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- Convenors:
-
Mahesh White-Radhakrishnan
(University of Sydney)
Georgia Curran (University of Sydney)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 30 November, -
Time zone: Australia/Sydney
Short Abstract:
This panel addresses the tensions between continuity and change in relation to the vitality of performed culture. We welcome papers which discuss issues of essentialism, authenticity, and activism with respect to performed cultural practices including music and dance and other modes of performance.
Long Abstract:
"…it is through performances… that humans project images of themselves and the world to their audiences" (Palmer & Jankowiak 1996:226)
Yet the vitality of performances, whether storytelling, music, dance or any other aspect of performed culture, is often of deep concern for scholars and cultural practitioners. This is particularly the case for those working with endangered intangible heritage.
The purpose of this panel is to tease out some of the tensions between continuity and change in relation to the vitality of performance, especially when it is centred on valued aspects of people's cultural or ethnic identity. Building on the 2019 AAS panel on Valuing Musical Traditions, this panel seeks to expand discussions of the vitality and/or endangerment of performative traditions into questions about continuity and change. We welcome papers which discuss issues of essentialism, the "given" and "added", authenticity, and activism in the documentation of vulnerable performative cultural practices including music and dance but also other modes of performance more broadly. Of particular interest are the following questions:
• How do our positionalities as researchers interplay with concerns of continuity and change coming from the communities with whom we do research?
• What are some of the tensions that arise between the urgent need to document performative cultural practices and the challenges of significant anthropological currents and how do researchers and communities navigate such tensions?
Palmer G.B. and W.R. Jankowiak. 1996. "Performance and Imagination: Toward an Anthropology of the Spectacular and the Mundane." Cultural Anthropology 11(2): 225-258.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 30 November, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
This paper explores the sustained vitality of traditional arts performance practices in Magelang, Central Java, Indonesia. We interrogate how processes of continuity and change in performance affect the relevance and significance of traditional arts within contemporary Javanese rural communities.
Paper long abstract:
This paper reports on an ongoing research grounded in a framework of collaborative anthropology that involves a PhD candidate from The University of Newcastle and six Indonesian students working within and with rural communities in Magelang, Central Java. The project investigates the role of traditional arts within these communities and if, and how, these have adapted to social and cultural changes. Through this questioning, a range of local artists, farmers and community members are invited to reflect and participate in the imagining of possible futures in which traditional arts practices thrive and remain significant.
Initial findings suggest that in contemporary rural settings, conservation efforts, top-down (cultural) support, or promises of monetary gain play minor roles in sustaining traditional arts practices. Instead, the continuity of traditional arts lies within its capacity to create excitement, festivity and a liveliness that sparks enthusiasm and further entices communities to collectively create or maintain performative spaces. These performative spaces, we contend, are important beyond the arts and fulfill essential societal and cultural needs.
In this presentation, we will present an analysis of processes of continuity and change in performance. Seeking to move beyond essentialist notions of traditional arts and judgment on esthetic quality and cultural authenticity, we focus on change and continuity in the way performance plays a significant role in fulfilling societal needs. The presented ethnographic data, collected in concert with contemporary rural Javanese communities, is filled with examples of how performance endeavors to remain relevant to its immediate audiences, and will lead to a better understanding on both how and why performance sustains and remains vital within society.
Paper short abstract:
This paper reflects on my continued discussions with Kam (in Chinese, Dong 侗) friends and teachers regarding complexities around continuities in Kam song traditions, particularly as we collaboratively evaluate a newly released recording of Kam village singing.
Paper long abstract:
While singing in Kam (in Chinese, Dong 侗) villages of southwestern China has undergone dramatic changes since the first staging of Kam choral singing in the 1950s, the singing traditions older singers remember from the past and the ways that Kam songs are performed today still display deep connections. For the UNESCO-recognised “Kam big song” genre, some of the many transformations include mixed male and female singing groups, singing in more than two simultaneous vocal lines, a huge increase in singing group membership (from three or more singers, to up to ten thousand) and the use of higher pitches and faster speeds. Yet there are also remarkable ways in which many aspects of big song singing have retained continuity with past practices, and the complexities around continuities in Kam song traditions is an issue that my Kam friends, teachers and I have discussed at length over the past 15-odd years. This paper reflects on those continued discussions through Chinese social media in the current COVID-19 pandemic, particularly as we collaboratively evaluate a newly released recording of Kam village singing. It explores the “multiple meanings of tradition” (Phillips and Schochet 2004: xi) that exist in contemporary Kam music-making through drawing on frameworks that place aside the continuity-or-change dichotomy, and through considering the unique sociocultural dynamics Kam villagers have encountered in recent processes of cultural essentialization.
Phillips, MS, and G Schochet. 2004. “Preface.” In Questions of Tradition, ed. M. Phillips and G. Schochet, ix-xv. Toronto, Buffalo & London: University of Toronto Press.
Paper short abstract:
In this presentation we consider continuity and change in performance and compositional practices across three generations of Inyjalarrku manyardi ‘mermaid dance-songs’ of western Arnhem Land. With insights from songmen, we discuss song creation and the ‘remixing’ of old elements in new songs.
Paper long abstract:
Continuity and change have been key themes in studies of Indigenous Australian music and dance, from the association of particular melodic forms with Dreamings and their country and peoples (Ellis et al., 1992; Barwick, 1995) and Marett (2005); to the understanding by Marett (2000) of wangga as creating a ‘liminal space’ in which important transitions can be enacted; to the insights from song custodians such as Bracknell (2019), Dowding (Treloyn et. al 2017) and Martin (Treloyn et al. 2016) into archival recordings as part of dialogistic revitalisations of song traditions.
In this presentation we consider continuity and change in performance and compositional practices across three generations of Inyjalarrku manyardi ‘mermaid dance-songs’ of western Arnhem Land. Combining insights from Inyjalarrku songmen Rupert and Renfred Manmuru with music analysis, we discuss how recent performance contexts including festivals and academic conferences can be seen as extensions of longstanding practices of ceremonial performance and exchange. Songmen continue receiving Inyjalarrku songs in dreams and order songs in a performance so as to ‘match’ new songs with those of the previous generation. Young people often call out: ‘remix, remix!’, asking songmen to perform new Inyjalarrku songs based on older ones. We consider the textual and musical elements that remain relatively stable across generations, and elements from older songs that change or are ‘remixed’. In this way, we suggest that both continuity and change are vital to sustaining a dialogue between the past, present and future songmen and performers of manyardi.