Abstracts - American Musicological Society

24 Thursday Afternoon: Session 1- 22
AMS/SEM/SMT New Orleans 2012
in-group identity and stereotyping the behavior of other groups, and ask what factors might precipitate such processes of social
differentiation. I argue that, although pitched at the level of personal appearance, behavior, and “taste” the critiques deployed
by these songs in fact point to more fundamental concerns: the opportunities for advancement that each group was perceived
as possessing within the postwar economic order, and shifts in the new country’s class structure that have empowered certain
groups economically and politically in unexpected ways.
Balkan Beats DJs, and Club Culture: Producing Gypsy Music
Carol Silverman (University of Oregon)
In the 1990s, clubs in western Europe began to draw large crowds of young non-Roma to dance to remixed Balkan Gypsy
music. This paper analyzes the production of this “Balkan Beats” soundscape by a growing DJ subculture, comprised of
hundreds of performers on five continents. Based on fieldwork in western Europe and the US, I explore how DJs choose their
materials and define “Balkan music” noting that 90% of their repertoire is Romani brass music; Balkan, Gypsy, and Brass are
now interchangeable labels. Interrogating the issue of authenticity and the construction of the “fantasy Gypsy” my analysis
highlights social, class, and ethnic differences among the various positionalities in this soundscape: the DJs, the clubbers,
the marketers, and the Romani musicians whose music is sampled. DJs, clubbers, and marketers are mostly neither Roma
nor from the Balkans. Balkan Beats promotes an acoustic style; non-Balkan DJs tend to shun amplified musics that feature
synthesizers even though they are widespread in Romani communities; DJs from the Balkans, however, have a more eclectic
repertoire. Some DJs are young and naïve about the Balkans and some do serious research. Some DJs remix for the love of it
and make little money; on the other hand, a few are well paid. Roma, operating from a marginal class and social position, play
an ambivalent role in this soundscape; they may be invisible or may provide “authenticity” through guest live performances or
collaborations with DJs. Finally, marketers promote the music as a multicultural exchange that counteracts racism.
Session 1-22 (SEM), 1:45–3:45
Cultural Politics from the Top Down
Donna Kwon (University of Kentucky), Chair
Politics of “Arirang” : Tripartite Function of a Korean Folksong in the Republic of
Korea, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and the People’s Republic of China
Byong Won Lee (University of Hawai‘i)
Arirang is the most well-known and popular folksong of Korea, which originated from the central region of Korea around
the time of the Japanese annexation of Korea in 1910. It has evolved to be the iconic song for both South and North Korea.
Recently, the Chinese government has designated Arirang as a cultural heritage of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Region
of China. South Korean conservatives are suspicious of the Chinese gesture as it is one of the ongoing Chinese appropriations
of Korean heritage, which includes the ownership of some historical events. South Korean government is actively promoting
the song internationally as a musical icon. On the other hand, the North Korean government hosts the “Arirang Festival” in
honoring the birthday of the late “Dearest Leader of Kim Il-sung,” an effort to tone down the ideological stress through using
a cultural title. This paper will explore the tripartite states of Arirang: as a musical icon through its nation-branding function
in the Republic of Korea (South Korea), as a soft image-making medium in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North
Korea), and as a political embrace of minorities by the People’s Republic of China.
Incorporated Ethnicity: Music, Tourism, and Cosmopolitanism in Northern Vietnam
Lonán Ó Briain (University of Sheffield)
Since the 1990s Sapa has transformed into what the Lonely Planet now calls “the destination of northwest Vietnam, [a]
gateway to another world of mysterious minority cultures and luscious landscapes” (http://www.lonelyplanet.com/vietnam/
northwest-vietnam/sapa). Staged performances of indigenous music and dance in Sapa focus on the culture of the resident
ethnic minority groups, in particular the Hmong. In addition to informal street performances, the local authorities organize
formal shows for tourists in the guise of cultural heritage preservation. This paper examines how the commodification of
Hmong culture and the incorporation of Hmong identity are manifest in the most successful of these formal shows, the Cat
Cat village show. The analysis, framed by the concept of Ethnicity, Inc. (Comaroff and Comaroff 2009), considers how local
traditions are made palatable for a cosmopolitan tourist audience at the “contact zone” (Pratt 1992) of the performance. The
calculated omission of certain vital aspects of the traditions, which are supposedly being preserved, demonstrates how these
performances engender neoimperialist power relations where those with the money dictate the musical content, albeit indirectly.
Furthermore, by representing Vietnamese-Hmong culture as tribal, exotic, or oriental the authorities are adopting a