'Oltre l'Australia c'è la luna': Maggio garfagnino and the Emigrant Experience
Access status:
Open Access
Type
Book chapterAuthor/s
Barwick, LindaAbstract
When I first visited the Garfagnana region of north-western Tuscany in 1991, I was assured by functionaries from the provincial government that the Maggio tradition of sung popular theatre would be finished within five years. The singers were too old, the tourists weren’t interested, ...
See moreWhen I first visited the Garfagnana region of north-western Tuscany in 1991, I was assured by functionaries from the provincial government that the Maggio tradition of sung popular theatre would be finished within five years. The singers were too old, the tourists weren’t interested, there were no young people to carry it on. Yet over the next five years of my increasing involvement in the tradition, I saw a growth in the numbers of performances, active performers and companies, and audience numbers. This chapter advances some thoughts as to why Maggio continued so strongly against the odds in its home region of the Garfagnana, while attempts to mount performances in Australia have (to my knowledge) so far failed, despite the considerable numbers of Garfagnini who emigrated there. I will argue that the strength of the nexus between paese (home town) and performance practice in the Garfagnino Maggio stems from the Garfagnana’s long history of emigration, and that indeed various features of the Maggio genre appear to result from, or at least be intensified by, a “diaspora effect”, that is, the effect of expatriates on their community of origin. I argue that to understand the themes, form, performance practice and survival of this most localised of traditions we need to take into account the transnationalism of many Garfagnini and the role of campanilismo (loyalty to one’s home village) in sustaining emigrants abroad.
See less
See moreWhen I first visited the Garfagnana region of north-western Tuscany in 1991, I was assured by functionaries from the provincial government that the Maggio tradition of sung popular theatre would be finished within five years. The singers were too old, the tourists weren’t interested, there were no young people to carry it on. Yet over the next five years of my increasing involvement in the tradition, I saw a growth in the numbers of performances, active performers and companies, and audience numbers. This chapter advances some thoughts as to why Maggio continued so strongly against the odds in its home region of the Garfagnana, while attempts to mount performances in Australia have (to my knowledge) so far failed, despite the considerable numbers of Garfagnini who emigrated there. I will argue that the strength of the nexus between paese (home town) and performance practice in the Garfagnino Maggio stems from the Garfagnana’s long history of emigration, and that indeed various features of the Maggio genre appear to result from, or at least be intensified by, a “diaspora effect”, that is, the effect of expatriates on their community of origin. I argue that to understand the themes, form, performance practice and survival of this most localised of traditions we need to take into account the transnationalism of many Garfagnini and the role of campanilismo (loyalty to one’s home village) in sustaining emigrants abroad.
See less
Date
2012-01-01Publisher
Lyrebird PressLicence
This material is copyright. Other than for the purposes of and subject to the conditions prescribed under the Copyright Act, no part of it may in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, microcopying, photocopying, recording or otherwise) be altered, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted without prior written permission from the University of Sydney Library and/or the appropriate author.Department, Discipline or Centre
PARADISEC, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of SydneyCitation
Barwick, Linda. “‘Oltre l’Australia c’è La Luna’: Maggio Garfagnino and the Emigrant Experience.” In Italy in Australia’s Musical Landscape, edited by Linda Barwick and Marcello Sorce Keller, 179–197. Melbourne: Lyrebird Press, 2012.Share