National Geographic Music Checks Out The 4th International Body Music Festival
National Geographic URL - http://worldmusic.nationalgeographic.com/view/page.basic/article/content.article/body_music_festival/en_US
NOVEMBER 15, 2011
The Body’s Irresistible Beat
Nat Geo Music Checks Out The 4th International Body Music Festival
by Catalina Maria Johnson
Backstage at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, a richly textured tapestry of sounds emanates from the labyrinth of corridors as performers practice for the upcoming concert. However, they aren't tuning guitars or cellos. In beautifully choreographed moves, they produce equally lovely sounds, stomping, humming, clapping, swaying, chanting. Their instruments are their bodies - they are artists from around the world preparing to perform in the International Body Music Festival. The festival, which took place November 1-6, alternates yearly between San Francisco and an international location. In 2010, it was held in Sao Paolo, Brazil, and next year the festival goes to Istanbul, Turkey.
The Choreography of Sound
Keith Terry, founder of the Festival and a 2008 Guggenheim Fellow, prefers to term the art "body music" rather than "body drumming" or "body percussion", as the art involves elements of melody and harmony as well as rhythm. Some artists, including Terry, initially approached body music from a background in percussion and drumming. Others come at it from a percussive dance form, such as tap dancing or flamenco, As to vocals, they take on differing degrees of importance depending on the artist. Terry's own performances over the weekend sampled all of these ways of approaching the art. When performing solo - truly a master body musician at work - he created delicately nuanced, complex rhythmic patterns that emerged as his fingers, hands and limbs brushed, tapped and patted the body while his feet were also tapping and stomping. As the Slamming Rhythm Trio, Terry along with Bryan Dyer and Steve Hogan performed as a threesome as well as backing up the hip-hop of guest artist Rico Pavon from Puerto Rico. In this configuration, vocals as well as beatboxing shared the stage along with the body as a percussion instrument. Performing with SlamDance, a sextet that includes Dyer and Hogan as well as Evie Ladin, Namita Kapoor and Nuria Bowart, Terry explored the dance component more directly, layering sounds via synchronized movements that traversed the stage and truly incorporated the music.
Island Heartbeat
Another highlight of the festival's concerts were the performances of six members of the larger Balinese ensemble Çudamani. At times standing, other times seated, chanting in harmony and in percussive syllables to create rapid-fire, interlocking rhythmic patterns, Çudamani 's playful, high-energy gestures and soundscapes evoked their tropical island home. Dewa Berata, composer, arranger, musician and director of the troupe, explained that their piece is based on Keçak, ancient sacred trance music and dance that emerged in ceremonies when repeated by emperor's decree after successfully curing a village epidemic. Berata also gave examples of how their syllables imitate the sound of traditional Balinese gongs, and his hands fluttered and waved nearly cinematically as he represented wind, clouds, trees, animals. However, he affirmed emphatically that far beyond reflecting instruments and geography, the most important aspect of Keçak is how it manifests cultural tenets: "We always work together. In Bali, everything has partner. Demon, god, good, bad, woman, man, day, night. So, one person does one beat, the other does other beat. That's why we can play very fast, sharing rhythms as fast as a heartbeat."
Spirit of Resistance
Similarly to how the Balinese body music retells the story of overcoming trials and tribulations, other forms of the art bear witness to a spirit of resistance. San Diego-based artist Danny 'Slapjazz' Barber, who says, smiling, "I don't have rhythm, rhythm has me," is an imposing, elegant gentleman with a deep, soft voice. Barber swooped white-gloved hands in intricate forms as he slapped and tapped chest and thighs, sharing the centuries-old art of hambone. Barber described how hambone emerged in the 1700's in South Carolina after the Stono Insurrection, when rebelling slaves had multiplied in numbers by using drums to communicate with each other. Consequently forbidden to assemble or use any instruments, they developed rhythms on the body as a means of communication as well as a means of expression. Barber, who first experienced the art from a cousin, who had learned it from their grandfather, a share-cropper in South Carolina, states he is proud to be preserving an art of significance to African and African-American culture.
Stories of the Sea
Other performers used body music to tell a specific story. Cambuyón, a troupe based in the Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, takes its name from the "Come Buy On" signs on 19th century English ships moored in the port that hoped to entice commerce. Jep Meléndez, Cambuyón's principal dancer, described how Cambuyon's piece represents the concepts of the sea and rhythms as a means of sharing cultures among very different peoples in distant lands. The fragment of a longer piece they presented at the festival represents three characters on a ship traversing the Atlantic. Meléndez, whose background is in tap dancing, was accompanied by two other artists; Raul Cabrera, who added Cuban chants to the mix, and percussionist Néstor Busquets, who focused on body percussion. One of the most astounding parts of their performance was Meléndez spreading sand on the stage to glide and tap upon it using swishing, delicate soft-shoe sounds that simultaneously created beautiful visual patterns on the floor. Meléndez later described how sand dancing is a precursor to tap dancing, and like hambone, emerged in times when African slaves were prohibited from using instruments.
The Québécois art shared by Eric Beaudry was also born of lack of instruments, however, not due to oppression but rather the travails of immigration. Beaudry, who is also a member of the renowned De Temps Antan trio, sang seated, stomping out accompaniment to his vocals as well as on some pieces, along with dancer Sandy Silva's stunning moves. Beaudry explained that foot rhythms were introduced to Canada by fiddlers, as their instrument was the first and often one of few to make it across the Atlantic Ocean. Consequently, a practice developed of placing fiddlers seated on tables, who would beat out rhythms with their feet to accompany square dancers. Beaudry's performance at the festival was austere and elegant; haunting vocals enhanced by the building and layering of rhythms created by the feet's lilting grooves.
Body Music Usul
KeKeÇa, a quintet from Turkey and next year's festival's hosts, presented pieces of striking visual as well as auditory impact. One could almost see the beats flowing from one musician to another, appearing to be caught mid-air. Founding member Tugay Ba?ar described the philosophy that guides the quintet as one that gives vital importance to the pause of the body preparing to make a sound: "Even before the movement, you have to stop, balance, feel the movement coming, feel the sound that will be created at the end of it". KeKeÇa's sound has a quite distinct and unique texture, as some of their compositions, Ba?ar explains, are based usul, rhythmic cycles of beats and pauses which are a fundamental element of Classic Ottoman music. Body music, indeed, is a part of musical learning - students learning Turkish music in the traditional system first memorize the composition and internalize its rhythmic structures by using their hands to strike knees while singing.
Cultures Revealed
One of the most intriguing aspects of body music is to see aspects of cultures revealed as artists play what is basically the same instrument in amazingly different ways. Fernando Barba, founder of the acclaimed Brazilian ensemble Barbatuques, explains how even a language's phonetic structures will affect an body musician's mode of expression, as there is a tendency to choose sounds and syllables familiar to one's native language. However, he adds, the choice to draw upon the familiar also includes gestures. Barba cites how his own repertoire includes a backward-swinging snap of the finger that is used in Brazil to indicate "some time ago" or a hard, fast slapping of thumb against palm with a quick flick of the wrist, that signifies "really fast!" Seeing participants repeat these gestures in the very well-attended workshop Barba taught, it was clear they were learning to speak Portuguese with their bodies.
The Body's Irresistible Beat
At the YBCA performances, when the artists invited audience participation, the public in the packed-to-full-capacity theater happily agreed to do so. Each artist shared fascinating viewpoints as to what makes the urge to tap, snap, stomp and hum along so irresistibly compelling. Barba considers that since there is no external instrument to mediate the musical experience,"You can find the value of your body and your self". Other artists commented on the carefree spirit that the art embodies, which evokes forgotten childhood pleasures in the exploration of sound and movement. At the heart of the art, says festival founder Terry, is a simplicity that is the antithesis of a technological society. Body music may also remind us of the past, he muses: " I believe some kind of genetic memory is triggered when we see it, some recognition of quite possibly how we first started to make music." Ba?ar gently remarks that after all, "It is the only music where the instrument and the musician are one and the same."
Both weekend concerts culminated in all the artists performing together on stage, and then led by Terry, exiting to the YBCA lobby, where a good number of the audience joined in a spontaneous body music jam. People hailing from all corners of the world coordinated sounds and movements, and at least for a few moments, became one joyful body of humanity.
