| Music
as Performance
The working group in Music as Performance was founded by Philip
Auslander in 2004. It had its first meeting at the pre-conference
in Toronto sponsored by the Association for Theatre in Higher
Education’s Performance Studies Focus Group in the summer
of that year. The initial meeting was organized around the following
issues:
Although Performance Studies takes the traditional performing
arts as part of its purview, the discipline has thus far ignored
music almost completely. This working group will seek to redress
that neglect by investigating what a Performance Studies perspective
on musical performances might be and might yield.
The working group will take non-theatrical musical performances
(that is, concerts and similar performances rather than musical
theatre or opera, not restricted to live forms) in any musical
genre as its main objects of inquiry. The initial meeting in Toronto
will be devoted to addressing some basic questions and forming
a plan of action for the future. It is hoped that participants
will remain in touch after the conference and that we can find
ways of working together on an on-going basis.
The questions we will discuss at this first meeting may include:
- Why has Performance Studies taken so little interest in musical
performances? What are the barriers to making connections between
Performance Studies and music?
- What are the connections between musical performance and
performance genres to which Performance Studies has been more
attentive (e.g., ritual, performance art)?
- What does Performance Studies have to offer the study of
music? How is a Performance Studies perspective different from
other perspectives (e.g., musicological or cultural studies perspectives)?
What kinds of questions might a Performance Studies approach to
music involve? With what other disciplines should Performance
Studies seek to make common cause in discussing musical performances?
Fortified by some reading assignments, a group met over two days
at the conference and had lively discussions around these issues.
The second manifestation of the working group as at the 2005 PSi
conference at Brown University, for which Auslander organized two
panels on questions around music and performance and the working
group had a second organizational meeting. Some of the issues discussed
included:
- The purview of the working group. Although Auslander’s
original formulation excludes theatrical forms (see above) there
was sentiment in the group that people working on opera, musical
theatre, and music theatre might find common cause with us
.
- Outreach to disciplines beyond Theatre and Performance Studies. Suggestions
included: Musicology, Ethnomusicology, Sociology of Music, Cultural
Studies, Folklore, American Studies, and Popular Music Studies.
Effort should be made for people associated with the working group
to present at conferences in these fields and promote the “music
as performance” perspective as well as the working group
itself.
- Projects:
1. A website (that would be this!)
2. Listserve on Music as Performance so that people can exchange
ideas and information (perhaps an online discussion forum as well)
3. A Membership Directory for the working group
4. An annotated bibliography of work of interest to the working
group
5. Eventually: sponsorship of conference panels and perhaps edited
volumes by the working group.
The working group will meet for the third time again under the auspices
of ATHE’s Performance Studies Focus Group during its pre-conference
in San Francisco at the end of July 2005. Auslander will be sitting
the conference out; the pre-conference activities are being organized
by Elizabeth Patterson. For information, please go to www.athe.org/FG/ps/index.html.
Anyone who wishes to participate should contact Elizabeth directly
at elizabeth.patterson@colorado.edu.
Watch this space for Elizabeth’s report on the pre-conference.
Anyone who wishes to join the working group should contact Philip
Auslander at philip.auslander@lcc.gatech.edu.
If you’d like to help out with any of the projects delineated
above, please let him know. Priorities would seem to include developing
means of communication among members, the membership list, and the
bibliography.
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