparagement, lack of they still are big! Special hands. They 2007. “The moon and dots on my resources, and cultural isolation. are healing hands, soothing hands. tattoo reflect the Muslim influence on They have fought old boys’ networks. There is a power that comes through flamenco. The polka dots you see on They have endured, resisted, and my hands.”—Ayesha Rahim so many flamenco dresses are actually sometimes outlasted people who called ‘moons’ in Spanish. Also, this have questioned their innovative 20] Ayesha Rahim’s hands grouping of smaller dots is a symbol approaches to tradition, or their beginning a crocheted hat, 2006. used by sailors to represent travel. particular (regional, ethnic, local, I’m a traveler, too.”—Antonia Arias personal) synthesis of tradition. As Vera Nakonechny in her 21] they make art, they also make, of special embroidery corner at home, Susan Watts (left), Ben 24] their lives, works of art—stitching, 2007. Vera embroiders designs and Holmes, Elaine Hoffman Watts composing, braiding, and practices rituals that were banned for and Frank London practicing (in the choreographing the disparate decades in the 20th century, while the hall, on a table) for a faculty concert elements—emerging with deepened Ukraine was part of the Soviet at KlezKamp, an annual gathering of wisdom and beauty. Their lives are as sphere. A whole generation lost klezmer musicians and Yiddish inspiring as their arts. touch with these arts. “I think I’ve culture enthusiasts in upstate been given two gifts, the gift of New York, 2006. 27] Ayesha Rahim in one of her healing and the gift of my art, the crocheted hats, 2006. Michele Tayoun (singing, embroidery. I remember when I was 25] with raised hand), Roger Mgrdichian young I was always trying to make 28] Susan Watts on (oud), Antonia Arias (vocals) and Tito people feel better. Eventually, I stage at South Paw in Brooklyn, Rubio (guitar) rehearsing for the became a masseuse, after studying in New York, 2006. Herencia Arabe Project which Europe. With my embroidery, I am combines Arabic music and dance also healing in a way. I research with flamenco, at St. Maron’s Hall in Biographies of patterns and rituals in which the South Philadelphia, 2005. “This embroidered cloths were used, and collaborative experience is unique. the artists try to give that back to my And we can’t, we shouldn’t let it go. Antonia Cruz Arias, flamenco community, before all this vanishes.” Everyone has strengths they bring to cantaora (singer), was born in 1988 —Vera Nakonechny it. I love working with this group of in San Francisco. Her paternal 22] Elaine Hoffman Watts people.”—Michele Tayoun grandmother was California-born playing drums as part of a family Spanish singer Elena Acevedo. Michele Tayoun (right) with Hanukah celebration in the basement 26] Antonia was raised in the world of dancers Anna Rubio (left) and of her daughter Eileen’s house, 2006. flamenco, but began her formal music Mariah del Chico, and Tito Rubio As a young klezmer musician, Elaine and dance training in the classical (guitar), Joseph Tayoun (drum), and was often excluded from tradition at age four. She studied dancer Hersjel Wehrens (seated), performances because she is female. classical and jazz technique at the as part of the Herencia Arabe Nowadays, thanks to the Catholic Institute, flamenco cante at Project, St. Maron’s Hall, in the perseverance of Elaine and others, the Fundación Cristina Heeren de heart of Philadelphia’s Lebanese women are seen and heard in Arte Flamenco in Seville, Spain, and community, 2005. klezmer bands across the country. flamenco dance in Jerez de la Frontera, Spain. She has also studied intensively with Jesus Montoya, Gypsy Coda singer from Seville. Antonia has sung Camaraderie Cultural anthropologist Mary for many important artists such as Joy, perseverance, friendship: these Catherine Bateson writes about “life Antonio Hidalgo, Nelida Tirado and artists and artistic traditions thrive on as an improvisatory art, about the Edwin Aparicio, and has shared the the interplay of shared wisdom, ways we combine familiar and stage with other singers including talent, and interpretation. Traditions unfamiliar components in response to Rocio Soto from Jerez, Spain, Alfonso evolve from such interchange. new situations, following an Cid from Seville and Marcos Marin, Relationships between and among underlying grammar and an evolving artists deepen; and artistic and aesthetic.” Skilled in particular arts, [Continued on next page >]

20 WIP Winter 2007-2008 all that we do/continued from p. 20 and has been the singer for the embroiderer. After the Ukraine stand Amazulu, in the Reading classes of La Chiqui de Jerez. Antonia gained its independence in 1991, Vera Market, saw it and asked for another. sings for all performances of was able to return to her homeland That was the beginning. She has Flamenco del Encuentro and the where she conducted archival been making hats for decades now, Herencia Arabe Project. She is a research about folk art traditions, and they are prized within the student at St. Joseph’s University. She and studied with master craftspeople. community. She was a featured performed in the Folklore Project’s She has researched and taught artist at a salon at the Folklore Dance Happens Here program in embroidery, beadwork, weaving, and Project in 2006. December 2007. other traditional forms related to Anna Rubio began her training in Princess Fatu Gayflor is a textiles and adornment, and dance and music at age four. After renowned recording artist from volunteers as a teacher of these arts studying ballet at the Pennsylvania Liberia. A singer and dancer from a at community sites and at the Academy of Ballet, she started young age, she performed often in Ukrainian Heritage Studies Center at modern dance in her early teens with ritual dances in her home village of Manor College. Vera is also a Joan Kerr and Susan Hess. Anna Kakata. Later, as a member of professional masseuse, having studied moved to San Francisco in 1982, Liberia’s National Cultural Troupe in Europe where, she explains, continuing her modern training with based in the national artists’ village of “Massage is integrated into people’s several teachers, including Lucas Kendeja, she was given the title, idea of how to take care of Hoving and Ed Mock, and “Princess” in recognition of her themselves, of how to prevent illness. commencing flamenco studies with exquisite renditions of songs in most Doctors even refer their patients to Rosa Montoya (of the important of the languages of Liberia’s sixteen massage therapists.” Her work has Montoya Gypsy clan) and with the ethnic groups. (She herself is of been displayed in recent exhibitions late Maestro Cruz Luna. By 1986 she mixed Vai and Lorma ethnicities.) As at the Down Jersey Folklife Center, was a member of Theatre Flamenco a young adult, she went out on her and at the Philadelphia Folklore of San Francisco under the direction own, founding the successful Project, in our 2006 “Community of Miguel Santos. In 1991 she Daughters of King N’Jola dance and Fabric” show. returned to Philadelphia and became music ensemble in the capital city of Ayesha Rahim made clothes a member of the Flamenco Ole Monrovia. She has recorded three when she was a school child, and company under the direction of Julia CDs, and was showcased in Italy by continued to grow and develop as an Lopez. Anna and her husband, the United Nations World Food artist. She saw images in her sleep, flamenco guitarist Tito Rubio, spent Program to bring attention to the spirit-driven, crediting her inspiration: two years in Spain before returning plight of Liberians caught in their civil “I had not a clue. I am just figuring to Philadelphia, where they now war. In the U.S. since 1999, she has out how images are in the teach at the University of the Arts continued performing at Liberian atmosphere and they come from and perform with their groups weddings and other community God. How else could they come? I Flamenco del Encuentro and gatherings, and has taught through see them in my sleep. I was a Herencia Arabe. Anna was awarded the Pennsylvania Council on the designer and I made the clothes that I an Artistic Fellowship for the year Arts/Arts in Education program, and saw in my sleep. I didn’t have the 2001 from the Independence at both the African Cultural Alliance money to make the outfits that I saw Foundation and a Leeway Grant for of North America and the Folk Arts and I would go to my cousin. It only 2004. Anna and Tito return regularly –Cultural Treasures Charter School took a dollar for fabric. And all I ever to Spain, where Anna continues her in Philadelphia. Having lived in the needed was a measuring tape and studies with La Chiqui de Jerez, Javier Ivory Coast and in Guinea, she sings pins. I never made a pattern. And I Latorre and Juan Polvillo. She traditional songs of many places. came out of High School being ‘Best performed in the Folklore Project’s She has performed in Folklore Dressed,’ Gratz High School, 1955. I Dance Happens Here program in Project programs including “Philly got scholarships to Moore College of December 2007. Dance Africa” at International Art.” Concerned with social issues, Yvette Smalls is a master braider, House and in the spring of 2007 at wanting to make a difference, and hair sculptor, and emerging World Café Live. already an active designer for artists, filmmaker, She says, “Hair is my Vera Nakonechny came to the musicians and performers, Rahim artistic medium and became my United States as a teenager, and found art school an inhospitable place mission.” She began braiding, dressing continued studying the various and turned down the scholarship. and sculpting African American techniques of Ukrainian embroidery Eventually, she returned to art, women’s hair in the late 1970s, to her mother had taught her as a young figuring out how to crochet. She had put herself through school. She was girl. She soon became a part of the models around her in others, but part of a movement of African strong Ukrainian-American most of her craft was hard-won, self- American women rejecting community in Pennsylvania where she taught. She was wearing one of her expanded her skills as an hats when Charita Powell, from the [Continued on p. 30 ]

2007-2008 Winter WIP 21 < artist*profile >

Seku Neblett, 2007. Photo: Elizabeth Sayre

22 WIP 2007-2008 Winter by Elizabeth Sayre SEKU NEBLETT: music as a tool for liberation

A few minutes of conversation a chance encounter while I think it was about 1956, ‘57, reveal Seku Neblett’s grace, performing with the Freedom when we got our first tractor… good humor, and deadly serious Singers led Seku to play the There was a lot of music in my sense of purpose as activist and bougarabou, the signature drum home. My father played the artist—not to mention his of the Jola people in the guitar and the rhythm bones. wealth of life experiences. Ever southwest of Senegal and the The rhythm bones [are] cow’s since he came to Philadelphia in Gambia. Performing traditional ribs put in the fingers back to 2006 to teach at the renovated African music forms as they were back, and with your wrist action Cecil B. Moore Recreation taught to him, he has joined the you get a polyrhythm that’s Center at 22nd and Huntingdon, ranks of the twentieth-century traditionally African. My oldest Neblett has contributed to “African Cultural Renaissance”— brother played guitar. My cultural and political organizing men and women like Katherine mother sang common meter here. His life story and his Pan- Dunham, Pearl Primus, Chief hymns in church and in the Africanist politics shed light on Bey, Nana Dinizulu, and home. My second-oldest brother the challenges facing artists in Philadelphia’s own Baba played the trumpet and the trap African dance and music in Crowder, who have researched drums. My second-oldest sister Philadelphia and North America. African music and dance and put played the French horn, and is a With more than 45 years of them to creative use in the tremendous singer… When my organizing to his credit, American environment. In family moved to southern Seku Neblett purposefully Philadelphia, Neblett’s passion Illinois, still sharecroppers, in articulates the connections for creating unity through about 1956, the high school that between African creative work cultural work has found a rich, we went to was segregated, but and political struggle. historical environment in which it was the only school in the Music has always been part of to continue growing. county that had a band. The Neblett’s life and work, and his Mr. Neblett was born in 1943 band director, Mr. Stanley F. art has always been intended to in Simpson County, Kentucky, Thomas, whom I will admire inspire political unity. He and the fifth of six siblings in a forever, actually taught us music older brother Charles Neblett, sharecropping family. Of his theory, which was unheard of for along with Bernice Johnson early life and early experience a high school student in those Reagon and others, were with music, he says: days in a rural setting like that. original members of the “We lived in the country So my brother played trumpet; Freedom Singers, created in without electricity, without any we organized a little dance 1961 in Albany, Georgia. (His of the utilities. Our primary crop band. I was trying to play the brother still coordinates the was tobacco, but we grew trap drum set, which I never group today.) In the 1960s, the everything that we ate. We only quite mastered. I played a little Freedom Singers toured the had to buy at the store spices, saxophone. I didn’t really come United States to raise money sugar, salt, pepper, that kind of into my own until I started to and organize support for the thing… During the day, the work play the traditional African Student Nonviolent was very hard. We didn’t have drum, much later in life. But we Coordinating Committee tractors, [or] mechanical tools at had a wonderful experience (SNCC), a key organization in first. I actually learned how to with music. And the music the Civil Rights / Black Freedom plow with a mule and to movement. Years later, in 1991, cultivate the crops with animals. [Continued on p. 26 > ]

2007-2008 Winter WIP 23 war and song/continued from p. 9

evening we recorded in Suacoco, bele tree, koing tree, pumpkin, battles are brewing: the horn players gave way to chante and koong leaf—as did objects “Woi is ready. He said, ’You fable or story songs (meni pele) as like a bow and arrow, a bag singing that, Zo-lang-kee, the war people laughed, joked, and sang. containing implements to help is ready.’ One performer even presented an Woi, an axe, a cutlass, and a And I was in the house. I said episode from epic (woi-meni-pele). double-edged knife.2 to him, ‘Ee.’ I said to him, ‘Woi?” I was surprised that anyone As the historian Jan Vansina has He said to me, ‘Mm.’ could still perform this complex said: “Local communities knew I said to him, ‘What war is genre. Many Kpelle people will much more about their local prepared? You yourself see the tell you that woi-meni-pele is the habitats than they needed to Sitting-on-the-neck crowd here. essence of Kpelle life. Eighteen know,” and “such scientific Why is the war being prepared years ago, it had been hard to find knowledge for knowledge’s sake since there is no one equal to a performer capable of singing it, was an essential ingredient” of you?’ and I thought that this rich aspect social life.3 The essential discovery, ‘Fine, when Kelema-ninga has of culture might have faded with which I made several years after pumped my bellows and they the war. But I was surprised to first recording the Woi epic, is have sewn my clothes, then we discover several performers within that this epic symbolically will start on the war.’”5 a 40-mile radius in just two short represents the migration of the The moving house, filled with months in Liberia. Woi epic Kpelle people, beginning in the extended family, symbolically appeared to be even more alive the 14th century from the represented the Kpelle people as than it had been before the war. grasslands area of the kingdom a whole migrating toward the Woi epic, featuring the of Mali to the forest region coast. Woi stood for the greater superhero Woi, is emblematic of of the coast. Through allusion and aggregate of Kpelle people. When some of the most important metaphor we can see the knowledgeable Kpelle hear the aspects of Kpelle society. And traces of this history, which is epic being performed, they people proudly point to it as a detailed more literally in frequently comment on this kind of encyclopedia of Kpelle life, oral narratives.4 connection, noting how the Woi an index to “a wealth in The Kpelle, as one of many epic indexes the coming of their knowledge.” This wealth in branches of the Mande people, ancestors to the area in Liberia or knowledge in turn is related to responding to various pressures, Guinea that they occupy in what Jane Guyer and Samuel Eno left the grasslands and started the present. Belinga have said of Equatorial toward the coastal rainforest. They In the wealth of performances Africa as a whole: “The study of encountered other people on that that I found in Liberia in 2007, I growth in Equatorial Africa in the long migration and fought small- was most surprised to find several pre-colonial period might be seen scale wars to defend the areas people capable of performing this as, in part, a social history of where they settled for a time, as quintessential form. One epic expanding knowledge, and the their oral histories tell. Peter pourer we were able to record in history of the colonial era as one Giting, a member of the famous Bong County performed in Totota. of loss, denial and partial Giting family of chiefs from He sang of the familiar characters, reconstitution. That much of this Sanoyea, told of battles in the including the hero Woi, the spider, must remain inaccessible should Kpelle area of what is today Bong and many others. But he also sang not deter us from creating the County. Peter narrated how each of body parts, reflecting the reality 1 space to envisage it.” warring side had a musician who of a people working through the The Woi epic demonstrates a played before battle to increase horrors of war. While all of this tremendous wealth in knowledge. the warriors’ courage and pump will require much more study, it’s The episodes that I recorded in the troops up for battle. abundantly clear that music is 2007, and in the years before the When the fighting began, flourishing, thriving, and healing war, are embedded with rich musicians were immune from people in Liberia. details of animals, plants, and attack by either side. Following In Philadelphia too, music, domestic objects. These are details the battle, the winners had the whether performed by Fatu that are much more extensive prerogative of taking the Gayflor or Zeya Tete or others, has than required for simple musicians belonging to the losing helped to underscore people’s existence. One performance of a side. Through this practice, humanity and transport them Woi epic included the spider, tuu- the musicians became a kind home, if only for a few moments. tuu bird, anteater, poling bird, of prize of war. I left Liberia on August 1st, squirrel monkey, tsetse fly, beetle, In the Woi epic, the hero convinced that music has been bat, bull, and bees. Plants too alludes to the migrations: Woi is played roles in the battles—the constantly moving his house as [Continued on p. 25 >]

24 WIP Winter 2007-2008 war and song/continued from p. 24 vital to Liberians wherever they have Musadu.” History in Africa 21:49–85. Ruth M. Stone is the Laura Boulton been and wherever they live. And the Guyer, Jane, and Samuel M. Eno Professor of Ethnomusicology at Indiana richly layered rhythms, tone colors, and Belinga. 1995. “Wealth in People as University, where she has served as allusive texts continue to build that rich Wealth in Knowledge: Accumulation chair of the Department of Folklore and legacy that is grounded in expressive and Composition in Equatorial Ethnomusicology, Director of the culture.—Ruth M. Stone Africa.” Journal of African History Archives of Traditional Music, and a 36(1):91–120. member of the African Studies faculty. Notes Kubik, Gerhard. 1965. Professor Stone has written and 1 Guyer and Belinga 1995: 94-95 “Transcription of Mangwilo published significant books, articles, 2 Stone 1988: 94 Xylophone Music from Film Strips.” and multi-media publications on 3 Vansina 1990: 89, 225 as quoted in African Music 3(4):35–41. musical performance of the Kpelle in Guyer and Belinga 1995: 93 Scheub, Harold. 1970. “The Liberia, West Africa. She has edited 4 Geysbeek 1994: 49; d’Azevedo 1962: 13 Technique of the Expansible Image in Africa, a volume in the Garland 5 Stone 1988: 13-14 Xhosa Ntsomi Performances.” Encyclopedia of World Music, which is Research in African Literatures the first comprehensive reference work Resources for further exploration 1(2):119–46. in ethnomusicology. She has also Armstrong, Robert Plant. 1971. The Stone, Ruth M. 1988. Dried Millet pioneered research, publication, and Affecting Presence: An Essay in Breaking. Bloomington: Indiana presentation of ethnomusicological Humanistic Anthropology. Urbana: University Press. analysis through digital electronic University of Illinois Press. Vansina, Jan. 1990. Paths in the formats. A leader in her discipline’s Austen, Ralph A., and Jan Vansina. Rainforest: Toward a History of professional organization, she has 1996. “History, Oral Transmission and Political Tradition in Equatorial served as president of the Society for Structure in Ibn Khaldun’s Africa. Madison: University of Ethnomusicology. She has also been the Chronology of Mali Rulers.” History Wisconsin Press. president of the Liberian Studies in Africa 23:17–28. Association. She visited the Folklore D’Azevedo, Warren L. 1962. “Uses of The Liberian Collections Project: Project this past fall as part of our the Past in Gola Discourse.” Journal http://onliberia.org/history.htm African Song / New Contexts project. of African History 3(1):11–34. Geysbeek, Tim. 1994. “A Traditional History of the Konyan (15th–16th Century: Vase Camera’s Epic of

fatu gayflor/continued from p. 7

Tim: Did you ever personally meet Timothy Nevin was born and raised in Humanities Council (Liberian) President William R. Chicago, but recently lived for three and funded principally by the Tolbert, who, as head of state, was years in Senegal and Ghana, where he Pennsylvania Council on the Arts; the sort of the patron of the Kendeja was a caseworker with Liberian refugees. National Endowment for the Arts, which Cultural Center? He is currently a PhD candidate in believes that a great nation deserves Fatu: In fact I did! I was part of a select group African History at the University of great arts; the Philadelphia Cultural of members of the Cultural Troupe who Florida. His dissertation will be about Fund; and Folklore Project members. were invited to dine at the President’s table cultural production in Liberia during in 1979 when Liberia hosted the annual the 1970s and early 1980s. His wife, meeting of the continent-wide Organization Zakpa Paye, is a Liberian nursing of African Unity at the “OAU Village” [next student at Santa Fe Community College, to the Hotel Africa in Monrovia]. In fact, I in Gainesville, Florida. met President Tolbert a few times. As members of the National Cultural Troupe we African Song / New Contexts was a were frequently close to the corridors of Philadelphia Folklore Project musicians- power but never real “insiders.” I felt that in-residence program, made possible by President Tolbert supported the arts, and a grant from the Philadelphia Music that he was basically a good person. Project, a program of The Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, funded by The Pew Tim: Thanks for taking time Charitable Trusts and administered by out of your busy schedule the University of the Arts; the to talk to me! Humanities-and-the-Arts Initiative Fatu: You are very welcome! administered by the Pennsylvania

2007-2008 Winter WIP 25 seku neblett/continued from p. 23

always reflected what was going to vote in that county. I was swimming pool, where Africans on around us. We would do that determined, the first morning, to could not swim. Our people had hard work and come home in the be out and getting somebody to swim in the river. We were evening and just play music and registered to vote before the rest arrested, jailed, and put on trial. sing and do a lot of wonderful of the people got up. I jump up While the trial was going on, one things as a family. The neighbors early in the morning, I wash up in of the young men who was on would come and join in. It was the back of the house, and I hit trial, his brother drowned in the glorious!” the streets, little dirt streets in Mississippi River. So I wrote my Although he was accepted to Dawson, Georgia. I go to the first first song. It said, ‘If you miss me Southern Illinois University at house and knock on the door, and in the Mississippi River, and you Carbondale on a music the lady came and moved the little can’t find me nowhere, come on scholarship in 1960, Seku was curtain behind that window in the down to the swimming pool, we’ll drawn to the Civil Rights door. She saw I was a stranger, be swimming down there.’ As that movement and soon dropped out because they had been warned song became popular across the of school to head south, joining about the Freedom Riders, and South, the people changed the the effort to register voters and she disappeared. I could not raise name of the song to ‘If you miss organize political resistance to her. I go to the next house—the me at the back of the bus…’” racial discrimination and violence. same thing happened. That was In 1964, Neblett and other Television reports turned him on repeated a couple of more times. movement leaders were invited by to the movement, and also Then I knocked on one door, and President Sekou Touré to visit exposed him to an inspirational there was no answer, but I heard Guinea in order to learn about figure who would change his life some noise in the back, so I liberation politics in Africa: forever: walked in the back, and there was “In 1964, President Sekou “TV news was one of the things a lady doing her washing on a Touré of Guinea, West Africa, sent that really put me on that path. I washboard in a number two us a cable saying, ‘Your movement was still in high school in 1957, washtub. I said, ‘Ah, I got one!’ has captured our attention,’ and when an event took place on the That lady was so frightened. . .of he invited some of us to come to African continent that actually me and of the situation. She told Guinea. That experience was changed my life. I was watching in me that she had the pneumonia, overwhelming. We came through 1957 when Ghana became and she couldn’t go down there immigration, someone gave us a independent. I was watching to register to vote, it would turn copy of the constitution, a portion television, black and white TV, and into the double pneumonia. I of it, that said any person of I see this African walking into the mean, she was just talking crazy! I African descent, no matter where United Nations, dressed in go back to the house with my ego they’re born, as soon as they set traditional African clothing. in my big toe, said, ‘Oh, my God! foot in Guinea, is an automatic [Kwame Nkrumah] stood up What am I going to do?’ So I took citizen with all the privileges and before the world, and said, ‘I am the attitude: I can’t blame the responsibilities of a citizen. I was an African! And I have something people. I’m doing something overwhelmed, and I just fell down to say to the world!’ And that just wrong. I think it was the first time and kissed the earth. I had never had a tremendous effect on my I seriously criticized myself. I kept had that kind of feeling before, a life, because all I’d seen about going out, and coming back, and feeling that I actually belonged Africa up to that point, with a few evaluating what I was doing, and somewhere. I was actually exceptions, was Tarzan. I was kept getting knocked down, until comfortable and could feel safe. I never satisfied after that.” I got it right. I knew when I got it had never had that feeling before, Neblett joined the Student right because people started to and that’s a feeling that I never Nonviolent Coordinating listen, and we started to get some want to let go of. Never.” Committee (SNCC). One of his work done in that area.” In 1966, like many fellow many assignments was the Back home in Illinois, he was activists, Neblett was drawn to the Southwest Georgia Project, where part of an effort to desegregate a Black Power movement (he he was sent to help register local swimming pool, an worked closely with Kwame Ture people to vote: experience that led him to [formerly Stokely Carmichael] for “I was sent to a county named compose a song that became many years), and later to Pan- Terrell County. Its nickname was famous later in a different form: Africanism as articulated by ‘Terrible Terrell.’ I was told that “We came back and joined the Kwame Nkrumah and Sekou there was a fear factor that was struggle in Cairo, Illinois. In the Touré. Moving from the Black very strong. There [were] desegregation effort, we were Panther Party, he eventually joined absolutely no Africans registered demonstrating at the local public the All African Peoples’

26 WIP Winter 2007-2008 seku neblett/continued from p. 26

Revolutionary Party (AAPRP), for Working with Badiane in percussion catalogues in the which he still organizes today. In 1994–95 in Nebraska led Neblett United States and Europe. the late 1960s, he returned to to travel to the Casamance, The four drums of the modern Conakry, Guinea, to study history, Senegal, to study further with Senegalese bougarabou are placed culture, and organizing under master drummer Bakary on a wooden stand, with the Nkrumah and Touré for 18 Dhedhiou, and to obtain his own lowest-pitched drum (the months. The 1970s and ‘80s found instruments. “ancestor bass”) on the far right; him traveling the world, speaking “To collect the bougarabou, I next to it sits the highest-pitched, and organizing. He also continued had to go from village to village, then the next highest and the his education at Goddard College deep into the interior, to find third highest-pitched (the contra- in Vermont, where he these drums. You don’t just go bass) drums. This is the set-up for simultaneously taught a course on and buy a bougarabou in that a left-handed player (Neblett, the Civil Rights movement. area, because this is the home of although right-handed, learned On this international journey, the bougarabou. You have to go from a left-handed teacher and Neblett found himself in search of through a series of rituals. People plays like a left-hander). The “a more traditional musical have to investigate you, know highest-pitched drum solos over expression of his people and something about you. They have the constant texture of the other their struggle:”1 to be satisfied that you’re going to three drums, the jingling of iron “I needed a musical expression maintain the integrity of these peapod-bell bracelets worn by the that would accommodate the drums and the traditions. At the drummer, and, in traditional struggle I was involved in. So I end of the ceremony, you go settings, the clacking of palm tree picked up the traditional African through another ceremony called sticks and singing. The drums. I was fortunate enough, in ‘the blessing of the hands.’ So it bougarabou accompanies 1991, to go to St. Croix, at [the] took me a while to accumulate dancing—all life occasions for the invitation of the Smithsonian [the drums], because you couldn’t Jola, whether serious or fun, call Institute; they did the first annual find all of them in one place.” for dancing. Neblett says: Virgin Islands Folklife Festival. The Unlike its famous “The bougarabou goes back to population of the Virgin Islands, cousin/neighbor the djembe2 the about the 10th century in the as a result of slavery, mostly came bougarabou remains relatively south of Senegal. The people who from the Gambia–Senegal area. unknown. In its traditional form, played the bougarabou were They invited some Gambians and the bougarabou is a wooden drum griots, oral historians. These brought the Senegalese there, too. with a cowskin head attached to people had such command of I was there with the old Freedom the body with pegs and rope. history that they were Singers. I saw this man coming Many other African drum commissioned to be advisors to with four drums. The name was traditions have one person per the rulers. In those days, the the bougarabou. When he started drum in multi-instrument women were not allowed to play to play these drums, I was ensembles. Currently, the drums, but the relationship, the mesmerized. I had a cheap tape bougarabou consists of a three- or woman to the drum, was a crucial recorder, and I was taping. I said, four-drum ensemble played by a one. All the rhythms of the drums ‘This is fantastic!’ [It] seems single musician. One source came from the activities of impossible that one person could suggests that this innovation was women, in the fields… be an orchestra unto themselves introduced in the 1970s, possibly The tuning of these drums is a with these four drums. I brought due to the influence of Cuban ritual unto itself. The solo and the the tape back. I was living in dance music in West Africa. (Over accompaniment drum are tuned Nebraska at the time. I played the the course of the 20th century, with fire. In Africa we built a fire tape in the car, I played it in my Afro-Cuban conga drummers on the ground and tuned them. house, I still couldn’t believe it. began using two, and later three, The contra-bass rarely has to be Three years later, toward the end four, and five drums in their set- tuned. The bass is tuned with of the year, I had been on a ups.)3 The bougarabou has been water and the earth. [Put] water speaking tour, I got back to translated into new contexts as on the cow skin, and turn it Nebraska. My sister said, ‘There’s well: it has been played in the upside down on the ground, and someone in town I know you’ll Senegalese National Orchestra and it creates a deep bass. Some of the want to meet.’ I found this man, the National Ballet; its people who play the bougarabou another man from Senegal [Mane characteristic bubbling rhythms in the United States are beginning Badiane] with the same kind of have been transferred to the to cheat a little bit. They’re drums, which was unbelievable! I djembe ensemble; and a modified making the bougarabou look like a said, ‘How could this just happen? version of the drum, strung like a These drums are following me!’” djembe, has made it into world [Continued on p. 28 >]

2007-2008 Winter WIP 27 seku neblett/continued from p. 27

djembe with strings on it. And Kouyate, etc. So, I use the Choreographies of African they’re telling me, ‘Seku, you have instruments to encourage unity of Identities: Negritude, Dance, and to convert your drums, put the thought. We already have unity of the National Ballet of Senegal. strings on it. Because if you have action, but what is lacking is unity Urbana & Chicago: University of to do a job real quick, you don’t of thought, and respect, which is Illinois Press. have time to get the fire.’ paramount in African culture. Countryman, Matthew. 2007. I’m saying: they’ll have to wait, We have to listen to one another. I Up South: Civil Rights and Black because I’m not giving up any of can teach those principles with Power in Philadelphia. the elements of these drums. djembe. With the djembe, you do Philadelphia: University of People will be patient and wait till the polyrhythms with a number Pennsylvania Press. they’re tuned properly, because of people. For community Charry, Eric. 2000. Mande even though an audience may not organizational reasons, it’s better Music: Traditional and Modern realize the difference, I need that to use the djembe [than the Music of the Maninka and spiritual connection that comes bougarabou] because you have Mandinka of Western Africa. out of that fire and water, and that more participation. Chicago: University of history. I [will not] present to an The artist must represent the Chicago Press. audience something that’s not people’s culture, and we must Reagon, Bernice Johnson. quite right. I want to be resist attempts to commercialize 2001. If You Go, Don’t Hinder Me: responsible to those who blessed or to compromise the people’s The African American Sacred Song my hands in Africa, and to the struggle. We are struggling for our Tradition. Lincoln: University of ancestors, to present it properly.” very liberation, and our art form Nebraska Press. Neblett uses the bougarabou as must encourage that struggle, and Tang, Patricia. 2007. a solo performer, and the djembe- it must tell the story of that Masters of the Sabar: Wolof dundun ensemble to teach, while struggle, it must enhance that Griot Percussionists of Senegal. he continues his own drum struggle and keep it alive, and Philadelphia: Temple studies with Philadelphia djembe make that struggle grow. The University Press. player Ira Bond. In his beginners’ pinnacle or the highest form of class at the Cecil B. Moore Rec culture is liberation. And this is Recordings: Center, the young players are what I use my instruments and my Badjie, Saikouba. 1996. engaged, respectful, and art to try to help accomplish.”5 Bougarabou: Solo Drumming of disciplined, interpreting Koukou —Elizabeth Sayre Casamance. Village Pulse: VPU- and Lamba (rhythms from Guinea) 1005. with enthusiasm. Seku hopes to Notes Various Artists. 1990. Sing for add dance to his drum classes and 1 From Neblett’s biography, Freedom: The Story of the Civil create a youth performing available for download at Rights Movement Through Its ensemble in the near future. Of www.seku.com. Songs. Smithsonian Folkways: his current work in Philadelphia 2 The djembe drum, originally SFW 40032. he says, paraphrasing Ture:4 from Maninka areas in present-day “I’m a cultural artist, and I try Mali and Guinea, is the most Online: to be responsible. The artist uses globalized of West African drums. Seku Neblett’s website: the people’s culture, the people’s See Tang 2007 and Charry 2000, http://www.seku.com/ creation. The songwriter didn’t pp. 193-241, for detailed Seku Neblett speaks invent words, the poet didn’t information on neighboring West out in 1969: invent rhyme, the musician didn’t African drum traditions. http://main.wgbh.org/saybrother/p invent the instruments, the people 3 Badjie recording, liner notes. rograms/sb_0411.html did. We’re using the people’s 4 See Kwame Ture, “On Philadelphia Weekly article on culture, and we have to be Revolutionary Culture and the the revitalization of the Cecil B. responsible to represent the Role of the Artist,” Moore Recreation Center: people’s culture in our art form. http://www.assatashakur.org/forum http://www.philadelphiaweekly.co Those of us from an oppressed /showthread.php?t=24748, m/view.php?id=14776 people, our art must be the art of http://members.aol.com/aaprp/inte Article on Seku’s brother, resistance. So, the artist has a rview.html Charles Neblett, and the responsibility to represent the 5 Ibid. Freedom Singers: people’s culture with dignity and http://www.bgdailynews.com/ar honor. This is why we hear Resources for further ticles/2007/07/09/the_amplifier/fea thunderous applause at the exploration ture/cover-charlesneblett.txt mention of Paul Robeson, Miriam Books: Makeba, Bob Marley, Sory Castaldi, Francesca. 2006.

28 WIP Winter 2007-2008 adeeb refela/continued from p. 13

Taqasim is division, how you divide what music, that’s how I look at it.” of several religions.” (Blum, p. 12) you’re doing. Taqasim is representing the —Elizabeth Sayre 9 Marcus, p. 114. The maqamat (pl.) are the maqam, and the beauty of the maqam. There melodic modes used in all types of Arab are some notes that are stronger than music. They are not only sets of pitches (like Notes Western scales), but also have characteristic others that you reveal by playing. It depends 1 Marcus, p. 45. “The ‘ud is the direct turns of phrase, specific orders for the on your own point of view. So everybody is ancestor of the European lute both in name introduction of notes, and, if rendered different from [each] other [in] representing and shape.” properly by skilled musicians, should put 2 this. The factors are your experience, your As in India, where it became a virtuoso audience and performers alike in states emotional state of mind—you might be instrument in local art music styles, the violin of ecstasy. fit easily into Arab musical schemes due to different from yourself in a different state of its ability to play melodic slides and mind, representing the same maqam. reproduce shades and degrees of pitch Resources for further exploration Taqasim means division. You divide the beyond the twelve fixed pitches used in most Books: pronunciation of the music [according to] European music. One of the most well Blum, Stephen. 2002. “Hearing the Music the way you feel at the time. Sometimes it’s known characteristics of Arab music is its of the Middle East” in The Garland prepared; sometimes it’s not. Sometimes use of “quarter tones,” also sometimes Encyclopedia of World Music, v. 6, The Middle you prepare those divisions beforehand. Me, called half-sharps or half-flats – pitches that East, ed. Virginia Danielson, Scott Marcus, fall in between the notes, so to speak, of I don’t prepare. Wherever I perform, there’s and Dwight Reynolds. New York & London: Western scales. vibes from the audience. They might like this, Routledge. 3 Danielson, p. 1. or not like that. It’s not that I’m intelligent. It 4 Ibid, p. 172. Danielson, Virginia. 1997. The Voice of just comes automatically. By the energy of 5 Ethnomusicologist Stephen Blum suggests Egypt: Umm Kulthum, Arabic Song, and the audience, I feel it should be this way, or that Middle Eastern music was, in fact, too Egyptian Society in the Twentieth Century. that way, or some other way. So I’m a rhythmically complex to make notation an Chicago & London: University of Chicago specialist in this, performing differently all effective tool for transmission: “A major Press. the time. It’s interaction between the people reason why most Middle Eastern practices Marcus, Scott. 2007. Music in Egypt: never came to rely on musical notation is and the performer.” Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture. New the complexity of the rhythms to which York: Oxford University Press. Spontaneity, flexibility, and an openly verse and prose are appropriately sung or expressed, reciprocal, emotional recited.” (Blum, p. 9). Racy, A. J. 2003. Making Music in the Arab connection between audience and 6 A typical small-ensemble texture in Arab World: The Culture and Artistry of Tarab. New performer are all part of Arab music. music is heterophony, in which each of York & Cambridge: University of Ultimately, for Refela, the importance and several instruments interprets the same Cambridge Press. uniqueness of music lies in its emotional melody somewhat differently, according to impact and the diversity of responses the particular techniques of each (see Online: Marcus, p. 16). In contrast to much it permits: Educational site on Arabic melodic modes, European music, traditional Arab music, like “Music in general is something to help Indian music, does not stress or use much the maqam: http://www.maqamworld.com/ you cheer up or to express [yourself]. It harmony—different instruments playing National Arab Music Ensemble at the might not always be [for] cheering up, but different musical lines, which simultaneously Cairo Opera House: you need it. Sometimes you feel mellow, creates note-against-note, “vertical” http://www.cairooperahouse.org/english/ab or you want to be crazy? Music helps in relationships (chords). Rather, both Arab out_cairo_opera_house/about_music_ense this. That’s why music is a beautiful art. and Indian music involve the art of mble.asp “horizontal” development of melodies. The highest level of art is the abstract. Al-Bustan Seeds of Culture website: 7 “Tabla” in this context is not the North You reduce everything to some point. You http://www.albustanseeds.org Indian pair of hand drums, but rather the reduce it so it means more. If you have ten single goblet-shaped drum also called The Spice Route Ensemble: people performing the same music in the dumbek or darabuka in other areas. http://www.animusmusic.com/spiceroute/ same moment, you’re going to have 8 Musicians from the Eastern Mediterranean Intercultural Journeys: twenty different opinions about the music. find collaboration easy due to regional http://www.interculturaljourneys.org >> That’s what’s good about music, in general. commonalities. Musical similarities across Adeeb Refela’s website: It’s abstract. It gives you the freedom to national, linguistic, and religious differences http://www.adibsaaman.tk/ are characteristic of the Middle East. “The feel whatever you feel. You play the same model of national music histories is more music for ten people, you get different misleading than helpful when applied to the opinions. Maybe even the same person is Middle East, where the norm has been going to tell you something else about cultural interaction among speakers of two what they heard. That’s what’s good about or more languages and among practitioners

2007-2008 Winter WIP 29 all that we do/continued from p. 21

definitions of “bad” and “good” hair player, came to Philadelphia at the others. She has taught at klezmer based on European standards, and dawn of the 20th century. Hoffman festivals and privately, and performs in reclaiming African traditions of beauty. taught other family members the a diverse range of trumpet styles. She Her mother always told her, “Beauty is klezmer music he learned as a child in was a featured artist in the as beauty does,” and the saying Eastern Europe. Played by the Philadelphia Folklore Project’s inoculated Yvette against some of the Hoffman family and other musicians at Women’s Music Project for 2001- negative self-image she saw in others certain times in Jewish weddings, and 2003. She tours Europe regularly, and (from ages nine to ninety, she says) and in the parties that followed, this music performed in China in 2006. Also in set her on a journey of self-discovery. became part of a distinctly 2006, she received an award from the She went on to school herself in Philadelphia klezmer repertoire. Ms. American Composers’ Forum. She intricate and varied hair braiding, Watts’ father was Jacob Hoffman, a will be performing in a Folklore wrapping, coiling and weaving traditions great klezmer drummer and Project “Musicians in Residence” used in her own extended family across xylophonist, and a versatile musician concert in the spring of 2008. the American South, and across the who knew many styles of music; he African Diaspora, from Egypt to South also played with the Philadelphia All that we do: contemporary Africa, Senegal to Kenya as an Orchestra. He had come to women, traditional arts was important form of creative expression Philadelphia with his father and curated by Toni Shapiro-Phim and representing both the individuality and followed in the family tradition, Debora Kodish, with Antonia social status or role of the wearer. In making influential recordings in the Arias, Fatu Gayflor, Vera her own work, she draws on a wide first half of last century with the Nakonechny, Ayesha Rahim, Anna range of styles and techniques, Kandel Orchestra, a well-known Rubio, Yvette Smalls, Michele approaching each person’s hair as the Philadelphia klezmer group. Elaine Tayoun, Elaine Hoffman Watts ultimate wearable art. In 1998, she Watts was the first woman and Susan Watts. Installed by Kim completed a documentary “Hair percussionist to be accepted at Curtis Tieger. Stories”, recently broadcast on WYBE- Institute, from which she graduated in TV. She has been a featured artist at 1954. She has performed and taught This project is funded by the ODUNDE and appears at hundreds of for more than forty years, working in Pennsylvania Humanities Council, schools and community events annually, symphonies, theaters, and schools. The National Endowment for and in 2006, was part of the Folklore Now performing with an ensemble the Humanities, The National Project’s salon series on local folk arts. called the Fabulous Shpielkehs, she is Endowment for the Arts, and Michele Tayoun was exposed to featured on a CD, “I Remember PFP members. numerous forms of Middle Eastern Klezmer,” which draws on and dance and music growing up as part of documents her amazing family musical an extended Lebanese American family tradition. As well, she is on the that ran the famous “Middle East” klezmer CD, “Fidl,” with Alicia Svigals nightclub and restaurant in Philadelphia. of the Klezmatics, teaches and Michele had formal training in ballet, performs annually at KlezKamp and modern dance and jazz, and learned has been accepting invitations to play Middle Eastern dances from performers nationally. In June 2000, she was at the family’s restaurant. Her dance awarded a Pew Fellowship in the Arts. vocabulary combines both Lebanese and In 2007, she received a prestigious Egyptian styles. She has been singing National Endowment for the Arts Arabic music at community festivals as Heritage Fellowship—one of the top well as professionally for the past honors for traditional artists in this several years, and continues to enhance country. She will be performing in a her knowledge of Arabic music and Folklore Project “Musicians in song by performing with accomplished Residence” concert in the regional performers, and participating in spring of 2008. workshops with the internationally Susan Watts, trumpeter, renowned composer Simon Shaheen. represents a younger generation of She performs as a dancer and singer the important Hoffman Watts klezmer with the Spice Route Ensemble and with dynasty. Susan currently plays klezmer the Herencia Arabe Project. She was a with her mother in the Fabulous part of the Folklore Project’s Dance Shpielkehs. Susan has recorded and Happens Here program in 2005. performed with noted klezmer artists Elaine Hoffman Watts is a third- from around the world, including generation klezmer musician. Her Hankus Netsky, Mikveh, London’s grandfather, Joseph Hoffman, a cornet Klezmer All-Star Brass Band, and

30 WIP Winter 2007-2008 DVDs, Videos & Children’s Books... local culture & people worth knowing about

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DVD Children’s Book Plenty of Good Walking on Solid Ground Women Dancers: by Sifu Shu Pui Cheung, African American Shuyuan Li, Aaron Chau Women Hoofers and Debbie Wei from Philadelphia Skilled lion dance, and Beijing opera The only documentary artists and their student; reflections on pioneering African on the values that are central to AmericanWomen tap preserving heritage and community. dancers from Philly! Bilingual Chinese and English. Price: $24.95 Price: $12.95 Member Discount: $20 Member Discount: $10

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about the philadelphia folklore project membership form Folklore means something different to everyone—as it should, since it is one of the chief means we have to represent our own realities in the face of thanks to new and renewing members! powerful institutions. Here at the Philadelphia Folklore Project, we are Please join us today! committed to paying attention to the experiences and traditions of “ordinary” people. We’re a 21-year-old independent public interest folklife agency that documents, supports and presents local folk arts and culture. We offer exhibitions, concerts, workshops and assistance to artists and communities. We conduct ongoing field research, organize around issues of Name concern, maintain an archive, and issue publications and resources. This work comes out of our mission: we affirm the human right to meaningful cultural and artistic expression, and work to protect the rights of people to Address know and practice traditional and community-based arts. We work with people and communities to build critical folk cultural knowledge, respect the complex folk and traditional arts of our region, and challenge processes and City State Zip practices that diminish these local grassroots arts and humanities.We urge you to join—or to call us for more information. (215.726.1106) Phone ____$25 Basic. Get magazines like this 1-2x/year, special mailings and 25% discount on publications. E-mail ____$35 Family. (2 or more at the same address). As above. ____$60 Contributing. As above. ($35 tax-deductible) Please make checks payable to: Philadelphia Folklore Project ____$150 Supporting. As above. ($110 tax deductible) Mail to: ____$10 No frills. Magazine & mailings only. No discounts.. PFP ____Sweat equity. I want to join (and get mailings). Instead of $$, I can 735 S. 50th St., give time or in-kind services. Philadelphia, PA 19143

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