How are you?
Following the last week, I am going to start my
30th lecture.
I had conducted music lectures at Art Collage
JANG in Seoul, South Korea every Saturday from March 2015 to December 2017.
I am going to introduce some of the music in
the lecture with a brief overview of the lecture by the lecture’s order every
Saturday.
Please refer to the following link for my
previous lectures.
The 30th lecture for today is "World
Music: Polynesia".
This lecture was the 30th lecture of “ACJ Music
Academy”, which was held on 21 November 2015.
Polynesia is made up of many islands in the
Pacific Ocean, with a total land area of about 26,000 square kilometers, but
the islands cover almost half of the Pacific Ocean. Polynesia means “many islands,” with Tonga and
Samoa in the west, New Zealand in the south, Hawaii in the north, and Easter
Island in the east.
Internationally, Polynesian music is known for
guitars, grass skirts, hula and tourist-friendly music. However, while these elements are part of
Polynesian history and culture, in fact Polynesian music includes a wide
variety of music from a wider region.
Today I will briefly lecture about the music of
Tahiti, New Zealand and Hawaii in Polynesia.
For Tahiti, before the arrival of Europeans, Tahiti's
music was dominated by festivals called "heiva.”
For the Tahitian people at the time, dancing
was an important part of life, and dances were used for almost every event. At this time, there were many professional
dance troupes in Tahiti called ʻarioi’, who danced very sensually and
erotically as they are travelling around the islands and communities. However, after colonization in the early 19th
century, colonial law considered these dances as immoral and restricted them,
and then they were replaced by Christian music genre such as “himene tarava”.
In New Zealand, the indigenous Maori traditions
are quite different from other areas of Polynesia, and their traditional way of
life is more intense as their dances.
A Maori dance called ‘ma te tinana e korero’ is
a dance meaning 'let your body speak', and along with traditional men's dance
'haka', it features a lot of gestures such as rolling feet, shaking hands and
forearms, turning eyes and sticking out tongues. The Maori haka, however, is not a war dance as
is commonly known, and sometimes expresses welcome and farewell.
The accompanying chant is sang in the mid pitch
between normal conversation and singing. In general, Maori chants are characterized by
shouting rhythmic lyrics, with excited voices, starting with high pitch and
descending at the end of the phrase.
Hawaii was officially occupied by the United
States in 1898 and became the 50th state in the United States in 1959.
But Hawaii, even though it became part of the
United States, is far from American looks in many ways. This is because Hawaii is located about 4,000
kilometers west of San Francisco, and the majority of its population is
Polynesian.
Hawaiian music is rooted, above all, in
traditional Polynesian chants and drum dances. The chant, “Mele”, once appeared throughout
Oceania, is music basically consisting of voices and drums.
Hula is a dance and song performed in
traditional religious rituals, and its origin is not exactly known. However, it has a unique body movement that is
completely different from the dances performed in other parts of Polynesia,
especially the hand movements. Hula was secretly done because the western
missionaries forbid it when they are preaching Christianity, and as entering
modern times, the religious meaning of the Hula was disappeared and developed
into an entertainment form.
Today, I will introduce 3 music as follows:
1.
Vini Vini (Tahiti)
2. Pokarekare
Ana (New Zealand)
3, Aloha Oe (Hawaii)
You can listen to all the songs from following
YouTube link.
Next week, I will lecture "World Music: China"
as my 31st lecture.
Thank you.
No comments:
Post a Comment