ABSTRACT
As more than 30 million Latin American transnational migrants (IOM 2008; Durand 2009, 35) carve out “new forms of dwelling and circulating” in the world (Clifford 1988), they bring their cultural influences and representations to bear on local–global exchanges, including participation in transnational music scenes. This chapter centers on the growing number of Latin American indigenous ethnic migrant communities that have found a cultural niche in musical production and performance abroad. Specifically, I focus on the participation of a group of Otavalans or Otavaleños, a Quichua ethnic community from northern Andean Ecuador, in the transnational Andean music scene in Japan. I analyze here the unique ways by which a group known as Sisay—one of several Andean music groups performing in Japan—contributes to this music scene abroad, redefining it in important ways. Beyond the context of Andean musicians in Japan, I show how Sisay’s performance practices aim to include Japanese audiences as active participants in the musical experience and the Andean music scene abroad.
