Gender & Performance
Abstracts session I: Music
Diva of the Dispossessed: the Intravenal Music of Diamanda Galás
Louis van den Hengel
Radboud University Nijmegen, Institute for Gender Studies, Greek and Latin Language and Culture
Although the four-octave voice of the Greek-American vocalist/composer Diamanda Galás has often been compared to that of Maria Callas, the ways in which Galás transgresses the boundaries of traditional vocal expression are truly unprecedented. Using her voice as a relentless political tool, Galás creates soundscapes that are both horrifying and captivating, yet always extremely forceful and affective. Drawing from musical sources as varied as bel canto opera, gospel, blues, Goth metal, and Greek incantations, Galás first and foremost gives a voice to the anger of the dispossessed – the oppressed, the exiled, the dead. I will use the compositions Plague Mass (1984) and Vena Cava (1992), which both focus on AIDS and dementia, to illustrate the impact of what may be termed ‘sonic assault’ rather than music per se. Indeed, Galás’ voice, which the artist herself describes as ‘an instrument of truth,’ not only deeply affects us at the level of political awareness, but also works directly on our bodies, our minds, and even our dreams.
Sit down, listen...
Greetje Bijma
Musician and artist, NL
Dutch singer Greetje Bijma first gained recognition as a unique vocal artist in the late seventies, when she began her musical career giving concerts for private audiences. Her concerts consisted of improvised songs, which she underlined with a few basic guitar chords. In the early eighties, she performed in the Improvised Music Ensemble of the Canadian saxophone player and composer Alan Laurillard. Subsequently, she formed her own band: the Greetje Bijma Quintet, with Laurillard as the main composer and arranger. Their international breakthrough came in 1989 after a successful concert at the Jazzfest in the Philharmonie in Berlin. Since the early nineties Greetje Bijma has concentrated on solo concerts. In these performances she attempts to exploit every possibility of her voice, extending the limits of traditional vocal techniques. At times, Greetje joins the Willem Breuker Kollektief, and she also performs with the Dutch composer/pianist Louis Andriessen. In 1990, Bijma was presented with the Boy Edgar Award, the greatest honour awarded to a jazz artist in the Netherlands (and never before awarded to a lady). The jury praised the unique qualities of her voice as well as her idiosyncratic style, which has captivated audiences all over the world. In this workshop, Greetje Bijma will speak and sing about her extensive body of work, specifically addressing the infinite possibilities of the human voice.
(www.greetjebijma.nl)
Mothers, washing machines and women with steaknives: showing gender of female composers in electrovocal music
Hannah Bosma
Researcher Gender Issues in Electro Vocal Music, NL
Is there a specific feminine style in music and musical performance? While it is dangerous to generalise, the desire remains to find how women’s work makes a difference in music. Several authors (Dame, Cox) have suggested an écriture féminine musicale that is characterized by nonverbal vocal sounds and the materiality of the body. But such feminine features are stereotypes that occur mainly in compositions by male composers, in a modernist tradition. From a feminist perspective, I do not think it is wise to ignore the different positions of (male) authors/composers and (female) performers/vocalists. I discern several other ways in which women make a difference in electrovocal music. Such practises of female composers combine masculine and feminine positions (such as language and nonverbal sound, composer and performer, technology and the body), posit ‘second-rate’ feminine practices right in the cultural, symbolic order, and deconstruct the stereotypes of masculinity and femininity. Explicit references to women’s issues, whether in composition or in interpretation, help to find ways how women can make a difference in music and beyond. In this workshop, after elaborating this argument and illustrating it with musical examples, I will discuss with Greetje Bijma and with the participants how they relate their work, their performances, their interpretations and their listening experiences to gender.
Abstracts session II: Movement
1. From Dandy to Catwalk: Fashion and PerformanceJosé Teunissen, curator of Fashion and Costumes of the Centraal Museum in Utrecht and professor of Fashion Theory of ArtEZ, School of the Arts in Arnhem, The Netherlands.
Nowadays fashion is presented with much dynamism and action. Fashion means the catwalk, where smoothly moving models present themselves with music. Fashion reports in magazines, which show immovable images, also depict models in a dynamic attitude.
These shows and photo reports are important, because clothing stands out better on a body than on a hanger. But it is more important that we cannot deduce how clothing should be worn without a show or photo reports. Elizabeth Wilson describes it very well in Adorned in Dreams. Fashion is more than merely clothing or form. It is a visual art, a creation with the own physical ‘self’as a medium, and therefore it is a performance art. It is a combination of atmosphere, attitudes and gestures, silhouettes and subtle movements which are considered to be elegant or cool. Therefore fashion is presented on the catwalk. But when did this cultivated self-presentation start? Prior to 1910 there were no catwalk shows. The real beginning of modern fashion as self-presentation starts with the dandyism of the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth century with the Dandy Beau Brummell.
2. Walking by the Book: Literary Walks and the Engendering of Urban Space
Liedeke Plate, Radboud University Nijmegen, Institute for Gender Studies, Dept. of Comparative Arts & Cultural Studies
The past decades saw the rise of the urban walk, both in the Netherlands and abroad. Focusing on the literary walking-tour, this paper engages the tourist practice of walking as a performance of the city that engenders urban space. As part of the so-called ‘theming’ of historical sites, these walks are part of what Pine & Gilmore have termed the ‘experience economy’, producing senses of identity and of belonging. In the walking-tour, the city is not re-produced and re-packaged as cultural, critical or aesthetic experience; ways of being are also being generated. Not unrelated to ‘city branding’ as the deliberate manipulation of the city’s image for commercial exploitation, literary walking-tours are equally ways of (re)inscribing women in urban space, reclaiming it while articulating selves by allowing them to walk in the city without being viewed as streetwalkers. Focusing on the movement of women walking in the city, this paper explores the performance of gender the city produces.
3. I AM NOT HALF THE MAN I USED TO BE - Performance
Stefanie Seibold, artist based in Vienna, Austria and lecturer at the Art University, Linz. She is currently a researcher in the Fine Art department at the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht, NL
Performer: Tara Casey
“It isn’t what I do, but how I do it. It isn’t what I say, but how I say it and how I look when I do it and say it.” (Mae West).
By exploring the means and possibilities of performance – both live and recorded on videotape – I am interested in creating alternative spaces that allow for a narration of different identities. Making use of the „documentary“ elements of the film classic „The Killing of Sister George“ the performance I am not half the man I used to be is dealing with certain aspects of the gaze and puts into question how hierarchical positionings are developed which lead to the construction of the ‘other’.
In my work I use a variety of artistic techniques as well as employ methods of imitation, often juxtaposing contradictory elements to create non-linear, contingent statements.The raw material I work with is comprised of a large number of sampled elements as well as self-produced material in various media. During the progress of the performance these overlap one another in a complex fashion and have to be linked actively by the viewer to form new threads.The media employed function as autonomous 'protagonists' and contribute to the progression of the narrative each according to its own particular make up or purpose.
The performance I am not half the man I used to be was first shown in Utrecht at the IF I CAN’T DANCE - I DON’T WANT TO BE PART OF YOUR REVOLUTION sequence at the Festival an de Werf in Utrecht in May 2005 and at the OPBLAASPOP performance Festival in Gent in September 2005.