Jack Canfield
Lawrence University
Project
Soul Songs: The World Sung Into Being
French Polynesia, Republic of Congo, Russia, Norway
During my Watson year, I aim to become fluent in the singing languages of five communities where song is used as a vital communicative and expressive device alternative to speech. Within indigenous groups, song is used as a transformative vehicle through which the singing individual is linked to their immediate environment and deeply engaged with others around them. Perhaps most of all, these forms of song articulate an ineffable spiritual element of the human experience. By engaging with these musical traditions firsthand, I hope to explore, converse, and connect in an oft-neglected, yet ancient form of human expression that lives somewhere within us all.