Sounding the aquapelago
The cultural-environmental context of ni-Vanuatu women’s liquid percussion performance
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/prbt.v15i2.23972Keywords:
Vanuatu, Mwerlap, water music, liquid percussion, aquapelagoAbstract
This article reviews the cultural-environmental context of the Leweton community’s liquid percussion practice and the production of the Vanuatu Women’s Water Music (henceforth VWWM) DVD with regard to the conceptual framework of the aquapelago. The latter has contended that human societies closely interacting with marine environments can be characterized as inhabiting an aquapelago by virtue of their activities creating an aquapelagic assemblage of terrestrial and marine elements. Following a summary discussion of aspects of the aquapelago, the article first considers the nature of the Leweton community’s liquid percussion practice in its traditional context and then addresses the contemporary developments that led to the production of the DVD, with particular regard to aspects of community livelihood and cultural transition. Drawing on these, the article posits the practices as quintessentially aquapelagic.
References
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Murphie, A. 1996. ‘Sound at the End of the World as We Know It: Nick Cave, Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire and a Deleuze-Guattarian Ecology of Popular Music’. Perfect Beat 2/4: 18–42.
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Suwa, J. 2012. ‘Shima and Aquapelagic Assemblages’. Shima: The International Journal of Research into Island Cultures 6/1: 12–18.
Wessergo, W. W. 2014. ‘The History of the Magical Water Music’. Essay in booklet accompanying Vanuatu Women’s Water Music DVD.
Dan, S., and K. Neuenfeldt. 2013. Steady Steady: The Life and Music of Seaman Dan. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press.
Dawson, H. 2012. ‘Archaeology, Aquapelagos and Island Studies’. Shima: The International Journal of Research into Island Cultures 6/1: 17–21.
Deleuze, G., and F. Guattari. 1987. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Devin, L. 2012. ‘Baka Water Drums: Playing Rivers and Streams in the Rainforest of Cameron and Gabon’. Before Farming 1: 1–11.
Dick, T. 2014. ‘Vanuatu Water Music and the Mwerlap Diaspora: Music, Migration, Tradition and Tourism’. AlterNative 10/4: 392–407.
Feld, S. 1982. Sound and Sentiment: Birds, Weeping, Poetics and Song in Kaluli Expression. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
—1994. ‘From Ethnomusicology to Echo-Muse-Ecology’. Soundscape Newsletter 8. http://www.acousticecology.org/writings/echomuseecology.html (accessed January 8, 2014).
Fleury, C. 2013. ‘The Island/Sea/Territory Relationship: Towards a Broader and Three Dimensional View of the Aquapelagic Assemblage’. Shima: The International Journal of Research into Island Cultures 7/1: 1–13.
François, A. 2012. ‘The Dynamics of Linguistic Diversity: Egalitarian Multilingualism and Power Imbalance among Northern Vanuatu Languages’. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 214: 85–110. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2012-0022
François, A., and M. Stern. 2013. Music of Vanuatu: Celebrations and Mysteries (booklet accompanying CD): 100–102. http://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00874941/ (accessed July 12, 2014).
Guattari, F. 1993. ‘Machinic Heterogenesis’. In Rethinking Technologies, ed. V. Conley, 13–27. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
—1995. ‘On the Production of Subjectivity’. In Chaosmosis: An ethico-aesthetic Paradigm, trans. P. Bains and J. Pefanis, 1–32. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Hayward, P. 1998. Music at the Borders: Not Drowning, Waving and their Engagement with Papua New Guinea Culture (1986–96). Sydney: John Libbey and Co.
—2012a. ‘Aquapelagos and Aquapelagic Assemblages’. Shima: The International Journal of Research into Island Cultures 6/1: 1–10.
—2012b. ‘The Constitution of Assemblages and the Aquapelagality of Haida Gwaii’. Shima: The International Journal of Research into Island Cultures 6/1: 1–8.
Hayward, P., and J. Fangjun Li. 2011. ‘Gilding the Pearl: Cultural Heritage, Sexual Allure and Polychromatic Exoticism on Hainan Island’. Perfect Beat: The Pacific Journal of Research into Contemporary Music and Popular Culture 10/2: 119–40. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/prbt.v11i2.119
Kato, K. 2009. ‘Soundscape, Cultural Landscape and Connectivity’. SITES 6/2: 80–91. http://dx.doi.org/10.11157/sites-vol6iss2id123
Komlosy, A. 2004. ‘Procession and Water Splashing: Expressions of Locality and Nationality during Dai New Year in Xishuangbanna’. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 10/2: 351–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9655.2004.00193.x
Levin, T., and V. Süzükei. 2010. Where Rivers and Mountains Sing. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Maxwell, I. 2012. ‘Seas as Places: Towards a Maritime Chorography’. Shima: The International Journal of Research into Island Cultures 6/1: 27–29.
Murphie, A. 1996. ‘Sound at the End of the World as We Know It: Nick Cave, Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire and a Deleuze-Guattarian Ecology of Popular Music’. Perfect Beat 2/4: 18–42.
Rahn, H., and T. Yokoyama, eds. 1965. Physiology of Breath-hold Diving and the Ama of Japan. Washington: National Academy of Sciences.
Stratford, E., G. Baldacchino, E. McMahon, C. Farbotko and A. Harwood. 2011. ‘Envisioning the Archipelago’. Island Studies Journal 6/2: 113–30.
Suwa, J. 2012. ‘Shima and Aquapelagic Assemblages’. Shima: The International Journal of Research into Island Cultures 6/1: 12–18.
Wessergo, W. W. 2014. ‘The History of the Magical Water Music’. Essay in booklet accompanying Vanuatu Women’s Water Music DVD.
Published
2015-09-07
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Hayward, P. (2015). Sounding the aquapelago: The cultural-environmental context of ni-Vanuatu women’s liquid percussion performance. Perfect Beat, 15(2), 113-127. https://doi.org/10.1558/prbt.v15i2.23972
