Latcho Drom

This week we began viewing a film entitled Latcho Drom ("Safe Journey"). It depicts the journey of a group of nomadic people, who eventually come to be called, usually in a derogatory manner, "gypsies." They are shown traveling from the northern part of South Asia into the Middle East and Europe. The three main scenes of music were:
1) the nomads celebrating under the full moon
2) a celebration with a couple dancing in Egypt
3) a takht ensemble playing in a teahouse in Istanbul, Turkey
The common instruments in all three scenes were the hand cymbals that the women wore. They had multiple cymbals for each ceremony shown. I also noticed lute like instruments making that infamous airy sound throughout the film. Another interesting fact was the heavy participation of the women in the musical tradition of this region. Almost every scene showed women both dancing and singing in various ceremonies/rituals. The director also depicted how the “gypsies” absorbed the various music cultures they encountered by illustrating continuous movement of the people in each scene. Each scene was connected to subsequent scenes by dancing of a little girl or woman so that we seemed to follow this little girl as she grew up or traveled. I was surprised to see the predominance of women in this society. Women seemed to have the freedom to express themselves musically, unlike other cultures were musicianship was reserved for the men. In this movie, men played and danced alongside women. Perhaps the nomadic way of life promotes the cooperative nature if this musical tradition.

Also the voices were heavily ornamented and seemed to tell a story throughout the film. Another interesting part of the film was the fact that all the ceremonies or occasions that we viewed were celebratory. I did not see any musical traditions that were associated with death, mourning or loss in general. I wondered how the gypsies in the movie dealt with loss and whether that was a musical tradition in which that both sexes participated.