Ethnographic Description

Fedinka:  Folkloric and Popular Music and Dance from Ethiopia. 

The Fedinka is a troupe of azmari musicians and dancers, that draw influences from the well of Ethiopia’s bardic tradition.  There were six players, two dancers, a singer, and three instruments, the kebero drums, a masenko (a one stringed bowed fiddle), and a krar (a six stringed lyre) and all wore traditional Ethiopian garb.  The setting was a theatre stage and most of the audience was older people, professors and grad students.  They opened the show with the krar player telling a story about a king who traveled great distance to find a new story, while playing the krar, and after, he started singing.  This style of music, reminded me of griot singing, spoken word, instrument playing and then singing.  The player got the audience to participate by singing the harmony.  He would hum a harmony and get the audience to repeat it, and after, while he sang the melody, the audience would hum the harmony. 

The rest of the songs had all the players participating in it.  The music had multiple rhythms playing.  The kebero drums would have one rhythm, the masenko and the singer would have different ones as well and the krar player would clap, which acted as the beat.  In another song, a dancer wore thick jewelry, and when she danced it shook against her body and acted as another rhythm.  They had the audience participate by clapping.  Even though they tried to get the audience to clap, it was hard because there were so many things going on, but toward the end the entire audience got into the feel and really started clapping. 

The azmari repertoires include songs about love, historical events, current affairs, and improvised wordplay.  Their dances illustrate traditional folktales or mirror the movements of animals.  For many of the songs the two dancers danced like chickens.  During one song, one dancer would spread imaginary feed over the ground and the other dancer would kneel down and bob her head as if eating.  Many of the songs they played were playful and fun.  In one song the female danced wildly and shook her body with her hair going high into the air like she was having a seizure; doing this for two minutes straight. 

Unlike some other cultural performances I had seen, these performers didn’t explain the context of each song and they didn’t really give any background on their troupe or Ethiopian bardic tradition.  They were more focused on playing as much music as possible in the short amount of time.  It made it harder to understand the context of the song, but I don’t think that it took away the meaningfulness or playful tone of music. 

In the end they played two songs with four students of Boston University.  The students played with modern instruments such as the accordion, the violin, the sousaphone, and a saxophone.  These students played the same melody as one of the other traditional Ethiopian instruments and made little embellishments or ornaments that separated them from that melody.  Overall, it was a great experience and I recommend it to anyone interested in traditional Ethiopian music.