July 13–19, 2011
Memorial University of Newfoundland
St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada
http://www.mun.ca/ictm
ICTM is dedicated to the study of traditional, folk, popular, classical, and urban musics and dances of the world.
Deadline for Proposals: September 7, 2010
Conference Themes
1. Indigenous Modernities
This theme invites presentations that address the impact of modernity on communities of indigenous music/dance cultures in any country or region of the world. How are contemporary genres of popular culture, theatre or film being used by indigenous artists to express issues that concern them or challenges they currently face? What aspects of traditional song and dance knowledge are being either sustained or lost in the late 20th and early 21st century? What factors are contributing to their cultural maintenance, change, or decline? How is the production of media by indigenous musicians controlled, enabled, and invested with meaning? How are new contexts, new collaborations, and new audiences reshaping traditional and contemporary musical practices? Scholars who submit abstracts for this theme will be aware that the term “indigenous” is often a subject of debate and redefinition. Similarly, “modernity” is a large concept that could include such things as industrial development, media or technological change, globalization, and intercultural exchange as well as deterritorialization and encroachments on indigenous land or lifeways.
2. Cross-cultural Approaches to the Study of the Voice
ICTM will share one day with the Phenomenon of Singing Symposium, an international event also taking place in St. John’s in July 2011 (http://www.festival500.com/). Because the two conferences will bring together ethnomusicologists, singers, pedagogues and choral directors, some questions are motivated by our potential common interests. How is “the voice” conceptualized—sonically, socially, physically, metaphysically—in local traditions? For over a decade, the world music movement in Western education has advocated the use of non-Western vocal techniques and timbres: Which techniques/timbres have been successfully adopted/adapted and why? How have the uniform expectations and standards of international choral competitions and festivals affected local concepts about singing? How is “vocal health” defined by different cultural groups? Similarly, what are some culturally-specific discourses of vocal pathology and how are they implicated in vocal pedagogy? How are aspects of identity (gender, class, or ethnicity for instance) mapped on to voice types and timbres?
3. Rethinking Ethnomusicology through the Gaze of Movement
For this theme, we borrow the concept of the “gaze” from anthropology and visual art scholarship where the word implies not simply the act of looking, but also assumptions about who looks and from what perspective. To rethink how we might shift ethnomusicology through the gaze of movement then, might imply several different things. It could mean that we start from the perspective of those who “move.” How do they perceive the time and space of music? Or it could mean that we consider the musical implications of looking at movement. By starting from the vocabularies, rhythms, and sensations of movement, how might we think differently about music? By considering how movement is naturalized, exoticized, formalized or contextualized, how is our attention to music already framed by these aspects of the visual and tactile? We encourage a broad definition of movement, one that might focus on formal dance, on gesture, or on the physicality of musical performance, to name only a few possibilities.
4. Atlantic Roots/Routes
For centuries, the Atlantic Ocean served as a major route that linked Europe, Africa, the Americas and the Caribbean. The intense movement of peoples and cultural practices within the framework of asymmetrical power relations, constitutes a legacy that has contributed to shaping the past and present of areas linked by the Atlantic. We invite proposals that address the ways through which political processes and cultural flows have shaped music and dance in the cultural spaces connected through Atlantic routes in the past and present. Taking into account the processes of globalization, how do historical and current circuits of exchange contribute to the reformulation and resignification of expressive practices and to the configuration of new cultural spaces? What are the distinctions between the political and cultural processes involving the northern and southern Atlantic? How can a critical perspective on the Atlantic contribute with new theoretical insights in ethnomusicology and a new understanding of the Atlantic as a crossroads?
5. Dialogical Knowledge Production and Representation: Implications and Ethics
In ethnomusicology, dialogic research (that acknowledges how different perspectives shape knowledge and facilitates conversations among doers and knowers) has become increasingly common, gradually changing the way knowledge is produced and represented, and stimulating the involvement of ethnomusicologists as cultural activists. The theoretical, methodological and ethical implications of the dialogical approach have, however, not been sufficiently debated in the discipline. We invite papers that discuss the issues arising from dialogical research for knowledge production and representation, as well as the involvement of ethnomusicologists with the communities they study. What are the implications of the dialogic approach for the ethnomusicological endeavor? How do ethnomusicologists negotiate knowledge production with their interlocutors? How can the perspectives gained through dialogic research best be represented through ethnomusicological discourse and applied to the benefit of the communities studied?
6. Acoustic Ecology
This theme invites discussion of the ways that both human and non-human beings engage the world sonically, in relation to their environment. How do composers and performers model or integrate nonhuman sonic practices into their own music-making? How do sonic features particular to a place or to environmental conditions (e.g., geological, botanical, architectural) help to shape a local sound aesthetic? Likewise, what impact do musical/sonic practices have on natural or humanly-shaped environments? Given our urgent concern with issues of sustainability, how are messages of environmental degradation and efforts to reverse its effects registered in contemporary music-making? How do species like birds, whales or dogs use “song” and what might they teach us about human communication?
7. New Research
Proposals on new research on other relevant topics are also welcome.
Proposals
Proposals are invited in the following categories: Individual Paper, Film/Video, Organized Panel, Forum/Roundtable, and Participatory Workshop. Abstracts of up to 300 words can be submitted online at http://www.mun.ca/ictm by 7 September 2010. Forms for mailing or faxing proposals are also available at this site. Proposals will be evaluated anonymously by the international program committee.
Program Committee Chair Contact Information
Salwa El-Shawan Castelo-Branco
Email: Cette adresse email est protégée contre les robots des spammeurs, vous devez activer Javascript pour la voir.
Tel: 351217908300
Fax: 351217908303
Location
North America’s oldest city, St. John’s is the capital of Canada’s newest province (Newfoundland and Labrador). Located on a centuries-old shipping route, this historic port city developed at the hub of trans-Atlantic trade, becoming home to a variety of vibrant cultural traditions. A rich array of performances are in the planning. You will enjoy local traditions, diverse styles of Native American music and dance, and distinguished performers from across Canada. Our safe and amiable city is also family friendly.
Local Organizing Committee Contact Information
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Tel: +1-709-737-2058
