This course investigates music and performative acts of protest and resistance that transcend genre, human intention, and spatial and temporal boundaries. Students will examine music and dance performance practices including Toyi Toyi, a prominent feature of protests in Apartheid South Africa; the social and political commentary of the Rara bands of Haiti, both nationally and beyond its borders; and the ever growing soundtrack of Black Lives Matter which emerged as an outcry in response to the murder of Black people at the hands of police and vigilantes in the United States, but which has since evolved into a worldwide movement against anti-Black racism. We will consider the influence of these and other instances of music/sound and dance/movement as they develop organically, and as they are deployed strategically against systems of political, economic, and social tyranny and exploitation.
- Teacher: Tracey Stewart