To order SEM Audio-Visual Series titles, click here.
Zemp, Hugo. 1979. 'Are'are Music and Shaping
Bamboo. (Number 1).
This title is now available on DVD from Documentary
Educational Resources (DER). SEM members are entitled to a 50% discount for
Home Use. For information and orders, please see http://www.der.org/films/are-are.html.
The films 'Are'are Music and Shaping
Bamboo, by Hugo Zemp, are fascinating portraits of the traditional musical
culture of the 'Are'are people of the Solomon Islands. These films detail the
performance of traditional and vocal music and the making of musical
instruments. French ethnomusicologist and film maker Hugo Zemp spent several
years researching and documenting panpipe, slitdrum, and stamping tubes, as
well as women's and men's singing in solo and ensemble groups, at a time when
the traditional forms of expression were being threatened by the importation of
alien music. Commentary is in 'Are'are with English subtitles by Hugo Zemp.
Blacking, John. 2002. Domba 1956-1958: A personal record
of Venda initiation rites, songs & dances. Includes study guide. VHS tape. $15.00 for members / $25.00 for all non-members. (Number 2).
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Between 1956 and 1958 John Blacking
conducted the fieldwork among the Venda people of the Northern Transvaal, South
Africa, on which his later international reputation as an ethnomusicologist was
built. The film Domba is one of the products of that engagement with
Venda lives, providing a vivid impression of girls' initiation rites as practiced
in the 1950s that augments and informs Blacking's other Venda texts. Filmed and
edited by John Blacking, with voice-over commentary by John Blacking. Includes
a study guide by John Bailey and Andrée Grau.
Pettan, Svanibor. 2015. Kosovo through the Eyes of the
Local Romani (Gypsy) Musicians. DVD with Study Guide. (Number 3)
Members/non-members: $18.80 ($16.30 + $2.50 shipping) ORDER NOW
Kosovo through the Eyes of Local Romani (Gypsy) Musicians
provides an alternative view of the Balkan region of Kosovo from the usual
media coverage that is typically limited to examinations of the mutually
conflicting interests of ethnic Albanians and ethnic Serbs. Because Romani
musicians are able and willing to perform music of various origins and styles,
they enjoyed the status of superior specialists in Kosovo until the 1990s. They
successfully adapted to the multiethnic, multireligious, and multilingual
reality of Kosovo and served various audiences in both rural and urban
settings. The documentary film that this study guide accompanies presents five
characteristic types of Romani ensembles in Kosovo, four sources of the musical
repertoire of a single semi-nomadic Romani community, creative localization of
a selected tune of foreign origin ("Lambada”) by various Kosovo Romani
ensembles, and the response of Romani musicians to the challenge of increasing
political tensions in Kosovo in the early 1990s. The footage was filmed by
Svanibor Pettan, Ph.D. in the course of his fieldwork in the period between
1984 to1991. Professor and Chair of the ethnomusicology program at the
University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, Dr. Pettan is the author of many
contributions dedicated to the legacy of Romani musicians in Kosovo, including
books, articles, a CD-ROM, and a picture exhibition.