sound which evokes a sort of melancholy and a
strange longing for what we were: people who
have been tested by suffering, hardship, grief,
death and grave. This is why concertina music
is so beautiful it hurts.”
Many interpretations of the “tears of joy” trope in boeremusiek are possible. It is possible to read the trope as steeped in the constructed Afrikaner past of heroic suffering, for example, or as sentimental political escapism, as Pat Hopkins has read the unfolding of Afrikaans popular music, or as a symptom of present political pressures.12 Yet, it is important to note that “tears of joy” are essential to a more universal experience of kitsch:
Kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession. The first tear says: how nice to see children running on the grass! The second tear says: how nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass! It is the second tear that makes kitsch kitsch.13
For Milan Kundera, here, kitsch is the experience not only of laughing and crying simultaneously but of a common sociality. Although boeremusiek is steeped in metaphors with local meanings, the tendency to form emotional attachments to objects that remind one of the past is not limited to white Afrikaner experience. Following Adorno, Emily Dolan argues that “[g]ood bad music”, read: kitsch music, “preserves a living memory of a dead art, making no pretence that it is anything other than dead.”14 More than anything else the “tears of joy” response to
11
Johan van Wyk, “Boeremusiek,” Landbouweekblad, December 1, 2006.
12 Pat Hopkins et al., Voëlvry: The Movement that Rocked South Africa (Cape Town: Zebra Press, 2006). 13
Milan Kundera quoted byTomas Kulka, Kitsch and Art (University Park, Pa: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996), 27.
14
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boeremusiek positions the genre on the level of the souveni for those reasons, of limited use-value in the present.
“Making the feet itch”. This description of boeremusiek’s ability to induce dancing has become deeply entrenched in the language of boeremusiek, featuring in many a cursory glance towards the genre
15).
Figure 14: “Grey’s [Grey College, a boys’ school in Bloemfontein] Volksblad, October 18, 2008, 3.
“Itchy feet”, as one can deduce from a google search, is an uncomfortable but surprisingly common physical ailment. That an embarrassing physical condition stands as metaphor for the urge to dance to boeremusiek is not a coincidence given the uneasy relationship of official Afrikaner culture to the materiality of the body.
boeremusiek positions the genre on the level of the souvenir: a loved object and a token of personal sentiment, but, value in the present.
■ ■ ■
“Making the feet itch”. This description of boeremusiek’s ability to induce dancing has become deeply entrenched oeremusiek, featuring in many a cursory glance towards the genre (see Figure 14 and Figure
: “Grey’s [Grey College, a boys’ school in Bloemfontein] boere-orkes best in South Africa: Boys make the feet itch all over the country”,
“Itchy feet”, as one can deduce from a google search, is an uncomfortable but surprisingly common physical ailment. That an embarrassing physical condition stands as metaphor for the urge to dance to boeremusiek is not a onship of official Afrikaner culture to the materiality of the body. Because it r: a loved object and a token of personal sentiment, but,
“Making the feet itch”. This description of boeremusiek’s ability to induce dancing has become deeply entrenched Figure
best in South Africa: Boys make the feet itch all over the country”, Die
“Itchy feet”, as one can deduce from a google search, is an uncomfortable but surprisingly common physical ailment. That an embarrassing physical condition stands as metaphor for the urge to dance to boeremusiek is not a ecause it
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represents an automated discursive response to the music and not really a reaction to the music itself (i.e. a desire to dance) the trope of “itchy feet” serves a more pressing rhetorical function in boeremusiek discourse.
On the one hand referring to itchy feet is a way of drawing attention to fun, to putting it on display, as it were. By referring to itchy feet one derives joy from the shared experience of boeremusiek, rather than in an individual response to the music’s rhythmic capacities. When referring to dancing in this way, one derives pleasure from the possibility of dancing and from the collective memories that are evoked when speaking about dancing to boeremusiek. “Itchy feet” is, therefore, a nostalgic reference to the lost possibilities of the past.
On the other hand, there is the sense that the itchy feet serve as a betrayal of suppressed physical responses to music. Having itchy feet betrays a secret desire to dance – an impulse one doesn’t necessarily have to act upon. The notion of itchy feet as embarrassing betrayal is particularly evident in a letter to the presenters of the radio programme Nog’n draai (Another swirl) that aired in the 1990s:
Your broadcasts reminded me of a joke told by the late dominee Jan du Rand. Ouma [Grandma] was a deep Christian and her granddaughter, San, played the harmonium. When San started playing jolly music Ouma said: “San, San, that music of yours!”, to which San responded, “But Ouma, it’s religious”. “It definitely isn’t”, Ouma said, “I can feel it in my feet”.15
15
“Julle uitsendings laat my dink aan ’n grap wat wyle ds. Jan du Rand vertel het. Ouma was ’n diep Kristen, en haar kleinkind San het die
Figure 15: “Can’t wait for Saturday evening! We’re going to throw a big party and won’t miss out on a single dance!! Lekker braai (barbecue), lekker friends and the right boere-orkes! André Victor and his men really makes the feet itch! Good luck guys!” Comment on the Facebook page of the 2011 Boeremusiek competition Varstrap on the Afrikaans television channel kykNET.
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The “itchy feet” trope points towards the intimate domesticity of boeremusiek – an intimacy that is at times embarrassing. Yet the safety of falling back on an expressive stereotype transforms itchy feet from a personal condition to an expression of community, in the same way a rude joke relies for its humorous impact on the existence of societal norms that oppose it.
In many ways the “itchy feet” trope relies on the broader discursive context of “innocent fun”. Boeremusiek is emblematic of the less stern social world of the Afrikaner often embodied by the saying derived from the volkspele song Afrikaners is plesierig (Afrikaners make merry). The Springbok Radio advertisement in Figure 16 illustrates some of the activities and sentiments that spring to mind when the saying is heard:
Young and old are making merry on the lawn ... singing voices fill the air ... happy couples whirl to the swing of the music! Thus our ancestors played their games. Thus they are still played wherever Afrikaners gather – at home in the voorkamer [front room], in our town halls and in the free open air. This is Afrikaner entertainment, as pure and clean as the language we speak.
“Innocent fun” is a defensive phrase, a phrase one adopts when standing accused of crossing a line. The euphemistic references to dancing in the 1953 advertisement are understandable within the politico-religious context of the time. What makes contemporary notions of boeremusiek as “innocent fun” kitsch is the fact that the moral categories towards which it stands as a defence have become redundant. The photograph included in
traporrel gespeel. Toe San vrolik speel, sê Ouma: ‘San, San, daardie musiek van jou!’, waarop San antwoord: ‘Ouma dis geestelik’. ‘San dit is glad nie’, het Ouma geantwoord, ‘ek kan dit aan my voete voel’.” Letter by Miemie de Clercq to the presenters of Nog ’n draai, March 26, 1994. Part of Piet Bester’s personal archive in the possession of the author.
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the programme of the BMG’s twenty-first anniversary festival (the caption reads: “Doesn’t that look like fun? Remember, you can dance to the beat of lively boeremusiek at any time...”, see Figure 17) is kitsch because of its constructed “oldness”, but also because it implies the “innocent fun” defence for dancing when no accusations are made to the contrary. The photograph is kitsch because in the Web 2.0 era it really does seem innocent and because it references a conception of fun that belongs to a previous age.
When I consider it, the festival programme from which this photograph is taken is not dissimilar to a begrafnisbrief: a kitsch souvenir that boeremusiek enthusiasts will treasure, a sentimental reminder of what has been lost. Boeremusiek as a form of boerekitsch satisfies existing expressive needs rather than creating new ones.16 The contemporary employment of the “tears of joy”, “itchy feet” and “innocent fun” tropes likewise retains the form of a past aesthetic, but without the function it formerly served.
16
Kulka, Kitsch and Art, 27.
Figure 17: Photograph and caption in the programme of the Boeremusiekgilde’s twenty-first anniversary festival, October 8- 9, 2010.
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