Fish Band
Music Moves Religion
Syracuse University, April 18-20 2008

 
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Amy Catlin-Jairazbhoy, "How Sidi Music Moves Religion: African-Indian Sufi Embodiments in the New Transglobal Mendicancy"

The use of music in religious mendicancy enjoys a long tradition throughout South Asia among diverse religious communities, resulting in a vast repertoire of sung poetry composed and performed by mystic saints and their followers. Some Sidi African-Indians of Gujarat, descendants of Indian Ocean voyagers from Africa, have adopted this means of conveying Islamic spiritual teachings. Singing to their own community, to other Muslims, and to outsiders while seeking alms in public spaces, Sidi religious mendicants offer musical presentations of various types of sacred poetry. The Sidis' 21st century mendicancy rounds now extend throughout India as well as transglobally, for their international tours can be seen as an extension of religious mendicancy. This presentation will historicize and problematize the development of Sidi Sufi international tours, in which the Sidi Goma troupe is invited to perform their sacred music, dance and mystic poetry for international audiences.

Apsara Media for Intercultural Education: http://www.apsara-media.com

More about Sidis:
http://www.apsara-media.com/sidimaterials.html
Sidi Goma website: http://www.kapa-productions.com

Remembered Rhythms: http://www.underscorerecords.com/catalog/video/details.php?cat_id=06UD029SET

Amy Catlin-Jairazbhoy is a visiting faculty member and research associate in the Department of Ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles. She received her M.Mus. in voice at Yale University, and her Ph.D. dissertation at Brown University concerned the sacred classical music of Tamilnadu. Her research, writing, teaching, curatorial activities, and multi-media publications often have an applied focus, aimed at community development of minority traditions, especially in diasporic settings. She served as curator and presented the first of many concert and lecture tour outside India with Sidi Goma, a group of African-Indian Sidi performers from Gujarat, traveling with them in England and Wales in September 2002.

Her most recent publications include Sidi Sufis: African Indian Mystics of Gujarat (Apsara Media 2002: 79-minute CD), the volume co-edited with Indian Ocean historian Edward Alpers, Sidis and Scholars: Essays on African Indians (New Delhi: Rainbow Publications, 2003), and two DVDs: From Africa to India: Sidi Music in the Indian Ocean Diaspora (Apsara Media 2003, 79 minutes) and The Sidi Malunga Project: Rejuvenating the African Musical Bow in India (Apsara Media, 2004, 47 minutes).
Email: acatlin@ucla.edu
Websites: http://www.apsara-media.com, shttp://www.ethnomusic.ucla.edu/people/catlin.htm


 


Questions? Please contact Juliana Finucane: jkfinuca@syr.edu