Negotiating and enacting musical innovation and continuity: How some torres strait islander songwriters incorporate traditional dance chants within contemporary songs

Abstract

Many Indigenous peoples worldwide engage with popular music and popular music forms, often striving to find a balance between traditional and contemporary influences. This article uses ethnographic data from Australian Torres Strait Islander songwriters to explore the processes and rationales they use when incorporating traditional dance chants within contemporary songs. The research demonstrates some of their processes of innovation and continuation while they negotiate crucial cultural and community politics that inform not only music and dance but also other forms of contemporary Indigenous artistic expression. The songwriters perceive themselves as creators but creators who must also work within the cultural, social and aesthetic dictates of their communities.