Shadows of Time: Njinga: The Queen King, by IONE and Pauline Oliveros

Abstract

This article discusses the opera — or rather the “Play with Music and Pageantry” — Njinga by IONE and Pauline Oliveros. It extends understanding of Deep Listening through their joint work, considering in particular their treatment of historical narrative, and reflects on the philosophical implications of this, drawing on writings by Hayden White and Catherine Malabou. The operatic mode of Deep Listening in Njinga is presented as a praxis that addresses the historical trauma of enslavement and its continuity through forms of coloniality by composing conditions for the emergence of ancestral subjects touched by the passage of knowledge and affects across time and space.