Paper short abstract:

Based on my ethnographic research, I show the lived experiences of Montreal metro buskers (street performers) to be less of an identity, profession or autonomous subject-position than an assemblage-act at the convergence of multiple lines of urban flow, suggesting ‘scene’ as a process of becoming.

Paper long abstract:

Based on my recent ethnographic research among Montreal's metro buskers ('street' performers), I demonstrate the highly variable motives, practices, and impacts on passersby of these urban public performers, and argue against thinking of the busker as an identity, profession or even autonomous subject-position. Rather, by examining the ephemeral, improvisatory and context-dependent practices of metro buskers, I propose seeing the busker as an assemblage-act, at the convergence of multiple lines of urban flow. I focus on buskers' sensory and affective experiences, on their musical, spatial and social practices, and on the ways that performer and space are co-productive, especially in terms of sonic experience. Further, I detail how, by arresting, or rerouting the social and sensorial flow of commuters' experience, metro buskers can have a transformative effect, creatively reclaiming everyday spaces and fostering moments of social encounter and exchange - suggesting a notion of 'scene' as a process of becoming - one that, like music itself, is both spatial and temporal. Both the metro system proper and the busker within it can be understood as temporal, spatial-material assemblaging processes - ones that are transitory, in transit and (potentially) transformative, and from which the researcher is not isolated. My use of video as participatory research method underscores the entanglement of the ethnographer in the site, subject, and process of fieldwork. Moreover, the (unanticipated) trajectories opened up by the editing process and online viewing and sharing of a series of short video clips, pushes the 'scene' of the metro busker into ever expanding directions.

Paper short abstract:

I chose to observe the social dynamics of live music in North Bay. I observed how on the small, local scale, the interactions between performers and the audience set the stage for a discourse of power, and how musicians fought back against the control of their artistry.

Paper long abstract:

I chose to observe the social dynamics of live music in North Bay. I observed how on the small, local scale, the interactions between performers and the audience set the stage for a discourse of power, and how musicians fought back against the control of their artistry. Although there are positives to it, a large part of small scale performance in North Bay involves an attempt at the domination of musicians and a theft of their visible authority they have while performing. My research explores how the audience and the employers try to control the performers through heckling, the restriction of artistic freedom, and the restriction of financial reward. I also examine how performers, through their onstage actions and song choices, can construct hidden transcripts (to borrow James C. Scott's terminology) that ultimately allow them to resist this power. Finally, I show how this setting represents a constant flux and movement of power that is never completely settled.

Paper short abstract:

The cultural policy and social change both strongly influence urban spaces and affected the roles/functions of body performers in those urban spaces.This paper mainly refers body performances to dance and instrumental music performers of the Yi ethnic.

Paper long abstract:

The cultural policy and social change both strongly influence urban spaces and affected the roles/functions of body performers in those urban spaces.This paper mainly refers body performances to dance and instrumental music performers of the Yi ethnic.These two kinds of body performances both bring continuous cultural/social change through official institutional performing as well as small-scale party gathering which bring different meaning,related vision,hearing and emotional touching.

Most Chinese Yi people are living in mountain village.Yi social/cultural tradition prefer their performances mainly in wedding/funeral ritual periods also rural settings.Urbanization process in Yi region is significant.When local urban cultural policy-makers start focusing on urban cultural-tourism,Yi body performances held in larger spaces with lots of actors/performers are encouraged and supported during the torch-festival period.Until recently,urban cultural policy-makers and consulting scholars start cooperating but paying their attentions still to official types of performances while traditional smaller performances which based on people's own spontaneous willings were ignored.We studied several performing teams(professtional/folk-style)attending gathering parties in small urban spaces and gathering more on un-offical concerts/performances which are marginal/less visible.These performances aim mainly for balancing emotional movement,resisting

drugs,illness,comforting/pressures purposes and have became a new type of Yi body performance in urban spaces.

1)Have the variant functions of small party gathering offering different types of feeling for the local people?2)Should the urban space cultural-policy makers develope/promote diversified multi- forms of cultural activities in assisting smaller gathering body performances?

Paper short abstract:

The author will discuss transitory nature of music experience in terms of moving through imagined time and compressing the multidimensional space of sensorial perception in music improvisation. He will discuss complexes in body-playing-music and sound-searching-meaning in moments of improvisation.

Paper long abstract:

Music improvisation is condensed practice of listening, remembering, anticipation, non-verbal communication and attempt in breaking an illusion of the moment. Essentially transitory movements of body-playing-music are continuously transformed into sound-searching-meaning trajectories. In music improvisation, the cloud of possibilities (pace Carrithers) is constantly changing. The meaningful trajectory might find a conclusion in the moment of recapitulation, or it simply vanishes away, in silence, or noise. If improvisation is formulaic, instead of sound-searching-meaning, the result is either word-searching-story (e.g., in Balkan gusle singing) or composition-searching-structure (e.g., in jazz). If improvisation does not apply any formulaic development, it may challenge the whole (a)perception of the given moment.

The author will discuss sensorial moments in improvisation among musicians and (eventually) dancers in their essentially non-verbal communication during compressed moments of individual or group active co-creation of the flow of sound and movement.