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Throughout our class, we have been displacing the concept of ‘the clash of civilizations’. This concept not only pits ‘the East’ against ‘the West’, but also it assumes that each entity is a coherent and whole one. Alas, the cultural productions that we have explored exemplify that this is deceivingly false.
One collaboration that demonstrates the hybridity of cultures is that of Peter Gabriel and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. This collaboration was birthed at the wish of World of Music, Arts, & Dance (WOMAD), Gabriel’s international arts festival that aims to be a platform for world art forms. Khan and Gabriel performed a number of songs. However, the one that stayed with me the most is a version of Gabriel’s 1986 hit ‘In Your Eyes‘, an iconic love song and a personal favourite.
Given the times we are living, Khan and Gabriel’s rendition of ‘In Your Eyes’ adds a whole new layer to the song’s meaning. It is no longer an 80s love song, but a rejection of the East-West binary. ‘In Your Eyes, I am complete.’ It is not East versus West; in fact, it never has been ‘East’ and ‘West’. Instead, this rendition invites us to see ourselves through ‘the Other’ rather than separating these spheres.
March 26, 2017 at 12:40 pm
Cool! An angle worth thinking about though, is the charge that “world music” is a way for the West (even if its not a monolith!)–to continue to appropriate and transform Eastern music into something reflecting its own tastes/aesthetics….a politics of production, circulation and reception analysis would be good to apply here