Paper short abstract:

“Imagine selling 13,025 tickets for oral poetry” (Foley 2007: 3) every four years – or maybe 5000 annually? These numbers are for contest poetry finals in the Basque country and the international Spanish-language freestyle rap battle. How is this improvised art related to traditional oral poetry?

Paper long abstract:

In his presentation of the Oral-Formulaic Theory, Albert Lord (1960) rejected the notion of ‘improvisation’ as not suitable to explain the method of narrative oral composition. The epic singers also claimed that they tell the story exactly as they have heard it. Today’s oral poets chiefly practice oral composition in forms to which they explicitly refer as improvisation. Theorizers of these increasingly popular registers of improvised oral poetry have respectively found the Formula Theory disappointing - “we do not use formulas” (Díaz-Pimienta 2004).

In traditional cultures of oral poetry, shared textual resources – formulas, motifs, episodes, themes, multiforms – function as compositional means, aesthetic objects and intertextual links. Rather than explicitly using such means, improvised oral poetry operates with imagery and expression close to common language, yet similarly subordinate to conventions of the poetic language employed. Language itself, however, is formulaic, and improvisation is not reluctant towards textually building interperformative links, even if the improviser’s aesthetic target is to say something situationally unique, quick-witted, and creative. Thus, when we speak of formulaic oral composition and improvisation, are we speaking of two different things or simply two different aesthetic orientations, both based on individuals’ capacity to cultivate cognitive, linguistic and sociolinguistic skills, albeit if emphasized differently by the performers and their audiences in each case? Can we look at oral composition by situating traditional and new forms within the same system of genres? This paper will present a preliminary layout of a research project with this target.

Paper short abstract:

This paper analyses collaborative digital performances of classical music memes in terms of joint memeings, focusing how social media users collectively elaborate memes through associations, discussions and introducing new memes, thus demonstrating both performative and subject competence.

Paper long abstract:

How may one think of performance in the context of internet memes? From the trajectories of meme templates across platforms, groups and accounts, to an individual user’s uncommented sharing, performance 2.0 – as folklorist Anthony Bak Buccitelli phrases it – is a complex collectively creative process (Buccitelli 2012). This paper focuses on classical music memes on Reddit, Facebook and Instagram and suggests that the performance of internet memes can be understood as joint memeings, elaborating on Young’s notion of “joint storytelling” in her analysis of oral storytelling (Young 1987). The concept highlights how users collectively can elaborate the ‘point’ of the meme, associate, suggest variations, add new memes and trace memetic lineages. I approach classical music memes as playful ways of shaping, negotiating and sometimes questioning classical music as canon and everyday experience (Hyltén-Cavallius 2020; 2021a & 2021b). In joint memeings users demonstrate both performative competence (from crafting memes and memescape knowledge to adjusting response to context, cf Briggs 1988, Wiggins & Bowers 2014) and a historical and technical subject competence (for example knowledge of repertoire, classical canon and musical literacy, Hyltén-Cavallius 2021a). Theoretically, this paper connects modern classics on performance from folklore studies (Briggs 1988, Young 1987) with more recent work within digital folklore and media studies (Buccitelli 2012, Denisova 2019, Evans 2018, Milner 2016, Shifman 2014).

Paper short abstract:

This paper presents how performing the deadly scary Bloody Mary ritual can give children safe frames to let go of fears and anxiety and learn to deal with real problems later in life. It shows brave secrecy amongst the kids, and the fear and reactions of adults who encounter the ritual.

Paper long abstract:

"You have to turn off the lights, stare into the mirror and say: Blooody Mary, Blooody Mary, Blooody Mary. You wait until you see somebody inside the mirror. It is NOT you. It is Bloody Mary. And then she comes out of the mirror. And then you die!"

These were the words of a seven years old girl who had encountered the Bloody Mary ritual at school. She went on to describe how her teacher had later covered the mirror in the bathroom. As a cultural historian I was curious how this scary ritual had reached such young kids, and the teacher's reaction surprised me. Did it not reaffirm the anxieties of the children rather than help them?

This paper presents the variations of the thrillingly scary Bloody Mary-ritual among young children in Norway, in a context of previous research on similar urban legends. I discuss what appears to be a discrepancy between children's experience of the ritual and the adults' reactions. I show how performing a deadly scary ritual can give children safe frames to let go of their fears and anxiety and learn to deal with real problems later.