Le Cor de la Plana sings in a dying language, but the group’s music is full of life. This six-man vocal and percussion ensemble performs songs written in Occitan, an ancient Romance language once widely spoken in Le Cor’s home of southern France.
Brimming with pulsing rhythms delivered in slaps, claps, stomps and dance, the Marseilles-based group’s sound conjures up a multicultural fusion of Mediterranean folk singing, North African percussion, Balkan polyphonic harmonies and hints of Arabic scales.
Le Cor de la Plana, whose name means the “The Heart of La Plaine quarter,” the Bohemian section of Marseilles, is popular on the world music circuit and has played major events such as Peter Gabriel’s WOMAD.
They appear tonight, tomorrow and Sunday at the Migration Music Festival in Taipei.
Occitan, once the language of medieval poets and troubadours, now has an estimated 500,000 speakers in France — most of whom are elderly people living in rural areas. Preserving the language has been difficult in a country with proud and stubborn Francophone policies.
“When you’re involved in Occitan singing, you’re involved in Occitan militantism,” said singer Manu Theron, who founded the group in 2001.
“Because the language issue in France is very touchy ... as soon as you sing or speak in Occitan, all the people around you ask you ‘Why?’”
“It’s subversive to use another language in France,” adds singer Rodin Kaufmann. “Most people [think] you’re French and that’s it. It’s a mono identity, [but] everyone has a plural identity, and that’s the main idea that we try to show.”
One reason Theron likes to sing in Occitan is for its beauty — there are lots of “open vowels,” he says. Another is the unconventional narrative structure of traditional Occitan songs. “They’re not normal stories with a beginning, a middle and an end. Sometimes there’s no ending. Sometimes there’s no middle.”
Such is the case with Fanfarnetta, the story of a woman, Francesca, who pines for a lover who is stuck in jail. Most of the song is a dialogue in which Francesca explains to her parents that she has no desire to marry a rich aristocrat. The story ends abruptly with Francesca in jail, hanging by a noose alongside her lover. None of the verses explain how she got there. But the song, says Kaufmann, is not about love as much as arranged marriage.
One of Le Cor’s original numbers, Tant Deman, which translates as “maybe tomorrow, don’t worry,” observes how Marseilles is starting to become more “French” or more like a northern European city, where everything is “fast and strict.” To Theron, Marseilles is more akin to cities like Naples, and is closer to the “urban habits” and sensibilities of the ancient Greeks.
“We kept also a spirit, a kind of philosophy towards life, meaning that life is much more important than what happens — or doesn’t happen. And that human feelings are more important than life itself,” he said.
Occitan musical and dance “traditions” are something of a paradox since much of the culture has been either quashed or diluted by the French, said Theron. Le Cor’s music borrows from other places — the group’s polyphonic harmonies are inspired by Macedonian music; they also use non-local instruments like the bendir, a Moroccan frame drum. “We had to, in a way, rebuild what was ours,” said Theron.
In addition to tomorrow’s concert, Le Cor de la Plana appears briefly tonight with all other Migration Music Festival performers at an outdoor show at Bitan, Xindian, Taipei County (台北縣新店碧潭高灘地). They will also take part in a collaborative performance on Sunday.
Other performers at Migration include Marseilles musician Sam Karpienia, Filipina singer-songwriter Nityalila Saulo and Malian guitarist Habib Koite. For a full schedule, go to www.treesmusic.com/festival/2009mmf.
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