Wrapped in Plastic: How folk custom became kitsch
Anna FC Smith​
Essay published in the catalogue for Hear My Voice and Answer Me
2015
Supported by The Swiss Church, London & Goldsmiths University
​
Reproduced in THE MORRIS DANCER Edited, on behalf of the Morris Ring, by Mac McCoig MA Volume 6, No. 1 January 2020
​
Introduction:
Yodeling is a disquieting and visceral art form of primitive ancestry, which crosses cultural and national boundaries. It was employed in Switzerland as a pagan call to the gods, a demon dispeller, a means of communicating with animals and people across vast distances, and as a celebration song. As Bart Plantenga states “[Yodeling is a] genuine expression of the drama inherent in the mountain scope; frightening, dangerous, glorious, boundless.” But despite its complexity, beauty and awesomeness, it has long been seen as a kitsch joke, featured on game shows and ‘cheesy’ records, a comical symbol of Switzerland. Yodeling has become an embarrassment to a nation that now feels reduced by it. As Plantenga states, it has become “alien to...Swiss culture...and most normal S!wiss people avoid at all costs.”
​
Kitsch is defined in the Collins dictionary as “tawdry, vulgarized, or pretentious art, literature, etc, usually with popular or sentimental appeal”. It is synonymous with bad taste. The story of yodel’s descent into kitsch may be in part due to the very nature of yodeling’s preservation, and an accident born of the methods used to rescue it from a perceived oblivion. The collectors and promoters who valued this art form enough to save it have inadvertently laid the foundations for kitsch to arise. This is not to lay blame at their door, as ‘kitschification’ may be inevitable due to the impossibility of capturing a live tradition, and in part a fault of additional historical and social factors, which were not u!nder the control of the collectors and preservationists.
Many traditional folk expressions seem to be cursed by the aura of kitsch. Morris Dancing particularly suffers this same condemnation in the UK. The history of it, and English folk song’s recording and dissemination, is a mirror of Switzerland’s through the founding of both the Eidgenössicher Jodler Verband (EJV) and the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS) and their (loosely) associated collectors. These movements were initiated at similar times, with similar founding principles, by similar people. It is to them that we must be forever grateful for a tireless dedication to tradition, but it is with them that this story of ‘kitschification’ may begin, and there are examples from both nations to support my theory.
​
​
​
Hear My Voice and Answer Me
A collaborative work by Rachael Finney and Anna FC Smith Featuring Doreen Kutzke
Curated by Nathalie Boobis
The catalogue features essays by both artists, Rachael Finney and Anna FC Smith, the curator, Nathalie Boobis, and yodelling authority, Bart Plantenga. It offers further insights into the artists; the themes of the work on show; and the history, culture and practice of yodelling.
