Transatlantic Musical Performances for American Indian Sovereignty in Late Cold War Central Europe

Citation

Toth G (2021) Transatlantic Musical Performances for American Indian Sovereignty in Late Cold War Central Europe. In: Horn K, Lippert L, Saal I & Wiegmink P (eds.) American Cultures as Transnational Performance: Commons, Skills, Traces. Routledge Advances in Theatre and Performance Studies. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 64-82. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003048947

Abstract
This chapter examines the transatlantic protest repertoire of the radical Indian sovereignty movement, which fused various cultural forms into a distinct musical protest tradition. Utilizing elements from older US working class, Sixties and international movement music, American Indian powwow and “forty-niner” songs, and European leftist protest music, these transatlantic performances called for justice for American Indians and their allied causes. The transatlantic protest performances of the American Indian sovereignty struggle combined older and more recent traditions into a protest culture that appealed to audiences through a mixture of exoticism, romanticism, and social movement identity. Applying approaches from Performance Studies and Transnational American Studies, in its corollary this study will argue that not only did these events perform Indianness and transnational solidarity with claims for indigenous rights, but they also created and sustained a transatlantic community of protest music.

Keywords
Transatlantic, Native American, sovereignty, music, social movement, performance, transnational, American Studies

Notes
Output Status: Forthcoming

People

Dr Gyorgy Toth

Lecturer, History