Voices, Bodies, Practices

Voices, Bodies, Practices
Author: Catherine Laws
Publisher: Leuven University Press
Total Pages: 326
Release: 2019-11-25
Genre: Music
ISBN: 9462702055

Identity and subjectivity in musical performances Who is the “I” that performs? The arts of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have pushed us relentlessly to reconsider our notions of the self, expression, and communication: to ask ourselves, again and again, who we think we are and how we can speak meaningfully to one another. Although in other performing arts studies, especially of theatre, the performance of selfhood and identity continues to be a matter of lively debate in both practice and theory, the question of how a sense of self is manifested through musical performance has been neglected. The authors of Voices, Bodies, Practices are all musician-researchers: the book employs artistic research to explore how embodied performing “voices” can emerge from the interactions of individual performers and composers, musical materials, instruments, mediating technologies, and performance contexts.

Voices from the Ancestors

Voices from the Ancestors
Author: Lara Medina
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Total Pages: 457
Release: 2019-10-08
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0816539561

Voices from the Ancestors brings together the reflective writings and spiritual practices of Xicanx, Latinx, and Afro-Latinx womxn and male allies in the United States who seek to heal from the historical traumas of colonization by returning to ancestral traditions and knowledge. This wisdom is based on the authors’ oral traditions, research, intuitions, and lived experiences—wisdom inspired by, and created from, personal trajectories on the path to spiritual conocimiento, or inner spiritual inquiry. This conocimiento has reemerged over the last fifty years as efforts to decolonize lives, minds, spirits, and bodies have advanced. Yet this knowledge goes back many generations to the time when the ancestors understood their interconnectedness with each other, with nature, and with the sacred cosmic forces—a time when the human body was a microcosm of the universe. Reclaiming and reconstructing spirituality based on non-Western epistemologies is central to the process of decolonization, particularly in these fraught times. The wisdom offered here appears in a variety of forms—in reflective essays, poetry, prayers, specific guidelines for healing practices, communal rituals, and visual art, all meant to address life transitions and how to live holistically and with a spiritual consciousness for the challenges of the twenty-first century.

Postopera: Reinventing the Voice-Body

Postopera: Reinventing the Voice-Body
Author: Jelena Novak
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 192
Release: 2016-03-09
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1317077202

Both in opera studies and in most operatic works, the singing body is often taken for granted. In Postopera: Reinventing the Voice-Body, Jelena Novak reintroduces an awareness of the physicality of the singing body to opera studies. Arguing that the voice-body relationship itself is a producer of meaning, she furthermore posits this relationship as one of the major driving forces in recent opera. She takes as her focus six contemporary operas - La Belle et la Bête (Philip Glass), Writing to Vermeer (Louis Andriessen, Peter Greenaway), Three Tales (Steve Reich, Beryl Korot), One (Michel van der Aa), Homeland (Laurie Anderson), and La Commedia (Louis Andriessen, Hal Hartley) - which she terms 'postoperas'. These pieces are sites for creative exploration, where the boundaries of the opera world are stretched. Central to this is the impact of new media, a de-synchronization between image and sound, or a redefinition of body-voice-gender relationships. Novak dissects the singing body as a set of rules, protocols, effects, and strategies. That dissection shows how the singing body acts within the world of opera, what interventions it makes, and how it constitutes opera’s meanings.

Women's Voices and the Practice of Preaching

Women's Voices and the Practice of Preaching
Author: Nancy Lammers Gross
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Total Pages: 182
Release: 2017-07-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1467447854

Expert, practical help for women who preach or lead worship Many women preachers and worship leaders have trouble speaking; they struggle to fully use their physical voices. Maintaining that there is often a disconnect between the woman's self-understanding as a preacher and her own body, Nancy Lammers Gross presents not only techniques but also a theologically empowering paradigm shift to help women fully embody their God-given preaching vocations. Grounding her work in the biblical story of Miriam, Gross begins with a discussion of how women are instrumental in the work of God. She then tells stories, including her own, of women's experiences in losing connection to their bodies and their physical voices. Finally, Gross presents a constructive resolution with exercises for discovering and developing a full-body voice.

Writing and the Body in Motion

Writing and the Body in Motion
Author: Cheryl Pallant
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 189
Release: 2018-04-15
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 1476631719

Based upon the author's lifetime practices as a dancer, poet and teacher, this innovative approach to developing body awareness focuses on achieving self-discovery and well-being through movement, mindfulness and writing. Written from a holistic (rather than dualistic) view of the mind-body duality, discussion and exercises draw on dance, psychology, neuroscience and meditation to guide personal exploration and creative expression.

Full Voice

Full Voice
Author: Barbara McAfee
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Total Pages: 234
Release: 2011-10-03
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1605099228

Vocal expression is a part of nearly everyone's workday, yet most of us are unaware of how much influence our voice exerts over our effectiveness. McAfee's work shows how we can deliberately marshal the power of our voices to support our intentions, aspirations, and relationships.

Szuper Gallery

Szuper Gallery
Author: Whitechapel Art Gallery
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2001
Genre:
ISBN:

Published to accompany the exhibition held at Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, 12 January - 4 March 2001.

Our Masters' Voices

Our Masters' Voices
Author: John Maxwell Atkinson
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 228
Release: 1984
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9780415018753

What kinds of political message are actually capable of striking chords with an audience? How do the skills of spellbinding speakers compare with those of their less charismatic competitors? Why are some politicians much more effective on television than others? Max Atkinson's revealing and entertaining review of how politicians attempt to win out hears and minds and votes - based on the study of audio and videotaped material - enables use to begin to answer questions that once seemed unanswerable. He investigates the skills of, amongst others, Tony Benn, J.F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, and comes up with some intriguing results -- From back cover

Post-Apartheid Dance

Post-Apartheid Dance
Author: Sharon Friedman
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 190
Release: 2013-01-16
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1443845647

The intention of this work is to present perspectives on post-apartheid dance in South Africa by South African authors. Beginning with an historical context for dance in SA, the book moves on to reflect the multiplicity of bodies, voices and stories suggested by the title. Given the diversity of conflicting realities experienced by artists in this country, contentious issues have deliberately been juxtaposed in an attempt to draw attention to the complexity of dancing on the ashes of apartheid. Although the focus is dance since 1994, all chapters are rooted in an historical analysis and offer a view of the field. This book is ground breaking as it is the first of its kind to speak of contemporary dance in South Africa and the first singular body of work to have emerged in any book form that attempts to provide a cohesive account of the range of voices within dance in post-apartheid South Africa. The book is scholarly in nature and has wide applications for colleges and universities, without alienating dance lovers or minds curious about dance in Africa. Mindful of its wide audience, the writing deliberately adopts an uncomplicated, reader-friendly tone, given the diversity of audiences including dance students, dance scholars, critics and general dance lovers that it will attract.

Performance, Subjectivity, and Experimentation

Performance, Subjectivity, and Experimentation
Author: Catherine Laws
Publisher: Leuven University Press
Total Pages: 243
Release: 2020-07-10
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9462702314

Music reflects subjectivity and identity: that idea is now deeply ingrained in both musicology and popular media commentary. The study of music across cultures and practices often addresses the enactment of subjectivity “in” music – how music expresses or represents “an” individual or “a” group. However, a sense of selfhood is also formed and continually reformed through musical practices, not least performance. How does this take place? How might the work of practitioners reveal aspects of this process? In what sense is subjectivity performed in and through musical practices? This book explores these questions in relation to a range of artistic research involving contemporary musical practices, drawing on perspectives from performance studies, phenomenology, embodied cognition, and theories of gendered and cultural identity.