DANCE AND MUSIC AS RESISTANCE, INTEGRATION AND SEPARATION
Being a crossroad between the east and the west, the Southeastern European region has been, and still is, a place with important historical and social processes and events. These can be described in various music and dance expressions which are very often connected with the people’s resistance, integration and separation in one country, between different countries, in one historical period or in a specific societal event or context. Songs and dances created as memory of these historical events mark important social and political changes in the society, but also describe the lives and the emotional response of the people during these changes. Witnessing the most recent historical, economical and political processes and movements in the region, scholars and researchers have documented different ways of expressing the people’s resistance in which the music and the dance play a significant role in the integration and/or the separation of an individual, a group, a community, or an entire nation in the region, or in one country.
Participants are invited to address some of the following questions arising from the given topic: the role of music and dance as a resistance, an integration or a separation in a specific event; as a social process/revolution/movement; toward a concrete political person or ideology; as part of a past or a contemporary revolution (political, economical, social); the role of the musicians and the dancers who are part of the resistance; music and dance as a propaganda and/or a response tool in the contemporary media/internet space; connecting the past cultural memory with the contemporary societal resistance movements; the role of the music and the dance in integrating and/or separating an individual, a group or a community in sharing the same idea; music and dance as a resistance marker in a broad identity context; etc.
PERFORMANCE PLACES AND SPACES – HOW THESE ARE CONSTRUCTED
Since the second half of the 20th century the contemporary artistic interpretation of the traditional music and dance was named as “scenic”, “scenic interpretation” or “art interpretation”. The traditional places and spaces of performance changed and new cultural perspectives in the contemporary processes of transition and dissemination of the traditional music and dance heritage was created whereby the scenic infringement, reconstructions and interpretation of the folk song and dance become dominant forms. The stage, described as a place where something is performed in front of an audience, become a source not only to the appearance of some new perspectives and phenomena, but also gives completely new broader context of the construction and the usage of different performance places and spaces where the traditional music and dance gain new aesthetic and function. We are inviting presentations which would address the different aspects and issues of the importance and the role of the performance places and spaces and their construction such as: the role of the performance space in the relation of the actor with the performance context/repertoire/ audience/function; constructing performance of a traditional music and/or dance form for different performance places and spaces; using and constructing virtual and media performance places and spaces; the past versus contemporary places and spaces for performance; the relation between the performance timing and/or duration with the construction of the performance place and space; the construction of space by the music and/or dance performance; etc.
MUSIC AND DANCE IN THE CULTURAL BASIN OF THE BLACK SEA
The Black Sea, located on the shores of many countries in Southeastern Europe, is a vast cultural basin that unites the Balkan, Crimean, Azov, Caspian, Caucasian and Anatolian geographies. Throughout history, there have been an infinite number of intersections in this basin and many communities have interacted with each other in different areas of the Black Sea. Under this title, we would like to discuss together the studies in the field of music and dance on communities living in different geographies of the Black Sea cultural basin. We welcome all your suggestions for the current work areas such as ethnographic writings based on fieldwork, theoretical approaches to formation and transformation processes, research that reveals historical, social and cultural affinities, archival studies, comparative studies, personal determinations about daily music and dance practices, repertoire analysis, identity and gender among many more.