Music-making as a Social Act (in South Albania) By Eckehard Pistrick & Gerda Dalipaj (Excerpt from Celebrating the Imagined Village: Ways of Organizing and Commenting Local Soundscapes and Social Patterns in South Albanian Feasts - Eckehard Pistrick (Halle University, Germany), Gerda Dalipaj (Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Art Studies, Albania) ...singing and dancing at a feast in South Albania means also to behave within a system of rules which is related to the concept of honour (nder). Music-making and dancing are acts in which the social order is revealed, contested and negotiated. Sugarman wrote that Prespa Albanians at weddings ‘from their gestures and postures to the ways they sing and danced’ give an ‘overwhelming impression of social and moral order’ (Sugarman 1997, 212), an order which she came to understand as a system in process. Similarly, Lortat-Jacob (1994) came to the conclusion that Sardinian circle dances are ‘formally and aesthetically institutionalized’ (Lortat-Jacob 1994, 76) in the sense that their degree of variation and variability is limited. Panopoulos in his study of improvised singing in Aegean Greece confirmed that in villages of Naxos singing is still used in constructive ways ‘which are connected to the constitution of local attitudes, practices, and beliefs concerning gender, community and identity’ (Panopoulos 1996, 53). Music-making and dancing relates also to the double-sided character of the feast as being ordered and improvised at the same time. Maintaining the informality of improvised singing in this context has been interpreted as cultural response to the transformations inside and outside the feasts, even as an act of resistance to its ‘folklorization’ (Panopoulos 2003). Singing is seen by Panopoulos (2005, 250) as a subordinate discourse allowing the construction of an alternative version of local identity based on shared values, symbolic practices and a particular kind of sociability. But singing and dancing at a feast in South Albania means also to behave within a system of rules which is related to the concept of honour (nder).²⁸ To create a ‘community in honour’ (Sugarman 1997, 213) requires acting with self-restraint but also fulfilling the expectations of others on how to act. A similar ‘body of moral, social, and aesthetic rules’ defined locally, was examined at Olymbos feasts (glendia) in Greece (Caraveli 1985, 263). In this case even the locals themselves considered their feast a ritual (ierotelesteia) (Caraveli 1985, 262), stressing the restrictive character of the feast in regard to (social) order and discipline. Even the juerga (popular feasts) of Andalusian gypsies, which at first sight resemble a joyous tumult, are guided, according to Pasqualino (2008, 203ff), by a form of ritual ordering. In this sense music-making during a feast should be understood as a catalyser, a means and indicator for social interaction, not as an accessory to social reality. The feast with its collective implications brings music into being – gives music a social existence in the meaning that it does not ‘accompany’ social events but shapes and transforms them. Music-making at feasts and commenting on it, is linked intrinsically with the general muhabet. A distinction between ‘producers-singers’ and one group of ‘consumer-listeners’ in the Western sense do not exist. For us it is therefore important to observe the processes and interactions during the feast, particularly those between verbal communication, music and dance. In a similar way dance and music-making can be understood as tools for the construction of sameness and otherness, negotiated in relation to time and space.²⁹ Both singing and dancing are competitive cultural fields. Especially dance can become a field of concurrence even between friends through the highly symbolic occupation of space for kin groups or families through the throwing of money to the musicians. Being visible or audible in terms of exhibiting oneself as long as possible seems often to be an aim pursued by dancers and singers/instrumentalists. As every feast has to reach certain emotional standards, which are described locally as qejfi or gëzim (joy), music fulfils a crucial role in attaining this heightened state of mind. Qejfi or kefi as it is called in Greece is a matter of collective interest, achieved through the wellmatching of verbal expression and individual sensitivities (Panopoulos 1996, 62).³⁰ Three basic roles of music may be distinguished in this context: (1) it serves as a regulation system, (2) it is the object of (emotional) mobilisation and it serves as a (3) symbolic communication system by means of which cultural identity is built (Lortat-Jacob 1994, 15). Its purpose is above all a social one: to share emotions, collectivity and memories. Singing itself resembles the elaboration of a sketch, a musical form which waits to be turned into aesthetic and emotional experience through performance (Lortat-Jacob 2008). Important in every case is the play between collective and individual initiative, guiding both the singing process and the feast as a whole. This interplay is aimed at evoking emotions not only between singers and listeners but also between the performers themselves. Only through shared emotions is received a concord, which includes both a social and an aesthetic dimension. This concord seems to be a precondition for a ‘good song’ as valuated by performers and listeners alike (Lortat-Jacob 2008). Despite this there are noticeable differences between performers of vocal and of instrumental music. While the former are mostly nonprofessional, the instrumentalists are often professionals – seen as outsiders in the sense of coming from an urban background or having become ‘urbanized.’ It is because of this distinction made by the villagers that multipart singers are not paid, while the singer of the professional saze group is paid. It is the ‘logic of the stage’ which is applied here: the one who enters the stage has the right to get paid, the one who acts from within the social group sings for his own pleasure and the pleasure of the others. This staging of music has been introduced in South Albanian feasts in a more or less visible manner. In Dhoksat, for example, there existed no real stage³¹ but a symbolically charged place near the plane tree (rrapi), marked by the marble plate of the cultural association and a shrine. This symbolic stage led to the division between musicians and audience acquiring a more fragile and temporary meaning, as did the circle of concrete, which, although not elevated like a ‘proper stage,’ served as a stage for the dancers.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Feb 2014 18:43:48 +0000
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