RESONANCE: The Creative Thrust of «Deep Zouk»

2nd INTERNATIONAL COLLOQUIUM ON ZOUK
23-25 October 2024, Lamentin, Martinique, FWI

Caribbean music is a haven of resonance. Martinique and Guadeloupe, the two «nations of Zouk», are also the countries where Deep Zouk was born and from which its aesthetics began to spread. They are, therefore, places of resonance. This concept of «resonance» addressed by the writer Patrick Chamoiseau in Le Vent du Nord in Les Fougères Glacées, is closely linked to the notion of the self-taught episteme. This notion involves learning by oneself and not having a master. It also echoes the Hobbesian Instasis: «Read in yourself». In this perspective, we may believe that the Caribbean self-taught artist, commonly called «Mizisyen lari,» frees himself from all constraints or all rules and that a kind of total freedom of creation governs him, as that of an adventurer marooned on a wasteland, exploring an implex universe of creation. In the case of Zouk, one should note that many singers, singers, and musicians do not come from formal schools or classical music backgrounds. Many of them were formed on the job, participating, here and there, in vocal group or choir experiences.The same goes for the audience-receiver of the dancefloors. Over time, new body movement poetics developed and adapted their relationship to dance rhythm in resonance with the time and sensations of the artist. The aesthetic codes and molds released over the period from 1979 to 1995 (or even today with groups such as Kassav, Zouk Machine, Expérience 7, Taxi Kréol, Kwak, Rubicolor) demonstrate the use of a wide range of sounds, rhythmic, harmonic and melodic, a great diversity of Zouk used by composers. The common point with these large groups is that they follow (in)consciously the call of the drum, the call of the sound of the country hills, the culture of bèlè/bélya communities, the fieldwork songs of plantations, the resonance of ancestral tales, the African trace, the cosmic energy funneled by its profound and multiple vibrations, the sing-drum dynamics, until the emergence of a language suitable to the creation essence of Zouk. Hence, the metalanguage, the codes, and sub-codes of Deep Zouk, which is a reborn, hybrid structure in motion, an ontic agenda allowing unforeseen results, mentioned by Patrick Chamoiseau: «The drum had traveled in the body of these uprooted, its charge of power and sacred had fallen dark in our mixed blood»,.

But what does the Zouk experience bring to this mysterious part of «creation»? What are the conditions for the creation of Deep Zouk? What feeds the self-taught artists to create? During the creative process, do they not have to reconstitute an unconscious representation, an engram, an image, a trace, dreary tales, or primordial songs that fit into their aesthetics, traditions, and conception of modernity? So, what are the components necessary to develop a zouk theme? On what basis does the composer create a good song, a tube? What are the seasonings, and what ingredients allow these famous ‘unexpected’ results? What are Zouk’s anthropological foundations from the emic (within the social group) and ethical (observer) points of view? What are the musical and rhythmic structures that underlie the creation of Zouk?

The musical history of the Zouk reveals a productive constellation of elements in transformation or interaction that continuously regenerate themselves while making a new autopoietic system. Are the history and the essence of our societies constitutive of a «brown» identity marked by a free, autonomous character favorable to the autopoiesis of the Zouk? If its correlated conscious space is unique, it is remarkable for admitting all

influences from the Caribbean and the world without losing its essence, its «resonance». If we know how to take advantage of the acute awareness of what we are, it is not a problem. Nevertheless, the one who absorbs without filter the influences of the General World will have difficulty releasing the substance to create authentically; it is the case of the “zouks” created outside the «zoukosphère» that Jocelyn Jonaz calls the «urban zouks» which are not rooted and whichparticipate gradually in the denaturation of Zouk. Kassav, as a paradigm of analysis, can help to identify avenues for reflection on:

• Notions of initiation, introspection, sacred, ancestral animism
• Reminiscence, memory, engram, imago, stasis
• Construction of new working methods (the relationship of instrumentalists with traditional drums and rhythms: ascending rites, the rhythmic basis gwoka-tibwa bèlè)
• Building languages or metalanguages
• Origin and training of artists (development of music theory and practice)
• The role of the songwriter, the performer, the arranger, the lyricist (particularities, direct/indirect creation, search for melodic phrasing and rhythmic motifs, refrain(s), verses, modulations and variations of musical discourse, coda…)
• The singer-musician or solo singer (aesthetics, singing, phonetic variation, phono-stylistics, etc.)
• Development of the rhythmic framework (aesthetics, tempi, beatmaker, rhythmic motifs, rhythm key, percussions, groove, etc.)
• Harmonic design (instrumentation, aesthetics, choice of acoustic or synthetic instruments, tonal music/ modal music, harmonic polyphony, phono stylistic, soundtracks, musical dressing, etc.)
• The importance of the Creole language (language braiding, imagery, poetization/prosaicization of the text, etc.)
• Home Studio (self-production, computerization, post-industrial era)
• Studio and Production (recordings of tracks, publishers, exploitation, and marketing of works, adaptability to new markets, etc.)
• The role of SACEM (the notion of intellectual property and its evolution, the notion of copyright, the notion of artistic notoriety through self-production platforms such as MySpace, Youtube, Flickr, WordPress, Skyblog, etc.)
• Dance as an individual reception (poetics, language and gymnastics of bodies, sensuality, dancer’s motor skills, motility, codes, etc.)
• Dancefloors (adaptations, programming, interactions, etc.)
• The Relationship to the Show: Stage Art- Choreography
• Video performance

In the light of the works of Jean Molino, Alain Daniélou, Vladimir Vankélévitch or Jean-Jacques Nattiez (semiology of music), it will be interesting to identify from significant samples, the symbolic, semiological function of this musical art. It will be good to bring the analysis of the total musical fact to the Zouk, by semiological approaches (music, writing, dance, etc.), fragments of musical experiences and practices leading to a positive science of culture as anthropological property of the Caribbean man as creator of musical tools and constantly renewed acoustics.

Abstracts of contributions in French, English,Spanish or Portuguese up to 300 words in length, as well as biobibliographic entries of contributors, should be sent to [email protected] by June 30, 2024. The Scientific Committee will notify the authors of its decision by July 05, 2024. Participation in this 2nd International Symposium will be held in person from 23 to October 25, 2024; a connection link will be specified later for contributors who cannot be present.

Comité d’organisation – Organizing Committee

• Gérald Désert, Université des Antilles
• Frédéric Lefrançois, Université des Antilles
• Apollinaire Anakesa, Université des Antilles
• Jean-Marc Rosier, Akadémi Kréyol Matinik
• Christine Chalcol, Agrégée de musique, Lycée Carnot, Guadeloupe (Filière S2TMD Musique)
• Laurent Boulon, Développeur culturel, marketing communication (Réunion)
• Manuel Boula, Président de Ésasélezouk (Maison du Zouk Martinique)
• Michel Mingote, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Brésil

Comité scientifique- Scientific Committee

• Buata Malela, Université de Mayotte
• Apollinaire Anakesa,Université des Antilles
• Alain Maurin, Université des Antilles
• Victor Randrianary, Université de Toliara, Madagascar
• Hilarion Navory, Université de Toamasina, Madagascar
• Jérôme Camal, Université de Wisconsin-Madison
• Hanetha Vété-Congolo, Bowdoin College, USA
• Victorien Lavou,Université de Perpignan
• Max Bélaise, Université des Antilles
• Nathalie Ardanu Artana, ethno-musicologue, Chercheuse indépendante
• Dominique Cyrille, Ethnomusicologue, Chercheuse indépendante
• Louis Solo Martinel, Université de Waseda, Japon
• Isabelle Petitjean, Musicologue,Chercheuse indépendante
• Anny-Domique Curtius, University of Iowa, USA
• Linda Rasoamanana, Université de Mayotte, France

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