This course investigates music mode of resistance that transcends 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 and Kampola music of Haiti nationally and beyond its borders; and the ever growing soundtrack of movements which have emerged across geographical and historical borders as outcries against the murders of Black men, women, and children at the hands of police and vigilantes who are fueled by the pernicious systematic racism in the United States and around the world. During the semester we will consider these and other multi-faceted and resolute outcries in the form of music/sound, and dance/movement as they develop organically and by design, and as they are deployed strategically against the systems of political, economic, and social tyranny and exploitation that generate and reinforce anti-Black racism.
Some of the questions that we will explore this semester are: What do protest and resistance sound, look, and move like in various contexts? How do music and performance become effective and affective modes in expressions of dissent and assent? In what ways are power and resistance enacted and challenged through music? What if any obligation do artists have in using their music and/or platforms to deliver politically or socially conscious statements, in advocating for the communities that they purportedly represent? We will use a combination of weekly readings, video and sound recordings, interactive conversations with guest artists/activists, and class discussions, to contemplate these questions and to consider how music might be used to inform, influence, inspire, empower, and mobilize people in protest against violent abuses of power and anti-Black racism. We will examine music and performance as they have been used to support communities in moments of adversity in which they have been and continue to be at risk of physical, psychological, and social injury historically and in the present-day.
Some of the questions that we will explore this semester are: What do protest and resistance sound, look, and move like in various contexts? How do music and performance become effective and affective modes in expressions of dissent and assent? In what ways are power and resistance enacted and challenged through music? What if any obligation do artists have in using their music and/or platforms to deliver politically or socially conscious statements, in advocating for the communities that they purportedly represent? We will use a combination of weekly readings, video and sound recordings, interactive conversations with guest artists/activists, and class discussions, to contemplate these questions and to consider how music might be used to inform, influence, inspire, empower, and mobilize people in protest against violent abuses of power and anti-Black racism. We will examine music and performance as they have been used to support communities in moments of adversity in which they have been and continue to be at risk of physical, psychological, and social injury historically and in the present-day.
- Teacher: Tracey Stewart