Listening for Lefebvre: Chant Support, Sonic Disobedience, and the City as “Oeuvre”
Abigail Ellman
Claiming space is a well-established tactic of nonviolent civil resistance. Drawing on examples from the Rude Mechanical Orchestra (RMO) in New York City, this chapter demonstrates how the special characteristics of a brass, woodwind, and percussion band can develop and exercise power in public space. The chapter focuses on two techniques: chant support and sonic disobedience. Chant support is a method of energizing a unified constituency and amplifying a clarified message. Sonic disobedience points that accumulated social force toward a tactical location (e.g. a workplace or prison); this method exploits a loophole in the increasingly privatized and securitized public realm where physical barriers can counter and weaken traditional nonviolent tactics. And while this chapter illustrates how the RMO’s music can build power to confront injustices, it also explores lingering questions as to the quality and durability of these confrontations. The pragmatic descriptions of the RMO’s performance practice – useful to activist musicians and organizers – are situated within a theoretical framework that assists radical urban planners, designers, and policymakers as they work in solidarity with social movements to transform cities. Indeed, the lessons may be relevant to anyone who inhabits contested urban space and seeks to join with others to challenge injustice.
Abigail Ellman is an urban planner and snare drummer in the Brooklyn-based Rude Mechanical Orchestra. She received a BA in Music from Yale and a MSc in City and Regional Planning from Pratt Institute.
Abigail Ellman
Claiming space is a well-established tactic of nonviolent civil resistance. Drawing on examples from the Rude Mechanical Orchestra (RMO) in New York City, this chapter demonstrates how the special characteristics of a brass, woodwind, and percussion band can develop and exercise power in public space. The chapter focuses on two techniques: chant support and sonic disobedience. Chant support is a method of energizing a unified constituency and amplifying a clarified message. Sonic disobedience points that accumulated social force toward a tactical location (e.g. a workplace or prison); this method exploits a loophole in the increasingly privatized and securitized public realm where physical barriers can counter and weaken traditional nonviolent tactics. And while this chapter illustrates how the RMO’s music can build power to confront injustices, it also explores lingering questions as to the quality and durability of these confrontations. The pragmatic descriptions of the RMO’s performance practice – useful to activist musicians and organizers – are situated within a theoretical framework that assists radical urban planners, designers, and policymakers as they work in solidarity with social movements to transform cities. Indeed, the lessons may be relevant to anyone who inhabits contested urban space and seeks to join with others to challenge injustice.
Abigail Ellman is an urban planner and snare drummer in the Brooklyn-based Rude Mechanical Orchestra. She received a BA in Music from Yale and a MSc in City and Regional Planning from Pratt Institute.