TY - JOUR
T1 - Reich in blackface
T2 - Oh Dem Watermelons and Radical Minstrelsy in the 1960s
AU - Gopinath, Sumanth
PY - 2011/5
Y1 - 2011/5
N2 - This essay undertakes an examination of Steve Reich's music for Robert Nelson's film Oh Dem Watermelons (1965), which was originally conceived as part of the San Francisco Mime Troupe's controversial production A Minstrel Show, or Civil Rights in a Cracker Barrel of the same year. Reich's long-neglected soundtrack deserves reconsideration for its formative role in the development of the composer's musical style and quasi-liberationist aesthetic at the time, for its participation within what I term the "minstrel avant-garde" in the Bay Area during the mid-1960s and the postmodern revival of blackface minstrelsy more generally, and as a reference point in reflecting upon Reich's professional and political trajectory since its composition.
AB - This essay undertakes an examination of Steve Reich's music for Robert Nelson's film Oh Dem Watermelons (1965), which was originally conceived as part of the San Francisco Mime Troupe's controversial production A Minstrel Show, or Civil Rights in a Cracker Barrel of the same year. Reich's long-neglected soundtrack deserves reconsideration for its formative role in the development of the composer's musical style and quasi-liberationist aesthetic at the time, for its participation within what I term the "minstrel avant-garde" in the Bay Area during the mid-1960s and the postmodern revival of blackface minstrelsy more generally, and as a reference point in reflecting upon Reich's professional and political trajectory since its composition.
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U2 - 10.1017/S1752196311000022
DO - 10.1017/S1752196311000022
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:79956347575
SN - 1752-1963
VL - 5
SP - 139
EP - 193
JO - Journal of the Society for American Music
JF - Journal of the Society for American Music
IS - 2
ER -