1 - Brooms and Music: Mediation and Creation in the Educational Practices of the Aruna Jharna Museum in Rajasthan, India

In this paper, I would like to clarify some of the possibilities of the assemblage ability of music that can be found in the process of inheriting “traditional culture”, using the case of research and preservation activities concerning "folk music" in the state of Rajasthan in northwest India. Specifically, I will clarify the process of establishing a musical museum called “Arna Jharna” and its underlying philosophy, and focus on how the organic combination and holistic expression of the world based on music can have the possibility in the context of education. The importance of the power of music as a mediator between the everyday life and the cosmos is emphasized in this museum, where everything, including life / belief / labor / technology / risk, as well as the natural environment and the cosmos, are blended to form a “galaxy”. The museum states that understanding this "galaxy" is itself an important process for the creativity of music.

In this paper, I will first grasp the overall picture of the world of performing arts in Thar Desert, and clarify the process by which the revival movement of performing arts took place in 60’s and "folk performing arts" were restructured in this context. Lastly, I would like to focus on how the life world, environment, and cosmology that have constituted the musical communities have been represented, and to search for the possibility of holistic education that can be seen in the process of "inheritance" of the community music.