| Summary: | In this dissertation, I consider processes of cultural revitalization by Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) communities in northern Minnesota through drum and dance performance. I argue that tribal elders, parents, and educators recognize a need to reassert both cultural knowledge and cultural values at a moment when overt cultural violence is over, but colonization of selfhood remains. My main theoretical goal in this project is to demonstrate, through ethnomusicological field research, the ways in which training in indigenous song and dance forms function as means of healing Anishinaabe teenagers' fragmented subjectivity, as a remaking of the self. I begin by explicating selfhood as it is conveyed through Anishinaabe cultural practices, including drum and dance. I consider emotion, sensation, gesture, and language, their role in shaping engagement with a living, interconnected universe. Anishinaabe social and spiritual practice reflects an emphasis on complementarity, and thus a gendered division of labor governs male and female responsibilities in performance. By observing boys in the exclusively male world of the drum, I examine a process of decolonizing masculinity. I explore Anishinaabe girls' creative strategies for negotiating the borderland between traditional and popular culture, lacking the security afforded by the boys' place at the drum. I discuss the significance of young women's bodies in song and dance performance, in discourses of Anishinaabe spirituality and in media representations. Finally, I document a process of learning to dance that teaches bodily awareness, shaping subjectivity and gender identity. I argue that dancers gain social knowledge and power in performance, especially in competitive contexts requiring explicit articulations of cultural ideals or values. My dissertation joins a small group of ethnographies of Anishinaabe music and shifts analytic focus away from musical objects and toward performative practices and behaviors. My attention to the social space around the drum and within the dance circle incorporates past work on performance technique, aesthetics, and adaptation. However, in its focus on embodiment, subjectivity, gender issues, and power dynamics, my work brings attention to the political implications of Anishinaabe performance.
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