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Tartit: African Music On the Move
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Washington Post, Tartit: African Music On the Move >>
Although Ensemble Tartit is on its first major American tour, performing at the Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage on Monday, going on the road is nothing new for this nine-member troupe. The performers are Tuaregs, members of a North African tribe with an ancient nomadic tradition. The members of Tartit turned to music as a career only in the mid- '90s, when conflict in Mali and Niger sent thousands of Tuaregs into refugee camps.
The heritage of that wandering tradition is evoked in the portability of Tartit's music. Some of its spare, rhythmic songs were performed with only vocals and hand claps, and just a few small instruments were used: two tindes (drums), two tehardants (three stringed lutes), one imzad (a one stringed violin), and a guitar. Strict gender and caste rules prevail in Tuareg music, but not to the disadvantage of women: The five female members' call-and-response vocals dominated the music, and only the women were allowed to play tinde and imzad. In keeping with Tuareg tradition, it was the two male tehardant players who kept their faces veiled.
Tuareg music, like other acoustic styles from Mali, has often been compared to Delta blues. The tow do share a rough, twangy quality, but little else, Rather than sharing the blues' propulsiveness, Tartit's instrumental and vocal melodies were circular - in the manner of Arabic trance music, but without the frenzied crescendos. The musicians generally performed seated, and when one or two of them stood to dance, the moves were slow and from side to side. Tartit sang of the search for love, peace and home, but with a serenity that suggested it could sustain the essence of those things anywhere.
-Mark Jenkins 04/09/03
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