VENUE
25 Kasım 2023TIMETABLE
25 Kasım 2023GENDER AND SEXUALITY IN MUSIC AND DANCE IN SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE
Sexuality is a difficult topic for all researchers and educators. Dance and music academics, teachers and educators are not immune to these challenges, especially given the large number of children, adolescents, and young adults who pursue dance or music study and performance. Dance and music (traditional, social, popular) provide one of the clearest opportunities for the discussion of gender, sexuality, since the genre itself relies on representations of specific characters and the narratives of scenario foreground stories of love and desire.
This topic focuses on sexuality, gender, and identity in dance and music training and practice, and tries to investigate diverse perspectives from schools, dance and music schools, college, university dance and music programs as well as cultural associations, even popular neighbourhoods and villages. By bringing issues of sexuality and gender to the forefront we consider that the factor of gender is one of essential importance for the interpretation of dance and music cultures, thus dancing and music making may be approached as a place where the gender identities are not only represented but also constructed, sometimes verifying and other doubting the dominant ideology of the society regarding the “correct” masculine and feminine behaviour. On the other hand, the term sexuality calls attention to various modes of desire, particularly the ways in which desires are policed and/or authorized by the dominant power structures of a given society, therefore, sexuality procedures have been strongly influenced by gay and lesbian studies and queer theory.
Whatever the season, region or rhythm, the main “danger” remains the same, that dance and music promote sexual freedom and/or breaks down social barriers. And so, all over the world, dancing and music making have always been a vital act of revolution.
Potential topics that could be addressed include (but are not limited to):
- The terms ‘dance’ and ‘music’ are gendered and merely describe the same thing in different words when the various genders and/or sexualities perform?
- How gender operates in the dance and music world in the early twenty-first century?
- The impact of sexuality on music and dance practices in contemporary and traditional cultures.
- Sexuality and sexual identity in folk music and dance.
- Sexual orientation and participation in dance and music teaching and practice.
- Representations of gender and sexuality in cinema, television and social media.
- Dance and music in popular culture – a vehicle for entertaining and/or a platform for education?
- The role of dance and music in constructing/deconstructing gender stereotypes.
MUSIC AND DANCE IN VIRTUAL COMMUNICATIONS
‘Seeing is believing’, so the old saying goes. But seeing is never final; instead, it is a fluid domain of social meaning. The physical act of vision is only one domain of seeing. Vision also encompasses a broader palate of knowing, questioning, perception and reflection.
The COVID-19 pandemic has generated tremendous changes in daily life across the globe. Initially, without therapies and vaccines to reduce sickness and suffering, people reduced their risk of infection by covering faces, washing hands, and especially by remaining “socially distant” from family, friends, and colleagues as well as strangers. This distancing has created new forms of distress from social displacement and inadequate emotional connections. In particular, the pandemic’s social displacements have posed thorny challenges for people seeking to exchange ideas, offer comfort, and express feelings in close relationships. To stay connected, people have explored innovative cultural and technological strategies to communicate remotely about family, romance, work, healthcare, and other matters. Many of us, for example, increasingly rely on FaceTime, Twitter, Zoom, and other technologies and social media to express ourselves—particularly by displaying our faces—across multiple cultural and social contexts.
Ethnomusicologists and ethnochoreologists have long observed that human groups who encounter new social contexts develop innovative means for exchanging ideas and feelings with others. As happens with any new cultural pattern, the initial encounters with unfamiliar communication practices seem unsettling and stressful, particularly during everyday conversations. The fundamental human desire to connect with friends and colleagues, celebrate life events, take new forms. As experienced academics, we currently grapple with the complexities of sharing knowledge remotely rather than in face-to-face seminars. For example, Zoom meetings has become a common issue that we address with colleagues. Having gained familiarity with new communication practices in our own personal and work lives, we offer our anthropological reflections on how this pandemic moment relates to broader human experiences with remote communication.
Potential topics that could be addressed include (but are not limited to):
- Pro-and-con analysis of crucial success factors (monitoring and evaluation) of music and dance (education) in virtual communication.
- Virtual memory matched dance and music education design (how can dance and music be learnt from the internet?) (Development of creative tendencies for the internet in music and dance education) (Multimedia techniques in education).
- Digital arrangements regarding dance and music education.
- The problematics of dance and music education related to virtual communication during the pandemic.
- Dance and music methodology in virtual (online) communication.
- Interactions in virtual communication: Theoretical and practical inferences.
- Intergenerational digital adaptation/attitudes in dance and music education?
- Evaluation of online dance and music education examples before the pandemic and adaptation to the current situation.
- Online teaching and learning in music and dance.
- Interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches in virtual communication (music & dance).
In this new world of personal media, events of music, dance or theatre take on new lives through virtual imagery and visual experiences. Such new circumstances necessarily require additional perspectives for research. Moreover, as images move and transform across the globe at instantaneous speed and in numerous reconfigurations, they give rise to new questions of representation and ethics in access and consumption, in contexts such as museum exhibits and online events.
LEGACIES OF EMPIRES ON DANCE AND MUSIC IN SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE
Over the centuries, South East Europe has been subject to the rule of a diversity of Empires, (i.e. Austrian-Hungarian, Byzantium, Ottoman). As a region, it embedded a palimpsest of multiculturalism, which has long been disguised during the nation-building processes. The region consists however of a rich, hybrid and complex cultural diversity, displaying a range of commonalities that transcend national borders. However, the shared cultural heritage also evokes a strong cultural memory, which can also be emotionally challenging. It is now time to delineated, delayer and deconstruct the conceptual, structural and ethnographic implications of this heritage. We are inviting participants to present the impact of different imperial experiences on various forms of dance and music traditions, both in historical and contemporary perspectives.
Potential topics that could be addressed include (but are not limited to):
- Similarities among the dance and music cultures in the region.
- Claimed ownership of certain dance and music traditions.
- (inter)cultural results of religion on dance/music.
- (inter)cultural results of various administrative/diplomatic/political strategies on dance/music.
- (inter)cultural results of wars/riots/resistances on dance/music.
- (inter)cultural results of love affairs on dance/music.