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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:
Warlpiri women's ritual songs are today performed in many different contexts including in festivals and on stages across Australia. In this paper, I explore the ways in which Warlpiri women refigure the performance of these song traditions to adapt to these new performance spaces.
Paper long abstract:
Over recent decades Warlpiri yawulyu singers and dancers have had opportunities to perform their ritual songs outside of traditional ceremonial contexts, in festivals and as part of broader arts-focused productions. Françoise Dussart has shown that distinct shifts in the purposes and values associated with yawulyu that have occurred since Warlpiri women first began to consider how to present yawulyu as evidence for land claims in the 1970s. In this paper, I examine some of the changes that have occurred across a five-decade period using Thomas Turino’s distinction of participatory versus presentational modes of performance (2008). This shift is not a straightforward or linear shift, but one framed by performance context. In this paper, I examine contemporary yawulyu performances to unpack the features that emerge when Warlpiri women consider how to present these ritual songs in these new spaces.
Dussart, Françoise (2004). Shown but not shared, presented but not proferred. The Australian Journal of Anthropology 15(3): 253–266.
Turino T (2008). Music as Social Life: The Politics of Participation. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press.
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines issues of essentialism and authenticity in the assertion of what is considered ‘pure’ and ‘original’ worship in a group of ‘Old Rite’ Catholics in present-day Lewisham, Sydney. It discusses musical choices made to consolidate a distinct transcultural religious identity.
Paper long abstract:
Since the late 1980s, a group of ‘Old Rite’ Catholics have gathered in the Inner West Sydney suburb of Lewisham. What distinguishes them from mainstream Catholicism is their observance of liturgical rubrics dating from the 1500s with links to the modalities of early Christianity. Ecclesiastical Latin, along with many of the ancient rituals, music and general proceedings were ‘edited out’ during the reforms of Vatican Council II (1962-1965), which modernised the religion in favour of vernacular languages, contemporary culture and interdenominational dialogue. However, several ‘renegade’ communities have adhered to these early practices, condoned by Pope John Paul II's establishment of the Fraternity of St Peter, an order of Old Rite priests. This conservative movement flourished internationally with the 2007 Moto Proprio of Pope Benedict encouraging mainstream appreciation of the old ways. Raised in this conservative hub as a chorister, I examine issues of essentialism and authenticity in the assertion of what is considered ‘pure’ and ‘original’ worship through various musical choices. How has increased visibility through Facebook live-streaming due to COVID-19 affected the community's public image? What measures have been taken since Pope Francis’ July 2021 decree to restrict the Old Rite in favour of the Novus Ordo ('New Order')? I draw attention to the multi-ethnic nature of this community, led by its Chinese-Malaysian Parish Priest, Fr Duncan Wong FSSP, and discuss how community members, through a marginalised Latin-speaking faith from Renaissance Europe, have come together to consolidate a religious identity that transcends cultural origins and political boundaries.
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores a Portuguese Burgher syncretic quadrille dance called láánsas including its development, the various forms to which it may have once referred and continuities in practice within changing cultural contexts revealing processes of intercultural contact, virtuosity and vitality.
Paper long abstract:
Portuguese Burgher performance centres around two types of syncretic quadrille. Of these káfriinha is the most common, culturally salient, commented upon and researched of their dance forms (Fernando 1895; Cardoso et al. 2019; Radhakrishnan 2021). The other form láánsas is more esoteric and rare and attracts scant mention in scholarship. However, láánsas is very highly regarded within the community, sometimes even higher than káfriinha. Observation and analysis of the music and movement in láánsas clearly evidences its origins in the famous 19th century Lancers Quadrille with some interesting transformations. Within the current Portuguese Burgher cultural context láánsas is given special status as it is trickier to perform than káfriinha and also viewed as older. This paper explores Portuguese Burgher discourse and practice around láánsas including its development, the various forms to which the name may have once referred and its continuity within a changing cultural context. Such an exploration deepens our understanding of intercultural contact in the Indian Ocean and the interplay between aesthetic virtuosity, value and vitality.
Cardoso, H. C., et al. (2019). "Documenting modern Sri Lanka Portuguese." Language Documentation and Conservation Special Publication No. 19, Documentation and Maintenance of Contact Languages from South Asia to East Asia, ed. by Mário Pinharanda-Nunes & Hugo C. Cardoso, pp.1–33, http:/nflrc.hawaii.edu/ldc/sp19
Fernando, C. M. 1895. "The Music of Ceylon." Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (Ceylon) 13 (45): 183–189.
Radhakrishnan (2021): ‘Shake it and Dance': Portuguese Burgher Identity and the Performance of Káfriinha, The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology , DOI: 10.1080/14442213.2021.1922496