Piercing the Structure of Tradition

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariko Anno
Keyword(s):  
Performance Practice ◽  
English Language ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Musical Structure ◽  
Musical Style ◽  
Ethnographic Approach ◽  
Noh Drama ◽  
Musical Traditions ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The Relationship

What does freedom sound like in the context of traditional Japanese theater? Where is the space for innovation, and where can this kind of innovation be located in the rigid instrumentation of the Noh drama? This book investigates flute performance as a space to explore the relationship between tradition and innovation. This first English-language monograph traces the characteristics of the Noh flute (nohkan), its music, and transmission methods and considers the instrument's potential for development in the modern world. The book examines the musical structure and nohkan melodic patterns of five traditional Noh plays and assesses the degree to which Issō School nohkan players maintain to this day the continuity of their musical traditions in three contemporary Noh plays influenced by William Butler Yeats. The book's ethnographic approach draws on interviews with performers and case studies, as well as the author's personal reflection as a nohkan performer and disciple under the tutelage of Noh masters. The book argues that traditions of musical style and usage remain influential in shaping contemporary Noh composition and performance practice, and the existing freedom within fixed patterns can be understood through a firm foundation in Noh tradition.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Mariko Anno
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Performance Practice ◽  
William Butler Yeats ◽  
Musical Structure ◽  
Musical Style ◽  
Musical Tradition ◽  
Noh Drama ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter investigates flute performance as a space for exploring the relationship between tradition and innovation and traces the characteristics of the nohkan and its music. It examines the musical structure and nohkan melodic patterns of five traditional Noh plays. It also assesses the degree to which Issō School nohkan players maintain the continuity of their musical tradition in three contemporary Noh plays inspired by the twentieth-century Irish poet William Butler Yeats. The chapter reviews three contemporary works draw upon Yeats's At the Hawk's Well, which was influenced by Noh drama. The chapter argues that traditions of musical style and usage remain vastly influential in shaping contemporary Noh composition and performance practice, and that the freedom within fixed patterns can be understood through a firm foundation in Noh tradition.

Reflections and Directions

2020 ◽  
pp. 191-202
Author(s):  
Mariko Anno
Keyword(s):  
Performance Practice ◽  
Musical Style ◽  
And Performance

This chapter reviews the strict separation that exists in Japan between professional and amateur Noh performers and how this boundary translates overseas through the collaborative works of Theatre Nohgaku and professional Noh performers. It demonstrates how the traditions of musical style and usage reign over contemporary Noh composition and performance practice. It also talks about Nohkan music in contemporary Noh dramas that does not deviate from traditional forms, content, and usage in any remarkable way. The chapter exhibits the Nohkan music performer's imagination and inspiration within the confines of prescribed patterns, which indicates that the Noh structure still affords a degree of artistic license and innovation. It reviews contemporary Noh plays, both in Japanese and in other languages, that cover varied subject matters.

Transcending Boundaries

2019 ◽  
pp. 406-424
Author(s):  
Sarah Whatley
Keyword(s):  
Performance Practice ◽  
Contact Improvisation ◽  
Dance Company ◽  
Dance Improvisation ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter explores the relationship between disability and improvisation within dance, drawing from a number of dancers’ own views about the place of improvisation in their making and performance practice, and referencing work that deliberately incorporates improvisation as a device to blur the boundaries between the fixed and the fluid. The chapter focuses on the role of contact improvisation in the work of disabled dancers. By prioritizing the interaction with different bodies, contact improvisation can support an aesthetic based on sensory adjustment and accommodation. Conversely, contact improvisation might be seen to ‘smooth over’ disorder and involuntary motion that disabled dancing bodies offer as a reconceptualization of the acceptable aesthetic in dance. The discussion also includes reference to Notturnino (2014), a work of choreography by Thomas Hauert, which was commissioned for the Candoco Dance Company and offers a way to examine how dance improvisation has adopted disability in its shifting physical aesthetic.

scholarly journals But can it be Art? Kapa Haka as a contemporary indigenous performance practice

Te Kaharoa ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon Mazer ◽  
Te Rita Papesch
Keyword(s):  
Performance Practice ◽  
Cultural Divide ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Thinking Out Loud

This talk represents the latest stage in our ongoing conversation. As with our previously performed public dialogues such as ‘Crossing the Cultural Divide’ in 2001and ‘Stages of Pōwhiri’ in 2008, we’re staking positions that are to some degree more contrary than we might hold in private (see Papesch and Mazer 2001 & 2010). We do this for the sake of argument, to have a bit of a play with thinking out loud in ways that you may, or may not, find acceptable, and as such perhaps to spark controversy, because we believe that conscious contentiousness can be cheerful and also genuinely productive of new ideas about the relationship between culture and performance.

scholarly journals A Comparative Analysis of Writing Strategies and Performance in a Saudi University

2018 ◽  
pp. 425-443
Author(s):  
Miriam Alkubaidi
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
First Language ◽  
Writing Strategies ◽  
Writing Proficiency ◽  
Writing Performance ◽  
Frequent Use ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The Relationship

There has been a widespread utilization of the English language in Saudi Arabia, due to which it is necessary for Saudi citizens to gain an adequate grip on this language. This study aimed to conduct a comparative evaluation between the writing strategies and writing performance shown by Saudi EFL students. Seventy-four female undergraduates between 21 and 25 years and having Arabic as their first language were recruited for this study. The writing samples of the participants were typed into the computer so that no inconsistency takes place based on the students’ writing skills by the researcher. Descriptive statistics were then used to ascertain the level of strategy use of the participants. These students were divided into two groups, based on high and low writing proficiencies. It was found that there was no significant difference in writing performance of these students. The students, who demonstrated a higher level of writing proficiency while writing stood at a percentage of 47.3%; whereas, students demonstrating a low level of writing proficiency stood at a percentage of 44.6%. Furthermore, most of the students used drafting strategies as compared to ‘before-writing’ strategies. More frequent use of ‘before-writing’ strategies is encouraged. Further research is needed regarding the relationship between writing strategy application and the writing performance of these learners

The Relationship between Survival and the Extent of the Resection in Patients with Supratentorial Malignant Gliomas

Neurosurgery ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 385-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew R. Quigley ◽  
Joseph C. Maroon
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Performance Status ◽  
Malignant Gliomas ◽  
Young Patients ◽  
Surgical Removal ◽  
Histological Findings ◽  
Prognostic Variables ◽  
Supratentorial Gliomas ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract Current neurosurgical opinion favors the radical surgical removal of supratentorial gliomas, when feasible, in the belief that this optimizes patient survival. Although bolstered by the results of some early investigators, the efficacy of this approach remains debatable. Therefore, we undertook a review of the English language literature of the past 30 years for a series of surgically treated malignant gliomas. Twenty reports comprising 5691 patients were identified. Only 4 found the extent of the surgical resection related to survival. In 2 of these, it followed age, histological findings, and performance status in importance. The 2 other studies did not rank the prognostic variables at all. On closer inspection, however, there does appear to be a subgroup of young patients with favorable histological findings and good performance status for whom surgery is beneficial. Future reporting of surgical results of patients with gliomas will require stratification by the known prognostic variables of age. histological findings, and performance status to characterize better this subgroup for whom surgery is beneficial.

The Mexican Son , Past and Present

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raquel G. Paraíso
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Musical Style ◽  
Minimal Projection ◽  
Radio Stations ◽  
Musical Traditions ◽  
The Government ◽  
Film Productions ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Mexican Identity

Among the many musical traditions of Mexico, the son is one of the most representative of the richness and diversity of Mexican culture. Son (or sones) is a generic term that describes both a complex of genres and the various regional subgenres that make up that complex. Son is a type of traditional music performed by small ensembles, with or without singing, and danced. It serves to entertain, but is also performed at celebratory occasions and festivals as well as in rituals. Although sones appear throughout Mexico marked by regional differences in both instrumentation and performance styles, they share common characteristics that define the genre as a whole, musically (i.e., their rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic structures), lyrically, and choreographically. Because of the particular cultural traits and sociocultural contexts that each son subgenre encompasses, it can be argued that regional sones are a powerful expression of Mexican regional musics, cultures, and social identities. Born as a hybrid genre out of the intermixing of European, American Indian, African, and Afro-Caribbean musical elements and contexts, Mexican sones have moved through time defined by many as a symbol of Mexican identity, even if the very concept of that “Mexican identity” has changed over time. What might be called the son’s “Golden Age” lasted from the 1890s until the middle of the 20th century. By the 1960s, sones were in serious decline all around Mexico: they had lost the favor of their audiences, old performers had passed away, and new generations did not engage with these musical traditions. Cultural politics contributed to selective processes through which some son subgenres faded away. Sociopolitical processes from the 1930s to the 1980s contributed to the re-contextualization of the Mexican son through modified versions of sones staged and broadcast in theatres, radio stations, and film productions. Post-revolutionary nationalism, the music industry, and folkloric ballets created these new versions and exercised an ideological control that both affected popular musical expressions and shaped musical tastes. Changes in urbanization and life conditions transformed social relationships and furthered this intense transformation. With fewer performance occasions and little support from either the government or private patrons, several regional son subgenres became thin and isolated, with minimal projection outside their regions. In the 1980s, some of the son subgenres underwent a renaissance owing to various private and official initiatives that infused new life to the music. This article provides an overview of the son, past and present, connecting the relevance of this musical style with the social history of the country.

Effie Ober and the Boston Ideal Opera Company, 1879–1885

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine K. Preston
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Performance Practice ◽  
English Language ◽  
Valuable Insight ◽  
Comic Opera ◽  
New Name ◽  
Social Landscape ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Opera Production ◽  
Insight Into

This chapter focuses on the Boston Ideal Opera Company, a comic opera troupe. Its founder, Effie Hinckley Ober, was not a performer, but a businesswoman who owned one of the first musical management firms in the country. Her success in a male-dominated business provides valuable insight into how an ambitious and enterprising woman could navigate a distinctly competitive, virile world in the post-Civil War American social landscape. This chapter covers the Boston Ideals only during the Ober period (1879–1885) and illustrates techniques of management, a hitherto unknown relationship between opera production and the emergence of lyceum bureaus, and performance practice. The company mounted both operettas (Gilbert and Sullivan) and some of the standard works that had been performed by English-language troupes for decades; after Ober’s retirement it continued until 1904 under a new name (the Bostonians) and new management.

Re-Making the English Organ: Musical and Liturgical Contexts, 1830–1870

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-93
Author(s):  
Nicholas Thistlethwaite
Keyword(s):  
Performance Practice ◽  
Radical Change ◽  
Musical Style ◽  
Organ Music ◽  
Classical Form ◽  
Preliminary Discussion ◽  
Liturgical Practice ◽  
And Performance

The article describes the evolution of the English organ under the influence of changes in musical style and liturgical practice between 1830 and 1870. A preliminary discussion of the Georgian organ and the performance conventions of its players provides a benchmark against which to measure the ensuing changes. S.S. Wesley is taken as a case study with reference to changes made to the Hereford Cathedral organ in 1832; it is argued that these reflect Wesley's musical priorities, a point that is further illustrated by a consideration of the registration markings found in the original manuscripts of ‘The Wilderness’ (1832) and ‘Blessed be the God and Father’ (1834). They also demonstrate an innovative use of the pedals.In the following section the influence of Mendelssohn is discussed. His performances of Bach in England during the 1830s and 1840s promoted a radical change is organ design and performance practice; the C-compass organs with German pedal divisions built by (among others) William Hill were ideal instruments both for Bach's organ music and for Mendelssohn's own organ sonatas which combined classical form with a romantic sensibility.The concluding section reviews developments in the years 1850–70. It considers changes in console design and the growing taste for orchestral registers, even in church organs. Choral accompaniments also became more orchestral in character, and a number of representative examples from Ouseley's Special Anthems (1861, 1866) are discussed. Liturgical changes after 1850 are also considered, together with their impact on the role of the organ in worship.

scholarly journals A systematic review and meta-analysis of the relationship between flow states and performance

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Harris ◽  
Kate Allen ◽  
Samuel James Vine ◽  
Mark Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
English Language ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Current Evidence ◽  
Exact Nature ◽  
Online Databases ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Flow Experiences ◽  
The Relationship

Background: Flow is a peak experiential state, during which athletes report focused concentration, effortless performance and enhanced enjoyment. Flow, or ‘the zone’, has received particular interest within sporting circles because flow experiences appear to be associated with peak athletic performances. Yet, the nature of the flow-performance relationship is not straightforward and is yet to be critically reviewed. Objectives: This systematic review and meta-analysis sought to examine the empirical evidence for a flow-performance relationship, examine potential mechanisms, and assess the quality of current evidence. Methods: A PRISMA guided systematic review was conducted in May 2020. Peer-reviewed articles, published in English language journals, which examined the relationship between flow and performance were searched for, using five online databases. The results of the studies were collated into a narrative synthesis as well as a meta-analysis. Results: Twenty articles met the inclusion criteria, featuring 22 studies that were appropriate for meta-analysis. The pooled effect size (r = 0.31, 95% CI [0.24; 0.38]) indicated that across a range of sporting and gaming tasks there was a consistent medium-sized relationship between flow experience and task performance. A number of mechanisms were proposed to explain this relationship, but none were supported by convincing empirical evidence. Conclusions: Performance enhancing effects appear highly likely given the functional mental state that arises during flow. Yet, current evidence is unable to determine the exact nature of the flow-performance relationship, or the mechanisms which mediate this effect. A number of conceptual and methodological challenges

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