The podcast Finding Questions is part of the “Music Cultures” series which was recorded online during the Covid19 pandemic. In this podcast, our host Anungla Zoe Longkumer converses with ethnomusicologist, visual anthropologist and pianist Jaremdi Wati Longchar and writer and folklorist Talilula Longchar, both from Nagaland. Together they discuss women’s role and expressions in traditional folk music of the Ao Naga community. This discussion was part of the 2020 programming for Zubaan’s Cultures of Peace: Festival of the Northeast project, run in collaboration with Heinrich Boell Stiftung, Regional Office, New Delhi.
Anungla Zoe Longkumer is an independent artist from Nagaland drawn to inspired and intuitive pursuits in music, writing, filmmaking, painting, papermaking, and research in the traditional arts, and is an advocate for a waste-less sustainable way of living.
Jaremdi Wati Longchar is an Ao Naga ethnomusicologist, visual anthropologist and pianist trained at Goldsmiths, University of London, and Bangor University, North Wales. Since 2015, she has been actively documenting and studying the Naga folk music tradition with a focus on the music of the Aos.
Talilula Longchar is a writer and researcher from Nagaland with an interest in the interstices of folklore and religious beliefs. She has previously worked on Christanity’s influence on the performative tradition of wava menu within the Ao Naga context.
What is Women in Music: Cultures of Northeast India?
Zubaan is delighted to bring to you our podcast series, "Women in Music: Cultures of Northeast India” commissioned during the Cultures of Peace: Festival of the Northeast 2020. The Cultures of Peace project, undertaken by Zubaan since 2011 in collaboration with the Heinrich Boll Foundation, works within and outside the northeastern region of India (the eight states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura, and the contiguous regions of Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kurseong). The festival focuses on diversifying mainstream conversation and knowledge production about the region and creating spaces for dialogue and mutual understanding through culture, literature, discussions and archive building.