History, Ethics, and Emotion in Ndau Performance in Zimbabwe: Local Theoretical Knowledge and Ethnomusicological Perspectives
Perman, Anthony Wilford
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/85803
Description
Title
History, Ethics, and Emotion in Ndau Performance in Zimbabwe: Local Theoretical Knowledge and Ethnomusicological Perspectives
Author(s)
Perman, Anthony Wilford
Issue Date
2008
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Thomas Turino
Department of Study
Music
Discipline
Music
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Anthropology, Cultural
Language
eng
Abstract
"This dissertation is an ethnography of the dance/drumming practices of Ndau communities in Zimbabwe along the Mozambique border. I attend to the specific drumming practices of the spirit possession ceremonies central to local cosmological understanding, as well as the secular muchongoyo drumming that has become an important marker of Ndau identity and community. More than an examination of style and form, I want to understand why these practices thrive, how they affect people and the ways in which they contribute to the perpetuation of Ndau communities. Most importantly, I examine why drumming is important to and affective for the people I worked with. I address Ndau musical practices in relation to four major themes: possession and cosmology, history and history-making, ""aesthetics"" and the ethics of performance, and emotion and its relationship to performance. I explore how the ceremonial and historical contexts of performance in these communities shape people's ethical and emotional responses while simultaneously exploring how local emotional responses to performance situate locals' own spiritual and historical understanding of self and society."
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