Savannah Fortis

Music on the Move is an audio and visual exploration of stories at the crossroads of music and migration. The project examines music’s role in communities currently or formerly on the move. By focusing on three crucial areas within refugee, migrant, and/or diaspora communities MoM highlights music’s cross border aptitude to create identity, express culture, and build community.

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The project piloted two interviews in Northern Iraqi Kurdistan. The stories from this region focus on the internal migration of two individuals who moved from Arab dominated southern Iraq, to the predominantly Kurdish north (Kurdistan). Each exemplifies the importance of music in the pursuit of making a new life in a new place, even in one's own country.

Music on the Move’s initial 5 part series takes place in Athens, Greece - a city at the center of a global refugee and migration narrative. However, MoM understands Athen’s relationship to migration as more robust than the usual coverage. Through a continually evolving understanding of Greece’s relationship to communities on the move, the project highlights five very different stories of movement that add to the city’s already rich history. Pontic Greeks keep their painful history alive through communal song and dance, while second generation Congolese create a new genre of Afro-Greek music.

As the project continues to expand, the focus will be on untold musical stories of communities on the move throughout the greater Mediterrean region.

Action, Spectacle: Tell me a bit about why you’re in Athens right now, how long you’ve been here and what you’ve been doing with yourself in this crazy global context?

Savannah: I came to Athens last September, so it’s just shy of a year that I’ve been in the city. I came here essentially to work on this project. The initial launching point was signing up for a Masters programme at the National Kapodistrian University based in the city that supposedly covered topics that are involved with the project. Ultimately though, I’ve been here for almost a year, working  independently, understanding the dynamics of the city, doing a lot of research, walking around because that’s all I could do in the midst of a lockdown. I then began turning it into what I consider a very dynamic multi-media project that focuses on music as a device for identity, creation, cultural expression and community building within various migrant and diaspora communities in Athens.

Action, Spectacle: Can you outline where the project started? How the agendas or perspectives you were initially interested in have morphed through your experiences here that have been varied and some quite difficult? Could you talk about the programme you were enrolled on and how that contradicts the investigative field work you’ve done?

Savannah: When I came here initially, I wanted to do something that would give me more of a specialisation. I had been working various on pieces here and there and I could find a thematic through-line that mostly tied in with culture and international relations, or migration sub-cultures. These are the kinds of topics that I found myself floating in and around and I thought that by joining a programme that specialised in journalism on migration I could really channel my skills into a specific vocation. Unfortunately, the programme did no such thing. But being forced into a situation where the academic aspect of my time here did not meet expectations, made me pull up my bootstraps and ask myself very important questions like ‘why migration as a specialisation?’ it could have been any specialisation but why this?. When I asked myself these more important questions, I realised that my interests came from a more anthropological perspective. I’m not so interested in reporting on these more sensationalist stories concerning contemporary migration movements that we’ve been seeing seeing over the past five years and the conditions in camps and how its affecting policy and all of these things.

I realised very shortly after attending a few lectures that that was the bulk of the content on the programme and that this was absolutely not what I was interested in. Still, migration is important to me and to my own family history as well as understanding aspects of life in general. So in order to excavate deeper into the migration question; I began to think about how over time the movement of peoples and places and the settlement of people and places influences culture. Specifically, what people choose to hold onto. What they choose to let go of and how these things blend with one another within the new context that they find themselves. This does not only concern refugees, but all people who move — the fact that various types of migrations happen and cultures mix and they change constantly. When I asked myself more specifically what aspect of culture was of interest? It was clear as day that it was music.

As I thought about it more, it had always been music. When I was looking at doing a Fulbright a few years back, one of the deciding factors on choosing Bulgaria was because I loved Bulgaria’s geographical position and the way that the geography of the region influences Bulgarian folk music in various regions of the country. I then realised that the movement of peoples throughout this region has deeply influenced this formulation of sounds. I got this idea that migration and music go together and that sounds are influenced by movement. Even the things that people decide to hold onto influence sounds, and so something began forming very vaguely in my mind. From then on I began to think about how to make this into something that I like and with time and thought, with a very intense lockdown in Athens and with nothing else to do but think about this exact subject; my project really started to take form. I was looking at Athens specifically because that’s where I found myself, where I knew that this time would be spent. I was then focussed on finding various communities in Athens and wanted to look beyond the one narrative that I was being fed over and over again on the Masters programme which concerned the contemporary ‘flows’ of - to be quite blunt and honest - Syrians, Afghans, Iraqis; this specific region in the Middle-East that has been very much identified as the epicentre of the current refugee crisis. I knew that migration is much more robust than just that narrative, so with this project I wanted to make that notion come to life for other people too. I did spend days, weeks, probably months at my computer trying to understand the history of people in this specific city and in this region and why people are here. Even the music of this city has influenced that; I was looking into Rempetiko (Greek folk music), as an example of this, which wasn’t entirely created due to the refugees from Asia Minor but their migration is an important aspect to synthesis of this music and it was an example of how it informs Greek identity. Even features like the Peiraias Port is interesting in how and why people come through the port to enter the country. It is not always the case that they’re refugees but because they work in a shipping company that’s based in China for example. This entire thought process was initiated through being forced to ask myself important questions about what I really want, not only out of this Masters programme, but out of my life as a storyteller. That has been one of the most important things that has blossomed as I have gone out and interviewed people and sat with people. I have had very affirming moments of ‘ this is exactly what I’m supposed to be doing’ and thank God I joined a relatively shitty programme which forced me to do that for myself. It was either that or just wallow in a really bad decision and waste this year — instead it was the exact opposite.

Action, Spectacle: It sounds fortunate and unique that you’ve found yourself in Athens for one reason and then ended up reconnecting specifically with music which has been an important aspect of you as a person, but that you’ve had some distance from until this moment. The fact that this project has turned that around is a testament to what you are trying to illustrate. I was wondering if you could walk me through the cultures and demographics you’ve been looking at within and beyond the city in terms of the musical content of those communities and how you think this is a good vessel for telling stories?

Savannah: One thing that’s been apparent in my mind about music is that it is a conversation, lyrics aside. Really good musicians that play well with one another — that’s an interesting conversation you want to listen to. This really threads into how music can help tell a story of people and really important issues like migration, war, various crises all over the world even personal anecdotes. After sitting for months after all of this research, I knew that the lockdown was going to be ending soon in Athens and I still felt like I needed to get out and test out all of these ideas I had been working through up until April. This is when I did the first bit of field work for this project and really put this thesis or this claim out into the world, into practice and to test how music achieves this. I went to Iraqi-Kurdistan and when I touched down there, it was a beautiful explosion of faith regarding people. Faith mixed with deep intentions to discover these things. Not only was I in the right place but I was following music and my nose. I told myself when I landed there that I was going to continue to push myself out of this comfort zone, just like I pushed myself to find the answers to those questions that I asked in the lockdown. I was going to push myself to be as involved as possible and that meant: any time I had a question about music, I needed to find that answer. Because of that, I ended up meeting some of the best people, subjects, musicians I could have possibly met. Seriously, just sitting in a café and asking the waiter what song is on — got me one of the best interviews of my life.

Action, Spectacle: Who was that with?

Savannah: That was with a man known in Iraqi-Kurdistan as the ‘Maestro’, because of his involvement in preserving and playing Kurdish folk music, despite not being Kurdish at all. It ended up being one of the main themes and I only connected the dots afterwards when I realised that all of my stories in Kurdistan focused on internal migration of Arabs from southern Iraq to northern Iraqi-Kurdistan and specifically how music was one of the main elements that allowed them to transition and embrace a new culture, create an identity in this new society and especially more than anything create a community. Because in Iraq the dynamic of what is the Kurdistan region and what is controlled by federal Iraq, is very different. It’s totally different for people who live in that country – people go to the north because they want more freedom of expression, and this was the story of the musicians I met there that were allowed to continue to make the music that is a part of them by migrating. Music was instrumental in their story and the story of why they moved. Music was a key, getting those stories and experiencing the power of music in that test environment allowed me to hit the ground running once I came back to Athens. I took these case studies I had spent months compiling and honestly once I came back everyone was more than receptive and I ended up carving out about five different case studies here in Athens. It just really worked out, each one has a different window into the migration situation here. One of the communities that I’m working with is within the Chinese-Greek community, whose migrational background in Athens is mainly through commercial retail trade, through the Port. The subject for that story initially came to the city because he was working with a shipping company, so this is a very different take on migration rather than another group that I’m working with which is the Afghan community which in terms of my project is kind of the face of contemporary migration story that the world associates with Greece and with Athens in terms of the recent ‘flow’ into the region.

Action, Spectacle: Can I ask as a side note, what you dislike about the word ‘flows’ when referring to migration?

Savannah: Well, it’s a less hostile word than others. I don’t like it because it has a tendency to group really important things into just one element of that phenomenon that kind of suits a narrative. When that word is overused as it is sometimes, in certain spheres, especially in academia, it takes out this very human element of migration which is the main focus for me. This project really draws on human stories and I think the word ‘flows’ is so abstracted. It doesn’t necessarily have a story attached to it but is rather this impersonal event that happens and is easy to brush aside, or lump into a certain category, so when I am talking about it in my project I usually avoid using the word ‘flows’. I’m not mad about it if it does come up, but because I am focused on such a human aspect, I try not to use such broad terminology to describe migration.

Action, Spectacle: So you are quite conscious of this academic and to some extent generalised language which is sometimes dissociative in that it separates the actual phenomenon from the experience of that phenomenon?

Savannah: Another thing I’ve realised throughout this time is that I am not an academic. That’s not the way I work. I work really well person-to-person, getting those stories from people – from their minds from their hearts and from their hard earned experiences. For me a lot of academia is really far from that and some people work really well in that sphere and that’s what they do and those are their strengths — it is not mine — I really struggle with academic theory. I know certain terminology is used in various parts of academia but overall it feels very far from the work that I have put out, am putting out now, and will continue to put out. I have tried to work in that space and it is not my mind.

Action, Spectacle: I can completely see why that is given the amount of field work you’ve done within the span of less than a year. I am really interested to hear about some of the cross-overs you’ve discovered within Athens after coming back from Kurdistan, using that experience as a blueprint and applying it here. For instance, this very interesting combination of Chinese music with Ancient Greek music and marriage of those two elements as communication, cultural conversation even is a very beautiful idea – the fact that you have discovered this hidden gem in Athens is fascinating because it isn’t something that citizens of the city itself would be aware of. Can you speak to what that experience is like, how the discovery of these things enriches your project?

Savannah: Basically it was all me acting on my hypothesis of where there are these communities; someone is making music. I really wanted to prove that and I just figured there has to be some musical component to it. With enough research and enough emailing random people and sticking my nose in places, that’s exactly how it happened with the Chinese community. I could have been proven wrong that there is no music involved but thus far I haven’t been. I really think that this just speaks to music’s power, the fact that it is present in all of these instances. You can walk by these people on the streets, you have to do a little bit of profiling to see how a person definitely has different heritage than maybe most of the population, then look into whether there is a greater community present and does that community interact with music in any way. My guess is that it does, then it is a matter of how I can find and ask people involved, because a lot of these communities have some kind of cultural organisation or outpost like an ambassador, not necessarily officially through an embassy but they have community centres. Most people don’t really know about them because they’re not part of that community and it’s not their business to look into it which is understandable, not everyone is interested in the Polish community in Athens and that’s okay. But those things do exists and so when you start poking around in those places and asking where the musicians are at, people are like ‘they’re actually is, it’s weird that you’re asking, why are you interested?’ I get a lot of that like: ‘Why did you find us? How did you find this group?’ And it’s because of this process, in trusting that music is compelling enough to communities who are trying to maintain their culture or trying to make a community with a place. You hear these sounds, these are the sounds of my ancestors, these are the sounds of my Mom, these are the sounds that I heard growing up from my grandmother… it’s important, it has paid off and it has proven, at least thus far, at least in all of my case studies to be true.

Action, Spectacle: It is impossible to talk about these things without mentioning identity, or the evolution of identity through generations, within the demographics and how that shifts. In Athens there are a lot of second and third generation kids from every minority group that are now growing up as Greek citizens as well, with this heritage and continuity through music. I think the fact that you’ve had such a warm response to all of your inquiries, mirrors the way you go about communicating your agenda and interests which resonates with all of these diverse groups. Do you think there is an element of being seen in this way that is very important and poignant to people?

Savannah: Definitely! You know I feel really lucky working with music because music is something people want to talk about. If you ask a person upon meeting them what their favourite music is – that’s something they want to answer for the most part – it’s a really easy intro point, and especially if that is a group that is consistently marginalised. Instead of asking them about what’s it like to be marginalised, showing a genuine interest in the music being made within that community. Some people are like ‘wow ok cool lets talk about music’. It’s puzzling to me how music is so important and so powerful just like this sound conversation that people have. I’ve been pondering it more myself just this act of making sounds together, sounds that people find familiar in a collective group, it brings out so many different things to talk about, a really intense subject or a really sensitive subject or a new perspective on a subject that has been worn out in the way that it’s usually talked about. In a sense its been easy using music as the in-road to talking about things like that, because people are excited to talk about it and they’re excited to make it for me a lot of times.

Action, Spectacle: I suppose it is a perfect point of connection in terms of bridging linguistic gaps. The non-verbal aspect of music, the kind of simple power of it and the connectivity that it brings. You have found yourself in a refugee camp just outside of Athens playing music for people without planning to right?

Savannah: The Afghan community I am working with invited me to a music festival they were having in a camp. The organisers, Afghans working in the community who have been through the process of being a refugee in the camp themselves and have lived in Greece for over ten years, becoming legally recognised here, told me when we showed up for this festival that music is something that just brings a moment of joy to people in their day. When we arrived in the camp they said this is not a great place, this is not a place where people can live a good life by any means, but by bringing them music we can change their day and give them something to smile about so it is powerful – and when I was there this was an immediate way for me to connect with the community with which otherwise our experiences in life are really not comparable in any way. The fact that I ended up grabbing a guitar and learning an Afghan song that was taught to me by two young boys in the camp with the three of us standing on a stage playing for everyone there; if that alone isn’t an example of the power of music to bring people together, I don’t what else would be. That was a moment to me when the project became so personal, because I became directly involved in the process of using music to connect with other people, to connect with a different culture to connect with a community which otherwise I have very little connection to – and there it was being manifested. It was and extremely powerful moment for me.

Action, Spectacle: It must have been tremendously validating after this journey you’ve been on, with its ups and downs. The Masters programme you initially embarked on not following through on its promises, you having to essentially work alone and independently, acting on your own research, instincts. It must have been an incredible moment where everything crystallises. Did you see it as you believed you would see it?

Savannah: I felt like I was experiencing a truth in the world you know? And that was a powerful moment.

Action, Spectacle: So having accumulated all of this material, all of these testimonies, you’ve interviewed musicians from all sorts of backgrounds, groups, walks of life — an archive of voices for this project. Tell me a little bit about how you see this work and this content evolving?

Savannah: I really want this to be accessible to people. And that’s another issue I have with academia. Because you put out a research paper in academia and who reads that but other people in academia? Mostly. I don’t necessarily need those people to interact with my project – if they do great, I’m glad that they found it, I’m glad if anyone finds this project. We pass by stories all the time, these are really important stories, issues that are constantly talked about in our society. I want these stories to be accessible to as many people as possible on a very base level and so my initial intention for this project is to turn it into a podcast so that people from anywhere can click into these stories and listen to them and realise the kinds of the things that are going on around them in their city. Maybe they don’t live in Athens, but it might trigger something familiar in their mind that is taking place where they are from also. People that they pass on the street, this is potentially somebody they could find a connection with, so the podcast is still going forward, it was the initial output that I intended for this work along with a website and all the other multimedia aspects of it. The website is the website for the podcast – but I don’t just want it to be just another stagnant podcast website. I want each episode to have its own page that has photographs of these musicians or photographs of these events that I went to. I want it to be something that people can actually engage with and feel connected to, or just kind of immerse themselves in. Because of that I realised that I would like to take these elements and have them in a physical space in Athens, hopefully in the fall. In a small exhibition space that people in Athens can walk into and really see a different perspective of their city and an issue, not even an issue but a topic that is really prominent in this city and in this region but have a totally different angle on it. And with neighbours these people are their neighbours, fellow Athenians in a way and that’s become more important to me as I’ve met people in the city. I want a physical space for people to go to in Athens for a second to experience this project as well because this isn’t just something to have as an archive of my work, this is something for as many people as possible to engage with. A space like that would hopefully attract various people and would hopefully initiate conversations that shed light on different things, talked about in the interviews shared in the space. If I’m there, I would love to speak to people about this as well. Every interviewee that I’ve talked to since having this idea has loved it and if they were able to show up to this space one day that would be amazing, it would just open up so many avenues for commonalities, experiences, music in their city. I hope that will be the case. I will work really hard to make it happen, of course there are many factors that go into that funding-wise and whatnot; but I will try to make that a reality.

Action, Spectacle: This has been an amazing use of your time, in a brutally locked-down city. I am personally very happy that you’ve managed to weave this prolific body of work out of such liminal circumstances.

Constantine Blintzios is a Greek/British writer. He has a background in music and Contemporary Art and holds an Mst in Creative Writing from the University of Oxford. He is interested in the deep topography of backwoods, backwaters, hinterlands and how history resonates; haunting those that live in neglected and in-between realms. He has had poetry, short stories and reviews published in journals such as Visual Verse, Ash magazine, Paris Lit-Up, the Oxonian Review and the Literary Review. His poem ‘Where I am From’ was shortlisted for the 2017 Martin Starkie awards, he was long-listed for the 2019 DISQUIET fiction prize. As of 2021, his manuscript was longlisted for the Laxfield Literary Launch Prize. His debut novel: The Smoke is me, Burning will be published in 2022 by KERNPUNKT Press. He is currently studying for his PhD at the University of Bristol.