Re-enacting an eighteenth-century method for reinforcing musical expression

Tilman Skowroneck, Maria Bania — Mon, 27 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This article demonstrates the artistic re-enactment of affective cultural practices in musical performance, with the goal of developing an increased understanding of the practices that we re-enacted, and the influence they can have on a performance. To re-enact a practice, an aesthetic mindset or conception means that they get embodied and experienced. In the research project explained here, we re-enacted the practice of evoking the music’s affections in oneself in order to arouse them in the listeners – a practice that formed a part of the eighteenth-century culture of sensibility. Through enacting the affective content of selected pieces of music, we wanted to explore how musicians and listeners interacted in a performance; the mutual influences between aesthetic mindsets and affective practices; and what difference these practices and mindsets make to the artistic effect in a musical performance. Our process included musical and emotional preparations, a video-taped re-enactment-in-performance with six participants (two players and four listeners), the writing of reflections, and analyzing them. The re-enactment highlighted how the various ways of viewing music and art in different cultures interact with how art is and was performed and experienced. The option to modify codes of performance, such as the behavior of everyone involved, the placement of people in the room, or the lighting, showed a potential to pinpoint and reflect upon aesthetic ideas about music and artistry. It opened up for choosing between ideas and conceptions we want to emphasize in a performance.

Exploring transdisciplinary performance and creation in Le corps qui habite en moi for solo flute

Leticia Maia Durante, Pedro Yugo Sano Mani — Tue, 11 Jul 2023 15:24:54 +0100

This paper is aimed to clarify the creation of the composition and performance of Le corps qui habite en moi, the result of the collaborative process between two artist-researchers. It is an exploration of our searches as musicians and researchers within the Western Classical Music esthetics, raising questions related to the creativity and the freedom of expression in our environment. We believe that it is necessary to go beyond some barriers and question preconceived ideas within the tradition about what is a concert, a performance and a creative process. Another central question is related to the relation of mind-body in our modern society as well as on the Western Classical Music esthetics, where the player’s body is many times effaced and renegade in the musical performance. Within the field of artistic research, the main objective was the creation of a composition and a transdisciplinary performance that could reveal the expression of a body on stage. From the composition it was created a semi-opened choreography and a series of watercolors that interact with different moments of the composition, creating a narrative elucidating the awaken of the human body as an expressive agent in the performance, as well as the intermodal character of the creative activity. The central part of this paper is the performance presented at the Post-ip Congress of the University of Aveiro in December 2022; therefore, we recommend watching the video before reading the text.

ÍMPAR: Online Journal for Artistic Research

Re-enacting an eighteenth-century method for reinforcing musical expression

Exploring transdisciplinary performance and creation in Le corps qui habite en moi for solo flute