Debajo del agua: the wake work of Enerolisa Núñez

Join us for a screening of:
Debajo del agua: the wake work of Enerolisa Núñez
a video by manuel arturo abreu

gathering begins at 7:30pm
screening (MOVIE PLAY) at 8pm
run time: 1'06"
outdoors: some chairs provided, but feel free to bring your own or a blanket

With her family band, Enerolisa Núñez, the "Queen of Salve," performs Afro-Dominican religious music in the salve style, also called palo or atabales. We review some musical examples, examine the history and context of Núñez's music and palo genres generally, and explore how Núñez navigates Afro-Dominican citizenship, or "no-citizenship" as Christina Sharpe says, in a context where palo seems to move into national prominence since the 90s, but is in fact reduced to "roots" or "folklore," not recognized as retention of living African presence and resistance in the Dominican spiritual and social fabric. We analyze the specific exploitative context of Enerolisa's collaboration with Dominican musician Kinito Mendez. Despite such marginalization, practitioners like Núñez continue to work in the wake to maintain the fullness of African spirituality in the face of the antiblack specter of "brujería" in the Christian Dominican mainstream, the commemorative national and corporate use of "folkloric" music, and what Sharpe calls oceanic time - "a time that does not pass, a time in which the past and present verge." From a space under the water, Enerolisa works to heal herself and retain her family's traditions.

This talk was organized for the 2020 Black Feminist Summer School, a program of the Black Feminist Kitchen. Thank you to them.

instagram.com/mabreu91

The video features 18 tracks at various volumes and lengths. You can hear them all in their original forms in this playlist: youtube.com/playlist