Sankofa: corpo em performance no (re)encontro com saberes e instrumentos ancestrais

Abstract

In Brazil and in music institutions around the world, curricula have been discussed and restructured with the aim of bringing into academia repertoires, instruments, and sound-musical practices that represent the localities and cultures in which students are embedded, considering that in many institutions the established standard still consists of practices, instruments, methods, and repertoires originating from the European continent (Queiroz, 2017). Generations of masters of popular culture pass on their knowledge primarily through oral tradition, and thus ancestral knowledge echoes in current generations. However, the rupture that still separates this knowledge within the academic environment leads to the perpetuation of “systemic violences” (Kilomba, 2019), racism, and exclusions, often resulting in the continuous absence and silencing of this knowledge in certain contexts.

The present study has the general objective of understanding what leads academic musicians to engage in the learning of knowledge from traditional Northeastern cultures, especially regarding the learning of musical instruments. The research methodology is based on a qualitative approach, aiming to understand the individual experiences of the participants through interviews and observation via social media. For the development of the study, a literature review was conducted on relevant topics such as music and ancestry, the teaching and learning of musical instruments from popular traditions, and decolonial perspectives in ethnomusicology.

Finally, the research showed that the engagement of academic musicians with traditional cultures present in the Northeast is linked to (re)identity formation and the genuine appreciation of ancestral knowledge. It was possible to understand that the body and ancestry function as territories of memory and resistance. The inclusion and integration of this knowledge within academia expands experience, sensitive listening, and the access to and legitimacy of multiple ways of making and feeling music.