Dwelling in Movement: Panorama, Tourism and Performance

Abstract

In this paper, I focus on the music tourist. Concentrating on the geographical movement that takes place within steelpan music-making as players move to Trinidad and Tobago to participate in the national panorama competition, I suggest that although these players (music tourists) do not belong to the location that is visited, they are afforded a sense of belonging through music-making. Following Nicholas Cook's notion of music as performance [(2003). Music as performance. In M. Clayton, T. Herbert, & R. Middleton (Eds.), The cultural study of music: A critical introduction (pp. 204–214). London: Routledge], I explore the notion of dwelling in geographical movement, focusing on the concepts of the stranger and of home in order to draw out the ways in which the steel-orchestra, panorama and the performed arrangements, negotiate and compose identities musically. Discussing in particular the sociological accounts of the stranger offered by Lawrence and Simmel [(1976). Georg Simmel: Sociologist and European. Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson and Sons.] and Zygmunt Bauman [(1996). From pilgrim to tourist—or a short history on identity. In S. Hall & P. de Gay (Eds.), Questions of cultural identity (pp. 18–36). London: Sage] I suggest that musical performance allows another perspective of the stranger to emerge.