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Abstract: In the postmodern condition, individuals are flooded with images, symbols, and content from various traditions and cultural contexts. How does tradition change in its postmodern uses? How does folklore fill the contemporary need for "authenticity"? This article presents three models of adapting folkloric materials, reflecting different ways of coping with issues such as identity, community, tradition, multiculturalism, and the desire to fill some of the emptiness experienced by individuals in the complex cultural context of the postmodern condition characterizing contemporary Western culture. The liturgical poem "Im Nin'alu"-referenced and shaped differently by Ofra Haza, Madonna, and Offer Nissim-constitutes a test case for examining a variety of models for adapting traditional material, with varying degrees of postmodernity. The first model seeks to experience authenticity through a restoration of, or return to, "tradition." The second one, shaped in the context of World Music, springs from a spirituality that yearns for an "authentic" experience as manifested through a tradition that belongs to the culture of the Other. The third model, which we term "remix spirituality," seeks to generate an ecstatic experience in an ultra-postmodern manner.
Folklore and Tradition in Contemporary Spiritual Music
In the postmodern condition, individuals are flooded with images, symbols, and content from various traditions and cultural contexts. These are all wrapped in thick superficial coverings and presented at a pace so rapid as to be overwhelming. As a result, concepts such as kitsch, pastiche, appropriation, reification, and simulacra come up for debate in the contexts of art, marketing, and thought. This, in turn, gives rise to questions about the significance of individuals' interest in folklore: What is the reason for this interest and what are its results? What are its modules and conditions of its feasibility? How does tradition change during this process? How does folklore fill the contemporary need for "authenticity"?
We will present three models of adapting folkloric materials that reflect different ways of coping with the common problems of individuals living in the complex cultural context of what Jean-François Lyotard calls "the postmodern condition" (1984). These problems include issues of identity, community, memory, tradition, multiculturalism, the individual's relationship with hegemonic establishments, and the desire to fill some of the emptiness individuals may experience in contemporary Western culture. The liturgical poem "Im...