Karpatn - Contextualizing and Re-contextualizing Yiddish Music in the Carpathian Region

Die Veranstaltung findet im Seminarraum des Instituts für Volksmusikforschung statt (AWU0213) - Campus der mdw, Gebäudeteil U, 2. Stock.

A Musical Tour and Embodied Approach to Presenting Yiddish Culture.
Workshop with Shaun Williams, Sasha Lurje and Craig Judelman.
Organized by Institut für Volksmusikforschung und Ethnomusikologie in Zusammenarbeit mit Kulturverein Friling - Verein zur Förderung Jiddischer Musik und Kultur in Wien.

The Carpathian Mountains stretch from Czechia to Ukraine, and have been a home for Ashkenazi Jews since at least the 15th century. By traveling a few hundred miles or years one could arrive in modern-day Poland, Ukraine, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia or Moldova. These rich borderlands contained a diverse mix of ethnic groups and over the centuries were of varied significance for local and neighboring Jewish communities. The music that we call Klezmer was not created in a cultural vacuum but is the product of centuries of inter-ethnic collaboration and communication. Focusing on the Carpathian region, this interactive presentation will begin with a guided listening tour of the diverse cultures that shaped contemporary Klezmer music - including Carpatho-Ruthenians, Hutsul shepherds, Lautari Roma musicians.

In the second part of the workshop we’ll focus on Yiddish musical and dance culture, learning short songs tunes and dances ‘by ear’ and at the same time giving an overview of the method the workshop leaders have developed for quickly giving an embodied experience of a traditional culture to participants with no prior experience of it. The workshop will thus be of interest to those curious to learn more about this region and about Ashkenazi music (klezmer and more) but also for those interested in methods of pedagogy related to traditional music and ways of engaging outsiders with a specific culture in a respectful and empowering way, as well as the process of using traditional arts to ‘decolonize’ the body.

All are welcome to participate, instruments are not necessary but welcome