Poetyka wideoklipu muzycznego

Music video as a specific genre of audiovisual arts, deriving directly from tradition of film, television and music programs, became massive promotion and visual communication tool for artists at the turn of 70’s/80’s. Mentioned many times in articles about music videos, its dependence on other art fields, such as film, musical, theater arts, plastic arts etc., only strengthens us in belief that music video is an enormous hybrid form, being heir to aforementioned forms. At this intertextual base, music video has developed its own language. Cognizance and description of its components, understanding of connection rules and the essence of its individual elements is the main aim of this article. By pointing to coexistence and correlations of components such as rhythm, tempo, tone, editing etc., the text also emphasizes similarity of the music video language to the language of literature and other arts which use the same tools.

Beware, Madness!

Рецензируемая книга Александра Михайловича Терехина «Сумасшествия в музыкальном театре: опера, балет», изданная в 2020 году, уникальна во многих отношениях. Во-первых, интерес вызывает личность самого автора. Профессиональная и творческая деятельность Терехина связана с медициной и музыкой. Врач-психиатр с сорокалетним стажем, Терехин более четверти века работал в Мариинском театре в качестве артиста миманса. Во-вторых, тема сумасшествия (безумия) еще не становилась самостоятельным предметом изучения в российских музыковедческих исследованиях. В-третьих, оригинальность книги составляют медицинские заключения. В центре внимания врача — тексты оперных и балетных либретто, на основе которых автор раскрывает причины помешательства и ставит различные диагнозы персонажам музыкального театра. Рассматривая конкретные клинические случаи, Терехин прибегает к профессиональным медицинским терминам. Среди диагнозов отметим такие, как реактивный параноид у Лючии («Лючия ди Ламмермур» Г. Доницетти), шизофрения у Мельника («Русалка» А. С. Даргомыжского, интоксикационный (гашишный) психоз у Солора («Баядерка» Л. Минкуса). Книга А. М. Терехина, не претендуя на всеохватность освещения темы сумасшествия (безумия), открывает музыковедам новые грани междисциплинарного подхода в изучении оперного и балетного репертуара. Alexander Mikhailovich Terekhin’s peer-reviewed book Madness in Musical Theater: Opera, Ballet, published in 2020, is unique in many ways. Firstly, the author’s personality is of interest. Terekhin’s professional and creative activity is connected with medicine and music. A psychiatrist with forty years of experience, Terekhin worked for more than a quarter of a century at the Mariinsky Theater as a mimance artist. Secondly, the theme of madness (insanity) has not yet become an independent subject of study in Russian musicological studies. Thirdly, the originality of the book is based on medical reports. The doctor focuses on the texts of opera and ballet librettos, on the basis of which the author reveals the causes of insanity and makes various diagnoses to the characters of the musical theater. Considering a specific clinical case, Terekhin resorts to professional medical terms. Among some diagnoses we can mention: reactive paranoid in Lucia (Lucia di Lammermoor by Donizetti), schizophrenia in Melnik (Rusalka by Dargomyzhsky, intoxicational (hashish) psychosis in Solor (La Bayadere by Minkus). Without claiming to cover the topic of insanity (insanity) comprehensively the book by Terekhin, opens up new facets of the interdisciplinary approach in studying opera and ballet repertoire to musicologists.

Art of Contemporary Composer Jia Daqun in Context of Chinese Culture

На современном этапе развития китайской профессиональной музыкальной культуры композитору и музыкальному теоретику Цзя Дацюню принадлежит особая роль. В статье рассматриваются его жизненный путь, композиторское творчество и музыкально-теоретические работы. Цель исследования — определить роль композитора в развитии современной китайской академической музыки; создать панораму его творчества; выявить в произведениях специфические формы претворения китайских национальных традиций, сочетающихся с элементами композиторских техник XX–XXI веков. Многие аспекты китайской музыки до сих пор не изучены и представляют исследовательский интерес; в результате получают характеристику яркие черты стиля Цзя Дацюня, как основная идея его творчества выделяется органичный синтез китайской народной музыкальной культуры и европейских универсалий. Цзя следует современным музыкальным тенденциям: он применяет в сочинениях такие композиционные техники, как серийность, сериализм, пуантилизм, минимализм, микрополифония, алеаторика, пространственная музыка, а также активно работает в области музыкального театра. Во всех его музыкальных произведениях присутствуют национальные китайские элементы, которые представлены музыкальными инструментами, народными темами и звукорядом пентатоники, воплощая образы китайской культуры в их неповторимом своеобразии. The article examines life path of a contemporary Chinese composer Jia Daqun and his art as a composer and music theorist. The purpose of research is to determine the role of the composer in the development of modern Chinese musical culture; to create a panorama of his art; to identify the main features of his style; to designate in his compositions specific forms of implementation of Chinese national traditions, combined with characteristic tendencies of musical compositions of the XX–XXI centuries. The scientific novelty of the article lies in fact that many aspects of Chinese music have not yet been studied and are of a research interest. At the present stage of development of the Chinese professional musical culture, special role belongs to the composer and musical theorist Jia Daqun. The research highlights bright features of the composer’s style and the main idea of his art, namely the idea of organic synthesis of Chinese folk and European musical cultures. In his compositions Jia follows modern musical trends, uses such compositional techniques as seriality, serialism, pointillism, minimalism, micropolyphony, aleatorics, spatial music. He also actively works in the field of musical theater. All his musical works contain national Chinese elements, which are represented by musical instruments, folk musical themes and pentatonic scale, and images of Chinese culture.

Musical Theater Dance Training and Choreography in the 1920–1930s

This chapter provides an examination of how Broadway dancers were trained, the introduction of jazz dance to Broadway, the 1920s gradual move away from unison line dancing in favor of the individuated chorus, and how a few dance directors began to consider dance in musicals in relation to the libretto as an integrated and meaningful addition to the musical play. The common practice of Black choreographers being pushed aside while white choreographers claimed credit for their work and the essential role Black dance teachers and coaches played in training white dancers for Broadway is discussed here. Examinations of choreographic works by dance directors Buddy Bradley, Charlie Davis, Seymour Felix, Sammy Lee, Albertina Rasch, and George Balanchine establish a historical basis in preparation for the radical innovations to be discussed in subsequent chapters.

Jerome Robbins on Broadway: 1944–1951

Jerome Robbins’ surpassing of de Mille as the primary and most influential choreographer of his period is acknowledged. His training with Gluck Sandor and actors from the Group Theatre exposed him to Constantin Stanislavski’s early acting methods and his creative years at Camp Tamiment honed a brand of humor that he would use throughout his Broadway career. I consider Robbins first musical, On the Town (1944), developed from his ballet Fancy Free (1944), in the context of de Mille’s Broadway success and argue that he was at first imitative of her but ultimately found his voice and surpassed her in terms of success and output. The chapter includes analysis of selected Robbins’ choreography in what I consider the first phase of his Broadway career: On the Town (1944), Billion Dollar Baby (1945), High Button Shoes (1947), Look, Ma, I’m Dancin’! (1948), Miss Liberty (1949), Call Me Madam (1950), and The King and I (1951). I explore how Robbins developed a system for creating dance in musicals that employed the early acting techniques of Constantin Stanislavski as well as Lee Strasberg’s Method Acting. Both techniques embraced theatrical realism and informed Robbins’ creation of dances that were seamlessly embedded into musical theater librettos. His meticulous attention to the where, when, and why of his dance creations and his comic sensibility established a model for the generations of choreographers that followed him.

Agnes de Mille on Broadway: 1943–1945

Examination of Agnes de Mille as a radical dance maker in her choreographic trifecta—Oklahoma! (1943), One Touch of Venus (1943), and Bloomer Girl (1944)—reveals an ideological shift in the production of dance on Broadway and the development of a paradigm for making dances in the musical theater. This chapter further explores de Mille’s ability to employ dance as a medium for presenting social commentary, developing character, and creating a space for female spectatorship. Her artistic project required dancers who were not merely technicians but rather actor-dancers capable of embodying character and expressing legible story through dance. Displacing the stable of Broadway chorus men and women, de Mille introduced the actor-dancer to the commercial stage, thereby developing some of the greatest dance talents of the twentieth century, including Joan McCracken, Bambi Linn, Sono Osato, and James Mitchell. Selected dances from One Touch of Venus (1943), Bloomer Girl (1944), and Carousel (1945) are analyzed.

Making Broadway Dance

Musical theater dance is an ever-changing and evolving dance form, egalitarian in its embrace of any and all dance genres. It is a living, transforming art developed by exceptional dance artists requiring dramaturgical understanding; character analysis; knowledge of history, art, design; and, most importantly, an extensive knowledge of dance, both intellectual and embodied. Its ghettoization within criticism and scholarship as a throw-away dance form, undeserving of analysis—derivative, cliché ridden, titillating and predictable, the ugly stepsister of both theater and dance—belies and ignores the historic role it has had in musicals as an expressive form equal to book, music, and lyric. The standard adage, “when you can’t speak anymore sing, when you can’t sing anymore dance,” expresses its importance in musical theater as the ultimate form of heightened emotional, visceral, and intellectual expression. Through in-depth analysis author Liza Gennaro examines Broadway choreography through the lens of dance studies, script analysis, movement research, and dramaturgical inquiry offering a close examination of a dance form that has heretofore received only the most superficial interrogation. This book reveals the choreographic systems of some of Broadway’s most influential dance-makers, including George Balanchine, Agnes de Mille, Jerome Robbins, Katherine Dunham, Bob Fosse, Donald McKayle, Savion Glover, Sergio Trujillo, Steven Hoggett, and Camille Brown. Making Broadway Dance is essential reading for theater and dance scholars, students, practitioners, and Broadway fans.

Conclusion

Musical theater dance is an ever-changing, evolving dance form, egalitarian in its embrace of any and all dance genres. It is a living, transforming art developed by exceptional dance artists and requiring dramaturgical understanding; character analysis; knowledge of history, art, and design; and most importantly, an extensive knowledge of dance, both intellectual and embodied. Its ghettoization within criticism and scholarship as a throw-away dance form, undeserving of analysis—derivative, cliché-ridden, titillating and predictable, the ugly stepsister of both theater and dance—belies and ignores the historic role it has had in musicals as an expressive form equal to book, music, and lyric. The standard adage, “when you can’t speak anymore sing, when you can’t sing anymore dance” expresses its importance in musical theater as the ultimate form of heightened emotional, visceral, and intellectual expression....

Broadway Dance

Acknowledging the 1980s HIV/AIDS crisis and the deaths of hundreds of would-be choreographers, this chapter explores the trauma experienced by the dance and theater communities as a defining moment in the history of Broadway dance. I examine the advent of Broadway outsiders, post-modernist Bill T. Jones (Spring Awakening [2006]) and physical theatre practitioner, Steven Hoggett (American Idiot [2010] [2012], Once [2012], The Last Ship [2014]) onto Broadway and assess the diminishment of systems created by de Mille and Robbins. I also analyze Broadway insiders Savion Glover (Bring In ‘Da Noise, Bring in ‘Da Funk [1996], Shuffle Along, The Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 And All That Followed [2016]), Andy Blankenbuehler (In the Heights [2008], Hamilton [2015]), Sergio Trujillo (Memphis [2009], Hands on a Hardbody [2013]), and Lorin Latarro (Waitress [2016]). I investigate how these four negotiate the systems of Robbins and Fosse while at the same time absorbing the influx of ideas coming from physical theatre Finally, the chapter looks at contemporary dance choreographer Camille Brown, who possesses an exceptional ability to discover fresh interpretations of time-worn dance vocabularies and to tell stories with invented movement. I contend that Brown is the latest choreographer using Broadway as a vehicle for inventive dance and setting a new standard of dance excellence and innovation in musical theater.