The creativity of local accordionists in the context of pop-jazz performance at the turn of the XX - XXI centuries

The purpose of the article. To highlight the peculiarities of the functioning of pop-jazz music in the bayan-accordion art of Ukraine in a certain period. The methodology is based on the basic principles of the theory of knowledge, such as objectivity, scientific character, historicism, integrity, interconnection, and interdependence of phenomena and processes of reality, as well as conceptual provisions of the theory of professional skills. The scientific novelty lies in the coverage of the creative activity of local button accordion players and the systematization of the stages of development and creative achievements of the academic school of the specified period. Conclusions. Pop-jazz music in the context of performing creativity of local and foreign bayan accordionists has a consistent character and develops on the musical basis of Negro folklore, urban culture (genres of everyday dance music - waltzes, polkas, tango, foxtrots, etc.), professional music - improvisations, concert transcriptions, retro suites for jazz themes, jazz-style suites, jazz-rock-partitas). The main factors that influenced the dynamics of the development of pop-jazz music in the bayan-accordion art of Ukraine and abroad were various artistic processes that took place during the period under study, determined by the evolution of quality indicators. Keywords: button accordion (accordion), accompanying instrument, solo performance, jazz compositions, composer technique, academization. .

Wound and Travel – Sophocles’s 193 Philoctetes and Homer’s Odyssey in Inflammation du verbe vivre (Inflammation of the Verb To Live) by Wajdi Mouawad

In her article, the author analyses an example of a text and its staging brought about by the sudden death of a member of the playwright’s creative team. In his solo performance Inflammation du verbe vivre (Inflammation of the Verb To Live), created at the Paris Théâtre National de la Colline in 2015, Canadian-Lebanese playwright, director and actor Wajdi Mouawad interwove the ancient Greek literary and mythological heritage with a personal confession about the loss of his friend and professional colleague Robert Davreu, upgrading it with a socially critical depiction of the situation in today’s Greece. The performance was made as the penultimate part of a staging cycle of Sophocles’s seven preserved tragedies under the common title Le dernièr jour de sa vie (The Last Day of his Life). Mouawad had intended to direct the cycle in new translations by Davreu. Mouawad thus connected the process of mourning the death, which stopped the project, with the documentation of the writing process of the text that he later also directed and performed in the form of a peculiar theatre elegy. He fused the character of Philoctetes with the character of Odysseus; not the Odysseus from Sophocles’s tragedy who plots to steal Philoctetes’s bow, but the one from Homer who seeks his way home to Ithaca for ten years after the conquer of Troy and visits Tiresias’s shade in the underworld.

Behavioral and Neural Dynamics of Interpersonal Synchrony Between Performing Musicians: A Wireless EEG Hyperscanning Study

Interpersonal synchrony refers to the temporal coordination of actions between individuals and is a common feature of social behaviors, from team sport to ensemble music performance. Interpersonal synchrony of many rhythmic (periodic) behaviors displays dynamics of coupled biological oscillators. The current study addresses oscillatory dynamics on the levels of brain and behavior between music duet partners performing at spontaneous (uncued) rates. Wireless EEG was measured from N = 20 pairs of pianists as they performed a melody first in Solo performance (at their spontaneous rate of performance), and then in Duet performances at each partner’s spontaneous rate. Influences of partners’ spontaneous rates on interpersonal synchrony were assessed by correlating differences in partners’ spontaneous rates of Solo performance with Duet tone onset asynchronies. Coupling between partners’ neural oscillations was assessed by correlating amplitude envelope fluctuations of cortical oscillations at the Duet performance frequency between observed partners and between surrogate (re-paired) partners, who performed the same melody but at different times. Duet synchronization was influenced by partners’ spontaneous rates in Solo performance. The size and direction of the difference in partners’ spontaneous rates were mirrored in the size and direction of the Duet asynchronies. Moreover, observed Duet partners showed greater inter-brain correlations of oscillatory amplitude fluctuations than did surrogate partners, suggesting that performing in synchrony with a musical partner is reflected in coupled cortical dynamics at the performance frequency. The current study provides evidence that dynamics of oscillator coupling are reflected in both behavioral and neural measures of temporal coordination during musical joint action.

Gender and Nation Tightly Bound

In her solo performance, Knot in My Name, Ita Segev utilizes transaesthetic strategies and technology to elucidate her mutually dependent investments in gender and nation and the urgent personal and political stakes of the ongoing Israeli occupation for the performer and her American audience alike.

Time, being, discourse: Elements of professional friendship in the collaboration between a costume designer and a choreographer

This article examines joint creation in contemporary performance making by analysing the collaboration between two prominent Finnish artists – costume designer Karoliina Koiso-Kanttila and choreographer Carl Knif. Using personal interviews along with performance analysis framed in relation to the Aristotelian term ‘friendship’ as components of this case study, the author draws conclusions from the process of a solo performance and its costume that foregrounds elements of friendship: sharing time, being and discourse. Viewing this relational understanding between parties as an asset, this study introduces elements of a positive approach and tools to achieve such in the making of dance performance.

Writing Her “Self”

This chapter provides a historical perspective on the evolution and contemporary significance of Nangyarkuttu, the “female” derivative of Kutiyattam, which developed into an independent solo performance form by the late twentieth century. Against this background, the author focuses on the artistry and innovations of one of Nangyarkuttu’s leading performers, Usha Nangiar, who has succeeded over the years in recovering and reinstating several major female characters who had disappeared from the Kutiyattam stage. Calling attention to two marginalized female characters from the Ramayana repertoire, notably Mandodari and Ahalya, the essay delves deeply into Usha Nangiar’s process of research as she recreates performances around them, combining an approach that is both deeply subjective and scholarly. Through excerpts from a detailed interview with the artist, the author demonstrates how Usha Nangiar’s interpretations of these roles, while drawing primarily on the performative tradition of Kutiyattam, constitutes a radical revisioning of the same tradition.

Music as social bonding: A cross-cultural perspective

We extend Savage et al.'s music and social bonding hypothesis by examining it in the context of Chinese music. First, top-down functions such as music as political instrument should receive more attention. Second, solo performance can serve as important cues for social identity. Third, a right match between the tones in lyrics and music contributes also to social bonding.

Interview with Benjamin Bagby, Medieval Musician

Benjamin (Ben) Bagby is one of the world’s distinguished medievalists, and is particularly well-known for his scholarly, yet passionate performances of the music of the medieval epoch — both with the ensemble Sequentia, which he co-founded, and as a soloist. In the fi eld of solo performance he is renowned for bringing to life the important Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf — presenting it, as far as contemporary scholarship and vivid artistic imagination can allow, in an authentic “bardic” manner. This wide-ranging interview has much discussion of his career in both regards, as well as his experience as a professor at the Sorbonne. Readers who may wish, after reading this interview, to know more about this important musician and scholar can visit these two websites: www.BagbyBeowulf.com / www.Sequentia.org