Performing ReligionPerforming Religion considers issues related to Tanzanian kwayas [KiSwahili, “choirs”], musical communities most often affiliated with Christian churches, and the music they make, known as nyimbo za kwaya [choir songs] or muziki wa kwaya [choir music]. The analytical approach adopted in this text focusing on the communities of kwaya is one frequently used in the fields of ethnomusicology, religious studies, culture studies, and philosophy for understanding diversified social processes-consciousness. By invoking consciousness an attempt is made to represent the ways seemingly disparate traditions coexist, thrive, and continue within contemporary kwaya performance. An East African kwaya is a community that gathers several times each week to define its spirituality musically. Members of kwayas come together to sing, to pray, to support individual members in times of need, and to both learn and pass along new and inherited faith traditions. Kwayas negotiate between multiple musical traditions or just as often they reject an inherited musical system while others may continue to engage musical repertoires from both Europe and Africa. Contemporary kwayas comfortably coexist in the urban musical soundscape of coastal Dar es Salaam along with jazz dance bands, taarab ensembles, ngoma performance groups, Hindi film music, rap, reggae, and the constant influx of recorded American and European popular musics. This ethnography calls into question terms frequently used to draw tight boundaries around the study of the arts in African expressive religious cultures. Such divisions of the arts present well-defended boundaries and borders that are not sufficient for understanding the change, adaptation, preservation, and integration that occur within a Tanzanian kwaya. Boundaries break down within the everyday performance of East African kwayas, such as Kwaya ya Upendo [“The Love Choir”] in Dar es Salaam, as repertoires, traditions, histories, and cultures interact within a performance of social identity. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
An Ethnographic Approach to the Study of Tanzanian Kwaya Music | 10 |
Chapter Two East African Kwaya Music and the Colonial and Missionary Encounter | 29 |
Chapter Three Conflicting Complementary and Divergent Aesthetics of Kwaya Music | 59 |
The Musical Performance of Community in an East African Kwaya | 78 |
Music and Worship in a Tanzanian Kwaya Community | 105 |
Tanzanian Popular Kwaya Music | 116 |
Chapter Seven Social Organization and the Creation of Sacred Space within Kwaya ya Upendo | 135 |
Ndugu Gideon Mdegellas Nyimbo za Kwaya | 157 |
Chapter Nine Conclusion | 187 |
| 198 | |
Glossary | 206 |
Appendices | 211 |
| 221 | |
Other editions - View all
Performing Religion: Negotiating Past and Present in Kwaya Music ..., Volume 1 Gregory F. Barz No preview available - 2003 |
Performing Religion: Negotiating Past and Present in Kwaya Music ..., Volume 1 Gregory F. Barz No preview available - 2003 |
Common terms and phrases
African approach asked Association attempts Azania Front Lutheran Barz become begins chapter choir Christian colonial compose congregation contemporary continue culture Dar es Salaam distinct early East Africa effort emerge English ethnography European evangelical example exist experience expression field research Figure gather German Gideon Mdegella historical hymn identity important indigenous individual initial interaction Interview introduced issues kandas KiSwahili kwaya communities kwaya music kwaya performance Kwaya ya Upendo Kwaya ya Vijana leaders Lutheran Church Mama mashindano means meeting mission missionaries multiple mwalimu mwenyekiti Ndugu ngoma nyimbo original participate performance perhaps Photograph popular position present question recording refer reflects rehearsal repertoires represent response Salaam significant singing social social identity songs sounds space specific spirituality styles suggests Tanzanian kwayas teacher term traditions translation understanding urban Usharika voice wanakwaya wimbo youth