The only clear difference between human dance and primate dancelike behavior is that the former is culturally patterned; otherwise, attributes only vary in terms of their complexity.
Dance, therefore, is not a human invention—it is a human variation on a primate theme.
This according to “The origins of dance: The perspective of primate evolution” by Sandra T. Francis (Dance chronicle XIV/2–3 [1991] pp. 203–220). Above, a lemur trips the light fantastic; below, the story behind a popular YouTube video.
Although he was only eight years younger, Bob Dylan called Mike Seeger (1933–2009) a father figure, and considered him the ultimate embodiment of a folk-star persona. Recalling him in Chronicles. I (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), Dylan wrote:
“Mike was unprecedented. He was like a duke, the knight errant. As for being a folk musician, he was the supreme archetype. He could push a stake through Dracula’s black heart. He was the romantic, egalitarian, and revolutionary type all at once—had chivalry in his blood…”
“He played all the instruments, whatever the song called for—the banjo, the fiddle, mandolin, autoharp, the guitar, even harmonica in the rack….He played on all the various planes, the full index of old-time styles, played in all the genres and had the idioms mastered—Delta blues, ragtime, minstrel songs, buck-and-wing, dance reels, play party, hymns and gospel—being there and seeing him up close, something hit me. It’s not as if he just played everything well, he played these songs as good as it was possible to play them.” (pp. 69–71)
Today would have been Mike Seeger’s 80th birthday! Below, Seeger in 1976.
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Co-produced by Smithsonian Folkways and SEM, this peer-reviewed series presents recent ethnomusicological field research to a general audience. Reports combine audio and video recordings, photographs, and narrative to explore music-making and social issues at locales around the world.
Although Stéphane Mallarmé’s writings on dance are few, he has come to be considered an important dance theorist who allied and underscored two aspects of dance that are seldom simultaneously emphasized: its ritual character and its function as a system of signs.
While Mallarmé linked dance with poetry, he noted that—unlike poetry—dance’s symbolism does not develop from a codified semiotic system; rather, dance signifiers are inherently open-ended, and the spectator completes the art work by supplying the signified.
This according to “Ephemeral signs: Apprehending the idea through poetry and dance” by Mary Lewis Shaw (Dance research journal XX/1 [summer 1988] pp. 3–9).
American cantorate presents all of the raw data of the 1984–86 NEH-funded project History of the American Cantorate, which was directed by Mark Slobin.
This free online resource includes over 100 listenable oral history interviews of cantors; a listenable 93-cantor core sample of sung selections of 8 liturgical texts, a first in Jewish music studies; questionnaire survey responses of hundreds of cantors and lay leaders; letters solicited from rabbis about working with cantors; research reports and data summaries commissioned for the project; and ongoing additions of archival documentation.
David Koussevitsky is one of the cantors featured in the study. A related video is here.
Dark elegies marked the culmination of Antony Tudor’s exploration into an approach to ballet choreography in which the psychology of the characters is more important than external circumstances and events.
Although the classic idiom was the basis for his experimentation, his quest for new movement—often based on one-on-one work that illuminated the propensities of specific dancers—resulted in virtually no use of classical vocabulary. Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder functions as a partner to the choreography, not as a guide.
This according to “Dark elegies (1938): Antony Tudor” by Rachel S. Richardson, an essay included in Choreography: Principles and practice (Guildford: National Resource Centre for Dance, 1987, pp. 206–217).
An excerpt from the work is below; other excerpts are here. We would be grateful if anyone can share a link to a complete version!
A number of people attend U.S. bluegrass festivals not for the stage show, but for the informal jam sessions in the campgrounds or parking lot.
The interactional etiquette that jammers follow is manifested both in the conventions that help strangers to come together and in choices made during group playing of bluegrass standards. Ethics and aesthetics are fused as jammers negotiate interactional guidelines to reach a heightened musical and social communion.
This according to “A special kind of courtesy: Action at a bluegrass festival jam session” by Michelle Kisliuk (TDR: The drama review XXXII/3 [fall 1988] pp. 141–155). Above and below, festival attendees jamming with that special courtesy.
Launched in 2013 by the Norges Musikkhøgskole/Norwegian Academy of Music,Music + practice is a peer-reviewed online journal dedicated to the study of practices in music, featuring articles and presentations written by academics and practitioners. The journal also engages with artistic research and performance studies.
When Fanny Elssler (1810–84) left the Paris Opéra to tour the U.S. between 1840 and 1842, adoring critics there were faced—apparently for the first time—with the dilemma of writing approvingly about a woman making herself an object of desire.
Recurring descriptions of her being a divinity or an enchantress evince the process of assuaging guilt over this desire, and assumptions that male dancers were homosexuals enabled the suspension of jealousy over her dancing partners.
This according to “The personification of desire: Fanny Elssler and American audiences” by Maureen Needham Costonis (Dance chronicle XII/1 [1990] pp. 47–67).
Above, an image used for her U.S. tour of Elssler performing her signature La cachucha; below, a recreation performed by Carla Fracci.
For 15 seconds a year, Steve Buttleman is the most famous man in America.
On the first Saturday of every May, wearing his famous red jacket and black cap, he marches from the white pagoda behind the Churchill Downs Winner’s Circle, lifts a bugle to his lips, and plays Call to post, cuing the jockeys to lead their horses to the starting gate.
Buttleman plays for the spring and fall meets as well as the Kentucky Derby, often performing Call to post as many as eleven times a day.
This according to “America’s most famous bugler” by Patrick Wensink (The Oxford American 1 May 2013; the article is here). Below, Mr. Buttleman’s 15 seconds of fame.
The main entrance to the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts’s exhibition Lou Reed: Caught between the twisted stars opens up on Lincoln Plaza, directly adjacent to the The Metropolitan Opera house. On a sunny day, the Met’s … Continue reading →
Seven strings/Сім струн (dedicated to Uncle Michael)* For thee, O Ukraine, O our mother unfortunate, bound, The first string I touch is for thee. The string will vibrate with a quiet yet deep solemn sound, The song from my heart … Continue reading →
Introduction: Dr. Philip Ewell, Associate Professor of Music at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, posted a series of daily tweets during Black History Month (February 2021) providing information on some under-researched Black … Continue reading →
For it [the Walkman] permits the possibility…of imposing your soundscape on the surrounding aural environment and thereby domesticating the external world: for a moment, it can all be brought under the STOP/START, FAST FOWARD, PAUSE and REWIND buttons. –Iain Chambers, “The … Continue reading →
