Beyond 'Innocence': Amis Aboriginal Song in Taiwan as an Ecosystem
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Aboriginal Singers
Aboriginal Song
aborigines
Age Set System
Amis Hymnody
Amis Singers
Amis Song
Amis song cultural transformation
Author_Shzr Ee Tan
Betel Nuts
Biotic Diversity
Category=AVLT
Christian hymnody adaptation
county
cultural identity Taiwan
Cultural Troupe
Drum Machine Beats
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
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eq_isMigrated=2
eq_music
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
ethnomusicology
Feedback
Game Songs
Han Audiences
Hsin Hsin
indigenous music studies
Japanese Enka
Jaw Harp
Joint Festivals
Junior Age Sets
music and modernisation
non-lexical
Non-lexical Syllables
performance
Relational Alterity
ritual song analysis
syllables
taitung
taiwans
thomas
tour
Tourist Troupes
turino
Vice Versa
Vocal Styles
Wedding Bands
Young Men
Product details
- ISBN 9781409424369
- Weight: 703g
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 17 Aug 2012
- Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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Taiwan aboriginal song has received extensive media coverage since the launch and settlement of a copyright lawsuit following pop group Enigma's allegedly unauthorized use of Amis voices in the 1996 Olympics hit, Return To Innocence. Taking as her starting point the ripple effects of this case, Shzr Ee Tan explores the relationship of this song culture to contemporary Amis society. She presents Amis song in its multiple manifestations as an ecosystem, symbiotic components of which interact and feed back upon one another in cross-cutting platforms of village life, festival celebration, cultural performance, popular song, art music and Christian hymnody. Tan's investigation hinges upon drawing a conceptual line between ladhiw, the Amis term for 'song' - a word vested with connotations of life-force, tradition, ritual and taboo - and the foreign term of yinyue ('music' - borrowed from Mandarin). This difference forms the basis of how Amis song is (re)constructed through processes of modernization, Christianization and politico-economic change. A single Amis melody, for example, can exist in several guises that are contextually exclusive but functionally mutually-supportive. Thus, a weeding song (ladhiw), which may have lost its traditional context of existence following advancements in farming technology, becomes sustained within a larger ecosystem, finding new life on the interacting platforms of Amis Catholic hymnody, karaoke and tourist shows. The latter genres (collectively, yinyue) may not rely on traditional livelihoods for survival, but thrive on a traditional melody's deeper associations to local memory and idealized Amis identities. While these new and old genres are stylistically separate, they feed into each other and back into themselves - through transforming contexts and cross-referenced memes - in organic and developing cycles of song activity. Drawing from fieldwork conducted from 2000-2010 as well as a background in ethnomusicology and journalism, Tan paints a vivid picture of song culture as an ecosystem in the lives of Amis people.
Shzr Ee Tan is a lecturer at Royal Holloway, University of London and an active musician in the UK and Singapore. Alongside her research into folksong of the Amis, Shzr Ee is also interested in musical activities on new media platforms used by overseas Chinese communities.
