Andalusian Music, Cultures of Tolerance and the Negotiation of Collective Memories: Deep Listening in the Mediterranean
- Autores: Jonathan H. Shannon
- Localización: Etno: Cuadernos de Etnomusicología, ISSN-e 2014-4660, Nº. 2, 2012 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Música en el Mediterráneo), págs. 101-116
- Idioma: inglés
- Enlaces
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Resumen
This essay offers an interpretation of the cultural and political dynamics of Andalusian music in the contemporary Mediterranean, with a focus on the politics of performance in Morocco. AlAndalus carries great rhetorical force in the contemporary Mediterranean, where the idea of Andalusian culture is appropriated to serve a variety of ends: for example in Syria to promote pan-Arab and pan-Islamic achievements of essentially Syrian origin; in Morocco to celebrate a genealogical connection to Europe, to reinforce the monarchy’s ties to a prestige past; and in Spain to promote new visions of the Spanish nation and its heterogeneous pasts via accessing the rich tapestry of Andalusian cultures. I reflect on some aspects of Andalusian music that have taken on increased resonance after the events of 9/11/2001 and the launching of a "war on terror." In the post-911 world, al-Andalus has been used rhetorically to promote visions of cultural tolerance, both in the Mediterranean basin, Europe, and increasingly in the Americas.
Basing my remarks on interviews with Moroccan and Spanish artists who perform today what has come to be called Andalusian or Arabo-Andalusian music I explore the idea that a history of musical interaction in the past not only indexes past inter-culturalism, but might serve as a model of contemporary forms of intersubjective understanding. I then conclude with some comments on the notion of cultural tolerance and its limits, and on what medieval performance practice and modern evocations of al-Andalus can teach us about bridging the boundaries that divide us.
