Taiwan's most diverse celebration of world music kicks off tomorrow and Sunday with free screenings of documentary films at Taipei's Guling Street Theater.
Organized by local indie record label Trees Music and Art (大大樹音 樂圖像) and co-sponsored by the Taipei City Government's Department of Cultural Affairs, the annual Migration Music Festival (流浪之歌音樂節) continues throughout next week with performances and workshops, culminating with three days of free concerts by foreign and Taiwanese musicians next weekend in Taipei's Da-an Forest Park (大安森林公園). Recent festivals have attracted crowds of around 5,000 over three days at Da-an park, Trees Music head Chung She-fong (鍾適芳) said.
Whereas the last two festivals were organized around a musical theme - the accordion (2005) and artists from different countries performing each other's music (2006) - this year's theme, Land and Freedom (土地之歌), represents a return to the festival's activist roots. The focus is on indigenous peoples - namely Taiwan's Aborigines and the Sami of northern Europe - and the role music can play in reconnecting younger, more assimilated members of these groups with their ancestors' languages and traditions.
This year's program is co-produced by the Riddu Riddu Festival, a Norwegian Sami music and culture festival started in 1991 by a group of youths seeking cultural self-awareness. Tomorrow and Sunday's documentary films are features and shorts about the Sami and Taiwan's Aborigines. Next weekend's concerts in Da-an park feature two Sami performers: Wimme Saari, who will sing traditional yoik chants, and Adjagas, a band that mixes yoik with rock and other modern styles.
Other notable performers include two members of South Africa's Khoi Khollektif, a group of poets and musicians from Cape Town and the Eastern Cape; Puyuma musicians Samingad (曉君), and Hao-en (吳昊恩) and Jia-jia (紀家瑩) who picked up the gong for Best Singing Group at this year's Golden Melody awards; Atayal singer Inka Mbing (雲力思), who will perform with an ensemble of children and elders from her tribe; and New Zealand's Wai, who fuse traditional Maori styles with hip-hop and reggae.
"The greatest challenge that humans are experiencing now is that of overcoming the perceived differences between each other," Iain Harris of the Khoi Khollektif said Thursday in an e-mail exchange. "We have been taught to be confined by borders. … And those borders have moved to our minds now."
"South Africa is a microcosm of the world, the whole world is in South Africa. What we are learning is that the differences that were once used to divide us are not real differences," he continued. "Generally as people we prefer to defer responsibility to someone else. A government. Religious leaders. Bosses. We think that it makes our lives easier. The music attempts to address this. To make us aware through the words and the music of our own capacity and the need for individuals to take responsibility."
Migration 2007 also encourages dialogue between local and visiting musicians through lectures and discussions. Among the more notable this year is a presentation by Bernhard Hanneken, artistic director of TFF.Rudolstadt, Germany's largest folk, roots and world music festival, on Wednesday at Taipei Artist Village (台北國際藝術村).
Portions of the festival travel to Tainan on Oct. 9, and Chiayi, on Oct. 10 for Migration Plus.
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