Divine Utterances The Performance of Afro-Cuban Santeria

InDivine Utterances, Katherine J. Hagedorn explores the enduring cultural and spiritual power of the music of Afro-Cuban Santeriacute;a and the process by which it has been transformed for a secular audience. She focuses on the integral connections between sacred music performances and the dramatizations of theatrical troupes, especially the state-sponsored Conjunto Folkloacute;rico Nacional de Cuba, and examines the complex relationships involving race, politics, and religion in Cuba. The music that Hagedorn describes is rooted in Afro-Cuban religious tradition and today pervades a secular performances that can produce a trance in audience members in the same way as a traditional religious ceremony. Hagedorn's analysis is deeply informed by her experiences in Cuba as a woman, scholar, and apprentice bataacute; drummer. She argues that constructions of race and gender, the politics of pre- and post-Revolutionary Cuba, the economics of tourism, and contemporary practices within Santeriacute;a have contributed to a blurring of boundaries betwen the sacred and the folkloric. As both modes now vie for primacy in Cuba's burgeoning tourist trade, what had once been the music of a marginalized group is now a cultural expression of national pride. The compact disc that accompanies the book includes examples of twenty songs to theorichas, or Afro-Cuban deities, performed by prominent musicians, including Laacute;zaro Ros, Francisco Aguabella, Alberto Villarreal, and Zenaida Armenteros.

Katherine J. Hagedorn is associate professor of music at Pomona College.