Marina Peterson, Sound, Space, and the City: Civic Performance in Downtown Los Angeles.

Marina Peterson, Sound, Space, and the City: Civic Performance in Downtown Los Angeles. Marina Peterson, Sound, Space, and the City: Civic Performance inDowntown Los Angeles. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,2010, 184 pp. Recently, the world's population became "urban" inits majority. For some, this demographic fact concretizes an underlyingtruth--the city is one of the greatest, most spectacular achievements ofhumanity. Of course, this "beacon of modernity" is a dynamicpalimpsest of the material realm of urban planning and the ideologicalsphere of social relationships. While it is certainly not difficult toimagine that there is an important correlation between spatial designand identity formation, the question of empirical "proof"remains a challenge. In other words, how, exactly, do we feel like"New Yorkers," for example, and create such a sense ofbelonging? Can we trace this sentiment in the contours of the cityscape? In Sound, Space, and the City, Marina Peterson has taken on thischallenge as it relates to Los Angeles. As a counter current to thecopious scholarship on this "empty" and fragmented model ofthe "post-modern condition," Peterson argues that, indeed, onecan identify and qualify Los Angeles' "center." Insteadof interpreting the multiple movement of suburban sprawl as leavingLA's downtown in a vacuum, Peterson takes seriously the CommunityRedevelopment Agency/Los Angeles (CRA/LA) and their discursive term of"neutrality" regarding downtown. As discussed in the openingchapters, one can only understand such "neutrality" inrelation to and transportation through the surrounding segregatedneighborhoods. It is this latter process of entrepreneurial urbanizationand public policy that inspired the widely read, provocative essays byMike Davis and theoretical musings of geographer Edward Soja. Petersonis more upbeat as she focuses on the potentiality of socio-spatialtransformation in the public space of 2 California Plaza in theneighborhood of Bunker Hill, and the role of "GrandPerformances" in a managed process of urban collectivity under thebanner of diversity. Similar to a modernist, Bauhaus piece of furniture, Peterson hasstreamlined her narrative as a cogent mix of social theory andethnographic data in her formal comments on the potential impact ofpublic art on the civic subject. In the slim text, she provides urbanand institutional history, as well as phenomenological insights into"Grand Performances" as a problematic but ultimatelysuccessful articulation between "neutrality" andmulticulturalism. Peterson assumes a relatively informed reader as shegestures to the primary models of thought concerning"multiculturalism." "Grand Performances" fits well,because the events package identity as a consumer product and contributeto the privatization of public service (e.g., nonprofit organization andmanagement) while simultaneously stretching the parameters of civicinclusion. Peterson is more rigorous in tracing the lineage of"multiculturalism" as an expressive arts movement in the LosAngeles area and contextualizing "Grand Performances" withinthe political and market logics of ethnicity and identity formationacross this particular urban landscape. Since the talent comes from thecity itself, "Grand Performances" directly attracts a widevariety of community groups and invites them to occupy 2 CaliforniaPlaza as emblematically theirs. Furthermore, "GrandPerformances" emphasis on the local is an intentional pitch to theaudience that this downtown space is a synecdoche of the city. Theextent to which this occurs during a performance or over the course of aconcert season is captured in the phrase: "Los Angeles at itsbest" (a phrase from an audience member used as chapter title). What distinguishes Sound, Space, and the City from the current waveof anthropological analyses of citizenship is Peterson'sethnomusicological perspective. As a performing cellist, Petersoninvites the reader to consider her position in the field as a meaningfullocation of knowledge. In particular, her participation as a member ofthe DaKAH hip hop orchestra emerged as a productive site forsocio-musical analysis. Drawing from linguistic anthropologists andethnomusicologists, Peterson begins with a maxim: "genre is bothmusical and social, constituted through inter- and intramusicalidentifications" (79). In short, DaKAH is an ideal type of"sonic embodiment" and sounding out the city of LA, becausethe group remains explicitly local in its lyrical content andinstrumental talent, purposefully inclusive in its orchestration andstyle mixture, and is dance-oriented. Peterson rehearses principlearguments of ritual theorists and even Durkheim to discuss "GrandPerformances" as an example, par excellence, of citizenshippractices and the "ideal society" under the rubric of thepublic concert. Hip hop, as a genre, works particularly well in provokingparticipants and audience members to consider civic subjectivity,because its frame of reference and musical structure are social andhistorical in nature. For Double G, the leader of DaKAH, the maincohesive force is place--a local knowledge of urban realities. Othersalient social categories of race, place, class, gender, and age areconsequently more flexible and thus, theoretically, more inclusive.Peterson focuses on the music and specifically on the techniques ofarticulating sound. Some of the strongest statements revolve around thechallenges of conventionally trained "classical" musicians,Peterson included, executing acoustically a drum machine-like loop. Itis here where Peterson successfully persuades the reader that theaesthetics of repetition constitute a social force. We are back to one of my opening queries--the relationship betweensound, space, and identity. While it is clear that when carefullymanaged in terms of genre, marketing, and sound production, publicconcerts produce some sort of "participatory consciousness"and some sense of "downtown;" however, what evidence exists toshow that such force is civic? Peterson offers the Kronos Quartet/NortecCollective pairing as a contrast to the socio-spatial success of DaKAH,but one wonders, again, to what extent such "grooves," toborrow from one of Peterson's main theoretical inspirations (Feldand Keil 1994), lead to any grounded citizenship. If "GrandPerformances" succeeds in bringing together a wide variety ofmusical tastes as existentially and "uniquely Angeleno" (103),what exactly are the links between aesthetic pleasure and consumptionand imagined community and socio-political action? Be that as it may,Marina Peterson's Sound, Space, and the City contributesproductively to this ongoing discussion, as her interrogation suggeststhat the reader ponder, at least, the role of sound in the process ofspatial identification. The ethnography is a welcome addition to adynamic corpus of literature about city and identity formations andwould serve well for pertinent courses at the upper levels ofundergraduate and graduate education. REFERENCE Keil, Charles and Steven Feld. 1994. Music Grooves: Essays andDialogues. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Derek Pardue Washington University in St. Louis