Calle 14: Revista de Investigación en el Campo del Arte (May 2011)
¿Qué llaman los golpes de tambor? apuntes sobre música, agencia y re(ex)istencia
Abstract
The “spaces of death”, the technologies of terror and discipline, as well as obscured, racially biased and colonized accounts have historically eclipsed the militancy and the militants oflife, joy, music, festivities, and, consequently, of the colors, scents and rhythms of an era, with all the concomitant sociopolitical significations and repercussions. From this premise, the essay revindicates music as an overflowing universe that is also responsible for the carrying on of existence, the agency of history, and for giving testimony on a wide range of struggles, connections and songs —living proof of how life, even among the colonial wound and trauma— can dress for the festivities as palliative and interpellation. The mulatto forms of music, as visible links in the chain of affections and experiences, are a sociohistorical product, a cry of emancipation and social resistance, a vitalistic reaction in our multicolored, festive, feeling and thinking America.