Savannah-Rivka researches the expression of marginalized identities through music focusing on the Ainu of Japan and the Seto of Estonia.

She works with singers and performers on the local level and examines their engagement with heritage institutions and transnational movements. When possible she engages with participant observation by joining dance workshops and singing in local choirs. Her research is supported by the University of Tartu and Hokkaido University. Savannah-Rivka is also a Europaeum Scholar at the University of Oxford.

TITLE OF PRESENTATION: Shadow and Song: Alteration through the Communitas of Upopo Ainu Music

ABSTRACT
For the Indigenous Ainu, musical traditions have been impacted by pressure to assimilate into Japanese society. This has caused cultural dissonance for many people of Ainu descent. The Ainu cultural revival movement that started in the 1960s was fuelled by cultural exchange and many contemporary Ainu performers collaborate internationally while maintaining a practice deeply rooted in tradition. During fieldwork in Hokkaido in 2022 I observed a performance of the Ainu Shadow Project which integrated shadow puppet theatre and traditional Ainu music that transformed the space into an audio-visual landscape representing Ainu mythology. This is part of a series of international projects with influences such as Indonesian shadow puppets and dance.

The performers engaged the audience to participate in singing an upopo traditional Ainu song containing overlapping parts. This occurred during a performance of the Humpe (フンペ pronounced Fumpe) or whale song that was woven into an intricate tale. Inviting this syncopated vocal play within the context of the shadow theatre enabled the performers and the audience to collectively experience an altered state of mind embodied by Ainu song. During the performance, a visual representation of the upopo syncopation accompanied the song through the carefully executed movements of a moth’s silhouette fluttering across the stage. Singers have described the experience of vocalising the layered phrases of upopo as contributing to a trance-like state in which the clarity of the distinct parts begins to meld in a way that makes one question their individual positionality. The music in combination with these visual elements had the collective effect of emulating an altered state of mind that in turn impacted the perceptions of the performers and listeners alike. These impressions can be understood as what Victor and Edith Turner (1969) framed as existential “communitas” or an evanescent experience of intense togetherness.