About Honk! Fest | Philosophy of Honk! |
About Honk! U. - How Tufts is Involved |
People | Thank You's
About Honk! Fest
A crowd of musicians and revelers at the Honk! Festival. Photo courtesy of Tiffany Knight
Bunny-eared brass bands, trumpets blared by neon girls in roller skates, a giant hamster wheel, men with horns in lavender suits, snare drums, and women in Renaissance clothing on stilts – what do these things have in common? They are all common sights and sounds at HONK! Fest, an independent non-profit grass roots street festival comprised of activist marching bands from all over the country and the world. The festival will take place in Somerville over Columbus Day weekend (October 10-12, 2008), and will include performances, workshops, lectures, culminating in a parade whose purpose is to celebrate community in music and motion.
The festival begins on Friday October 10 with a symposium held at Tufts that includes workshops and a panel on Festival and Politics. On Saturday October 11, bands from around the nation gather in Davis Square to honk, groove and move. On October 12 activist community organizations join the honk bands in a parade from Davis Square to Harvard Square to “Reclaim the Streets for Horns, Bikes, and Feet!”
The Philosophy of Honk!
A juggler juggling to the tune of a bunny-eared sousaphonist and percussion band. Photo courtesy of Tiffany Knight.
Why do we want to Honk? As the festival’s website says, “First and foremost, they [honkers] honk their horns – or beat their drums, or wave their flags – to enliven and embolden their audience. Members vary widely in age, class, ethnicity and background, and although they often wear some kind of uniform, there is also always an emphasis on individuality and a “DIY” (do-it-yourself) sensibility to their instrumentation and attire. These bands play music that is by, for, and of ‘the people.’ The distinction between performer and audience, just like the distinctions between different musical genres, is just one more arbitrary social boundary they aspire to overcome. Spectators often think ‘Hey, I could do that!” and, indeed, these bands often recruit new members right off the street.’”
About Honk! U. - How Tufts is Involved
The Tufts/Somerville HONK U! project joins the HONK! movement’s goals of bringing students and community members together with sound – reclaiming the streets with music and dancing, encouraging human interaction and joyful listening. Last year Tufts University joined with the HONK! Festival’s organizers to hold a symposium on the history and spread of the HONK! movement. This year the symposium, held on Friday October 10, has been expanded into a half day event, with workshops organized for and by musicians attending the HONK! Festival, followed by a panel discussion on the “Politics of Festivals.”
Reclaiming the streets, starting with Mass. Ave.! Photo courtesy of Deborah Pacini.
This year, Tufts’ American Studies Program, in collaboration with the Music and Anthropology Departments and the Dance Program, is sponsoring workshops October 4-9 led by this year’s Artist in Residence, ethnomusicologist and “groovologist” Charles Keil , who will train students and community members, both musicians and non-musicians alike, to form a marching band that will participate in the HONK! parade on Sunday, October 12th. The theme of the parade, which starts in Davis Square and ends in Harvard Square (where it merges with Oktoberfest), is Reclaim the Street for Horns, Bikes and Feet. Parade organizers are asking each participating group to articulate their version of this theme in a striking visual manner: colorful costumes; large flags and banners; giant puppets; weird wheeled contraptions; interesting large-scale choreographies of humans on foot, on bicycles, skateboards, stilts, and wheelchairs; and of course the twenty brass bands separating the parade groups. Last year community groups included Bread and Puppet Theater, Derby Dames, Bikes Not Bombs, Somerville disAbilities, Open Air Circus, Livable Streets Alliance, as well as activist groups from Tufts. With over two dozen bands participating in the HONK! Festival and more community groups interested in participating, this year’s parade will be even bigger and better!
We invite you to take part in this fantastic event. Go to the Join Us! page and sign up for workshops today!
A Tufts group marches in the Honk! Parade in 2007. Photo courtesy of Deborah Pacini.
People
Here you can read about the many people — thinkers, organizers, participants — behind Honk! U.
Groovologist-in-Residence
Charlie Keil is Professor Emeritus of American Studies from SUNY Buffalo, and the author of numerous books about music (Urban Blues, Tiv Song, In Pursuit of Polka Happiness, My Music, Music Grooves (with Stephen Feld), Bright Balkan Morning). He also has extensive experience teaching musicians to play a repertoire of marching songs in a variety of styles (New Orleans/samba/salsa) for street marching bands, as well as those with no formal musical education to play small percussion instruments to enhance the drumline and percussion section for the band.
For more on Charlie's Keil's work, visit MusicGrooves.org; Born to Groove; The 12/8 Path Times; The 12/8 Path; and "Charlie Keil: he's the 'Musicking' Man
Marcus Santos, contemporary percussionist and educator and a native of Salvador City in Bahia, Brazil, will be assisting Charlie Keil in the percussion workshops. Raised in the uniquely rich African-influenced culture of Bahia, Marcus received a Bachelor of Arts in the performance of hand percussion from the Berklee College of Music, and has since led workshops in Afro-Brazilian percussion at MIT, Harvard, Brown, Universidad Central de Venezuela, Berklee College of Music, and in Somerville, where his band Afro-Brazil is based. See www.playpandeiro.com and www.afrobrazil.org.
Alexander Crook will assist Keil with the percussion sections. Alexander, a student at Berklee College of Music, has played snare drums in marching bands modeled after historically Black college marching bands for four years, but he is also an experienced player of Brazilian percussive styles, particularly samba-batucada, samba-reggae, and forro. While living in Brazil, he played Carnival with Corpos Percussivos (led by Jorge Martins, formerly of Cascabulho) and studied Brazilian rhythms with local specialists (maracatú, afoxé, and samba on the repinique, surdo, pandeiro, tamborim, cuica, rebolo, tan-tan, and caixa).
From Tufts
Deborah Pacini Hernandez, Project Organizer, is Director of American Studies and an Associate Professor of Anthropology. Students in her community-based research class Urban Borderlands will seek to recruit musicians from the Somerville immigrant community to participate in the Honk! U marching band.
Sarah Moshontz de la Rocha, Project Coordinator, is heading up the logistical and press side of the project, having finished managing David Guss' Harmony in the Age of Noise project. Sarah recently graduated Tufts with a B.A. in Anthropology and is looking forward to continue doing work with artists who work in the public arena.
Ian Gendreau, is serving as an assistant to Charlie Keil. An MA student in the Music department, Ian is coordinating Keil’s instrumental workshops and visits to local schools. Ian is also a percussionist with experience in music education.
David Guss, Professor of Anthropology, is teaching a course in the fall called Festival and Politics in Latin America, whose students will be participating in the workshops and forming their own dance troupe. He is also working with Reebee Garofalo in organizing the Honk Symposium.
Alice Trexler directs Tufts' Dance program, and will be working with students and community members to create a second line of dancers with banners, etc, to march with the Honk! U band. Alice marched/danced with Bread and Puppet in the parade last year.
Tina Ye is responsible for the graphic design work for the Tufts program--flyers, posters, website, and other related publicity. Tina is a recent Tufts/MFA grad (08), who has done wonderful design work for various departments at Tufts, including the design work for the Harmony in the Age of Noise project.
Edith Auner is Director of Tufts Community Music Program. In collaboration with Rick Saunders, she is organizing a workshop for teachers with Charlie Keil the first Saturday of his residency.
From the Community
Rick Saunders directs the music programs in the Somerville school system. Last year he recruited high school students to participate in the workshops at Tufts that created a band that marched in the parade, and he is doing so again this year.
Reebee Garofalo, Professor of Community Media and Technology at UMass Boston, is a drummer for the Second Line Social Aid and Pleasure Society (SLSAPS) Brass Band, an organizer of the Honk Festival, and coordinator (with David Guss) of the Honk Symposium. He has also been working with Rick Saunders on the recruitment of high school kids for Charlie Keil’s workshops.
Kevin Leppman is a trombonist in the SLAPS band, an organizer of the Honk! festival, and along with Reebee Garofalo, has been serving as a liason between the Honk! Festival committee and the Honk U! Project.
Tiffany Knight is a local Photographer, Documentarian, and Artist, who documented HONK! 2007, and works extensively at Tufts as a photographer. She is also active in the local community where she teaches photography to teenagers through an after school program in Cambridge. She will be documenting the Honk!U band at the Honkfest Parade.
Madeleine Steczynski runs Zumix, an East Boston organization that does youth empowerment through music. Students from Zumix will be attending Charlie Keil’s rehearsals and marching in the Honk U! band.
Dave Morgan is the Honkfest committee intern who is working with that group on graphic design, publicity and web management.
Thank You's
The Honk! U Project has been made possible by the generous contributions from the Nat R. and Martha M. Knaster Charitable Trust. Many thanks to Aaron Shapiro and Michael Lobel, Trustees, for their support. Additional funding has been provided from Tufts' Taupin Bolwell Fund for the Arts.
The American Studies Program also thanks collaborating departments and programs at Tufts:
Music Department
Anthropology Department
Dance Program
Community Music Program
Special thanks to Honkfest organizing committee and Rick Saunders, Director of Music Programs for Somerville schools, for creating the links between the Honk! U Project, the community, and the Honk Festival.