Revitalizing the Past, Contextualizing the Present: : Cultural Responses to the Tradition of Improvised Singing in Aegean Greece

This article is based on extensive anthropological fieldwork, conducted in the mountain village of Philoti, Naxos, Cyclades islands, Greece. The main topic of inquiry was singing as a symbolic practice and its contribution in the construction of person, gender, and community. In Philoti, there is a long-standing tradition of improvised singing, which is by now used as a symbol of community in the local festivities, held during the summer by the Association of villagers who live permanently in Athens and return for summer holidays. According to local aesthetics, singing is related to male friendship and identity and its performance is partly irreconcilable with the practice of revitalizing tradition. This leads to some discrepancy between the local aesthetics of singing, on the one hand, and tradition as a construct, on the other. The dynamic cultural responses to the process of revitalizing tradition, based on the performance of improvised singing in a new context, is the main topic of this article.