Browsing by Author "Nixon, Michael"

Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
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    Jews and Mappilas of Kerala: A study of their history and selected song traditions
    (2021) Aranha, Mark; Nixon, Michael; Damodaran, Sumangala
    This dissertation restudies the history and selected archival musical recordings relating to the Jews and Mappila Muslims on the Malabar coast of Kerala, India. These two communities arose out of transoceanic migrations and interactions over the longue durée, and in reconstructing their past, this work aims to uncover traces of their links to each other and to others across the seas. This is a part of a larger project, Re-Centring AfroAsia, which seeks to trace human and musical migrations between 700-1500CE. Previous studies, apart from suffering from colonial biases, have tended to focus on a single religion, a single community, or a single discipline, with the aesthetic fields remaining largely untapped as a source. This work combines diverse sources and methodologies – using a musical archive, restudies, field interviews, field recordings, as well as a range of secondary sources, and crosses over multiple fields of study. The field research threw up certain inadequacies in the existing secondary literature, which this dissertation has attempted to untangle: 1) Ideas and reform movements of the twentieth century have affected the interpretation of past cultural practices in Malabar. This is true of studies of both Jews and Mappila Muslims. 2) The role of Sufism and Sufi tariqats in the propagation of Islam in Malabar has been historically underplayed in the literature. The influence of Jewish mystics on the Malabari Jewish community is also rarely identified as such. 3) While the Mappilas' links with Arab nations are known, their Tamil roots are relatively understudied. The latter emerged in my restudy of the archival music selection. 4) A minority of elite Jews in Kerala seem to have taken over the historical narrative of the entire group, skewing almost all secondary literature right from the early colonial period into the twentieth century. It is apparent that the Malabari Jews have been denied a voice in most of these works, and so my field work with the Jews primarily focused on this subgroup.
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    Madagascar's Musical Migrations: Instruments as Framework to Reimagine Early Indian Ocean Contact
    (2018) Adams, Rashid Epstein; Nixon, Michael
    Madagascar's enigmatic settlement is one of the unsolved puzzles of human history. For more than a century, scholars have been narrating the story of remarkable pre-colonial Indian Ocean migrations from Southeast Asia, East Africa and West Asia to the world's fourth-largest island. With a recent increase in research by scholars from various disciplines, the details surrounding Madagascar's settlement are slowly taking form. Within this context, I enquire what the study of music can contribute towards these investigations. By foregrounding musical instruments, the tangible aspects of musical culture, I present important evidence linking Madagascar to these Indian Ocean regions. My approach is two-fold. Firstly, I conduct a classification-based organological study by comparing several Malagasy instruments to examples found in Southeast Asia, East Africa and West Asia. I argue, on the basis of strikingly similar forms and names with the same roots, that these Malagasy instruments are localised versions of instruments diffused to the island. Secondly, I foreground Madagascar's national instrument, the valiha, by examining its visual development and incorporation of symbolic imagery. By viewing it as an object that is not limited to making beautiful sounds, I reveal how the valiha embodies enormous amounts of knowledge. This knowledge, often relating to heritage and identity, situates the musical instrument as a potentially vital constituent to advance the study of Malagasy origins.
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    'Re-writing' Shakespeare in Africa : creating musical relevance for a contemporary South African audience; with special reference to Geoffrey Hyland's production of Twelfth Night, or What You Will, staged at Maynardville Open-Air Theatre in 2006
    (2009) Jeffery, Robert; Nixon, Michael
    This thesis explores the use of current music genres in a postcolonial, and more specifically South African, theatrical context to replace the lost value of audience's musical recognition that was an integral part of performances of Shakespeare's, and other playwrights', plays in Elizabethan England. It makes special reference to a performance of William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night or What You Will (1601) which took place at Cape Town's Maynardville Open-Air Theatre in 2006 in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Shakespeare at Maynardville. The thesis is accompanied by a copy of the CD of the production's music performed by The Illyrian Players, the ensemble who performed the music live for the duration of the show's run. The creation of the music was an experiential learning process, and the thesis constitutes an analysis and reflection on that process with reference to current literary theory. Postmodern ideas of the 'text' and the 'reader' are applied to the theatrical performance and assessed as a method of interpretation of events. The process was thoroughly researched and collaborative, but in addition to this, it was undertaken in a spirit of postmodern playfulness. TheΓÇó song settings for the production made use of the earliest settings available that have a legitimate association with the play, and are arranged in diverse musical styles to suit the production's particular character.
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    The reception of Norwegian-South African musical interactions : a study of selected musical collaborations from the 19th century to the present
    (2007) Tveitan, Ragnhild Vreim; Nixon, Michael
    This research project investigates the perception of Norwegian-South African musical interactions. It is an in depth study of four recent cases of musical collaboration between Norwegian and South African musicians with an emphasis on the Norwegian musicians perception of "the Other". Furthermore, it is an investigation into the fusion of music within these collaborations by assessing the discernible "South African flavour" and "Norwegian flavour" and an analysis of how they fuse.
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    The repertoire of Kayamba Africa: contemporary reworking of traditional musics in Nairobi
    (2012) Maina, Christine Wambui; Nixon, Michael
    This research focuses on Kayamba Africa's repertoire of reworked traditional songs in Nairobi, where they are based. The study involved extensive literature and field research through library and online research, participant observation, interviews, data analysis and transcriptions. Three live performances of Kayamba Africa were analysed: a wedding reception and state function and an edited DVD recording. An analysis of Kayamba Africa's three recordings, namely 'Omutun', 'Wakarirũ' and 'Ngulũ', from the album Kayamba Africa was conducted. This analysis observed and compared different interpretations and translations of the songs' texts sourced from different research consultants, as well as Kayamba Africa's musical structure and recordings of Boniface Mganga's choral arrangement of Ngulũ and Hugh Tracey's recording of 'Rũimbo rwa ngũ'.
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    ‘Seeds of the Braced Bow’ (The Flower, the Seed and the Bee)
    (2019) Koela, Ernie Nathi; Nixon, Michael
    'A journey! from a seed, to a flower through a bee… it is a relationship with nature that is silent, we do not know if either is conscious of this interaction but we know that we see plants and nature blossom because of this. Is this not also the story of the bow... who were the seeds the flowers and the bees? did they know? Those in the Film have dedicated their spirits in search of traditional spirits and healers - their medicine, sound and vibration; the trilogies map will follow their song! Be it the drum, bow or horn we will venture to move like the cultures and instruments of old like the nomadic Khoi and San!’ This is a sonic text, accompanied by visual reality, all the details are in the sounds gestures, smiles, eyes and interactions made in this text… these are not interviews but a journey through the gaze of an apprentice! A focus on the instrumentalist, as alchemist, sonic healer and cultural treasure. The end, to point to the reality of a rich shared h’story between Afro- Asia through the making of the musical bow!
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    The significance of music in the performance of svikwembu ritual practices amongst the Shangana Tsonga people of semi-urban southern Mozambique
    (2006) Mazuze, Ivan Félix da Conceição; Nixon, Michael
    This research investigates the significance of music in svikwembu. one of the most regularly used ritual practices amongst the Shangana Tsonga people of southern Mozambique, specifically in the Maputo province. The significance and importance of music is applied to all practitioners of svikwembu. Svikwembu includes trance (spirit possession), divination, consultation (leu pahla), exorcism (kufemba) and healing practices. Music activity has different functions in each of the above-mentioned practices. Specific instruments (gocha, ngoma, ntxomana, and whistle) and styles of music (Ndau, Nguni, mahlonga and Monhe) are used and performed in these set ritual practices. The main purpose of this thesis is to find out why music has to be performed in order to establish communication between the practitioners of the medium of svikwembu (traditional healers) and spirits (Ndau, Nguoi, mahlonga and Monbe). This thesis aims to fill a gap in the field of knowledge concerning music, trance and spirit possession of the Shangana Tsonga of southern Mozambique
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    Understanding the history of women's lives in Zanzibar through song and story: a gendered perspective
    (2021) Clacherty, Bronwen; Bruinders, Sylvia; Nixon, Michael
    This dissertation and the accompanying performance explore women's history through the song genre dandaro learned from women's singing groups in present-day Zanzibar. The study aims to show that songs, a part of oral tradition, are an effective way of adding to the minimal understanding we have of women's lives in Zanzibar and the Indian Ocean. The dissertation transcribes both the lyrics and the music of the dandaro songs and analyses them in relation to theoretical perspectives on archive and gender realities, as well as in the context of the history of Zanzibar. It also describes how and why I created a performance that reflected both the journey of my research as well as what the women and men I met shared with me. The dissertation and performance form a whole and the performed work is incorporated into the dissertation to show how the performance deepened the approach to the theory and data and vice versa. This study of dandaro songs reveals the existence of a transgenerational archive of information that preserves and transmits the image of strong womanhood and woman's agency, where women subvert gender norms and express their solidarity with each other.
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    We feed off the spirit of the audience' : an ethnographic study of musical storytelling in the street music of South Africa
    (2008) Gillham, Alice; Nixon, Michael
    Street musicians in South Africa work within a challenging macrostructure. In order to maximise their success within this performance environment they must develop strategies to overcome the difficulties that South Africa's streets present. Various social issues: unemployment, crime, health and xenophobia, have a direct impact on its street musicians, who predominantly come from lower income groups. The changing tourism industry, which is a vital source of income for these musicians, also presents challenges and opportunities. Together these aspects create a unique street environment within which to examine the role of the musical storyteller, and a performance space that requires the development of specific skills by the street performer to maximaise its advantages. Watching a performance by a group of South African street musicians, telling a complex narrative to their audience, I realised that these performers might not only be fulfilling various social functions, but might also be playing a role in actively performing, and contributing to, genres of South Africa's traditional musical heritage. I wished to explore this and began to interview selected street performers, and to observe and record their performances. The boom in the South African tourism industry encourages street musicians to develop styles of performance and musical storytelling that rely heavily on styles of traditional music. However, their repertoires are extensive, and keep altering. There is no pre-established, repeated canon of material to study and draw conclusions from. I therefore had to approach this study with a different intention. I did not look for single musical narrative items, which I could then dissect and present, but rather I attempted to identify unique aspects of this performance environment and the patterns, or frames of behaviour these cause and inspire.