Gesture in Musical Declamation: An Intercultural Approach

Year 2017, , 6 - 31, 30.12.2017

Charulatha Manı

https://doi.org/10.33906/musicologist.373122

Cited By: 3

Abstract

This paper draws parallels between gesture in South Indian
Carnatic singing practice, and rhetorical gesture used by orators and singers
in 16^th and 17^th century Early Modern Europe. The paper begins by referencing
relevant historical literature on the performance practices. In doing so, it
identifies declamation in music as an ideal musical framework for gestured
performance. The paper then practically addresses the role of gesture in
present cross-cultural music performance practice using an artistic project,
conceptualized and implemented by the author. The author proposes that performances
of textually driven, dramatically intensive musical forms, such as the Carnatic
Viruttam and Early Opera, would benefit from referencing gestures from a
constellation of the experientially known and the historically acquired. The
research also invites a consideration of pertinent issues on gesture and women
performers in the context of Carnatic music.

Keywords

Gesture, Musical declamation, Carnatic, Rhetoric, Intercultural, Women, Embodied

References

• Anandhi, S. (2000). “Representing Devadasis: Dasigal Mosavalai as a Radical Text” Ideals, Images, and Real Lives: Women in Literature and History, Eds. Thorner, Alice and Krishnaraj, Maithreyi: pp. 223-243. Mumbai: Orient Longman.
• Arya, Madhavan. (2016). “Dance in Traditional Asian Theatre: India” Routledge Handbook of Asian Theatre, Ed. Liu, Siyuan: pp. 131-133. New York: Routledge.
• Auslander, Philip. (2006). “Music as Performance: Living in the Immaterial World” Theatre Survey. 47(2): 261-269.
• Balasaraswati, Tanjore. (1978). “On Bharatanatyam” Dance Chronicle. 2(2): 106-116.
• Baskaran, Theodore. (2013). “The Star Politicians of Tamil Nadu” Routledge Handbook of Indian Cinemas, Eds. Gokulsing, Moti; Wimal, Dissanayake: pp. 130-137. New York: Routledge.
• Brown, John R. (2005). “Shakespeare, the "Natyasastra", and Discovering "Rasa" for Performance” New Theatre Quarterly. 21(1): 3-12.
• Bulwer, John. (1644/2003). Chirologia or the Natural Language of the Hand. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger.
• Caccini, Giulio. (2009). Le nuove musiche. (Hitchcock, Wiley Trans.) Madison, Wisc.: A-R Editions. [Original work published 1602]
• Calcagno, Mauro. (2002). “‘Imitar col canto chi parla’: Monteverdi and the Creation of a Language for Musical Theatre” Journal of the American Musicological Society. 55: 383-431.
• Castiglione, Baldassare. (1588). The Courtier. (Wolfe, John, Trans.). Venice: Aldo Romano & Andra d’Asola. (Original work published 1528)
• Carter, Tim. (2002). Monteverdi's Musical Theatre. New Haven: Yale University Press.
• Cavalieri, Emilio de’. (1967). Rappresentazione di anima, et di corpo. (Portrayal of the soul, and the body) (Mutij, Trans.) Farnsborough: Gregg. (Original work published 1600)
• Chabria, Priya & Ravi Shankar (Eds.) (2016). Andal: The Autobiography of a Goddess. New Delhi: Zubaan.
• Crispin, Darla. (2014). “’Scaling Parnassus in Running Shoes’: From the Personal to the Transpersonal via the Medium of Exposition in Artistic Research” The Exposition of Artistic Research Publishing Art in Academia, Ed. Borgdorff, Henk and Schwab, Michael: pp. 139-152. Leuven: Leiden University Press.
• Crispin, Darla. (2015). “Artistic Research and Music Scholarship: Musing and Models from a Continental European Perspective” Artistic Practice as Research in Music: Theory, Criticism, Practice, Ed. Doganthan-Dack, Mine: pp. 53-72. Farnham: Ashgate.
• Clarke, Eric and Davidson, Jane. (1998). “The Body in Music as Mediator between Knowledge and Action” Composition, Performance, Reception: Studies in the Creative Process in Music, Ed. Thomas, Wyndham: pp. 74–92. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Cusick, Susan. (1994). “Feminist Theory, Music Theory, and the Mind/body Problem” Perspectives of New Music. 8-27.
• Daniela, Kaleva. (2014). “Performative Research: A Performance-led Study of Lamento d'Arianna with Historically Informed Rhetorical Gesture” Musicology Australia, 36(2): 209-234.
• Davidson, Jane. (1993). “Visual Perception of Performance Manner in the Movements of Solo Musicians” Psychology of Music. 21: 103–13.

• Davidson, Jane. (2001). “The Role of the Body in the Production and Perception of Solo Vocal Performance: A Case Study of Annie Lennox.” Musicae Scientiae 2: 235–56.

• Davidson, Jane. (2004a). “Music as Social Behavior” Empirical Musicology: Aims, Methods, Prospects, Ed. Cook, Nicholas and Clarke, Eric: 57–76. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Davidson, Jane. (2004b). “Making a Reflexive Turn: Practical Music-making Becomes Conventional Research” The Music Practitioner: Research for the Music Performer, Teacher and Listener, Ed. Davidson, Jane: 133–48. Aldershot: Ashgate.

• Davidson, Jane. (2007). “Directing La pùrpura de la rosa” Bringing the First Latin-American Opera to Life: Staging La pùrpura de la rosa in Sheffield, Ed. Davidson, Jane and Trippett, Andrew: pp. 215–50. Durham: Durham University.

• Davidson, Jane. and Good, James. (2002). “Social and Musical Co-ordination between Members of a String Quartet: An Exploratory Study” Psychology of Music. 30(2): 186-201.
• Davidson, Jane. (2016). “Creative Collaboration in Generating an Affective Contemporary Production of a Seventeenth-century Opera.” In Collaborative Creative Thought and Practice in Music, Ed. Barrett, Margaret: pp. 173-186. Farnham: Ashgate.
• Fatone, Gina; Clayton, Martin; Leante, Laura and Rahaim, Matt. (2011). “Imagery, Melody and Gesture in Cross-cultural Perspective” New Perspectives on Music and Gesture, Eds. Gritten, Anthony and King, Elaine: 203-220. Farnham: Ashgate.
• Flick, Uwe. (2014). An Introduction to Qualitative Research. Chicago, IL: Sage Publications.
• Follino, Federico (1608). Compendio delle son tuo se feste fatte l’anno MDCCVIII nella citta`di Mantova, perle realinozze del serenissimo prencipe D. Francesco Gonzaga con la serenissima infante Margherita di Savoy. (Summary of the Sumptuous Celebrations of 1608 in the City of Mantua) (Chiro, Giancarlo & Marino, Simone, Trans.) Mantua: Osanna. (Original work published 1608).
• Fraunce, Abraham. (1588). The Arcadian Rhetorike. London: Thomas Orwin.
• George, Thayil J. S. (2016). M. S. Subbulakshmi: The Definitive Biography. Mumbai: Aleph Book Company.
• Godøy, Rolf and Leman, Marc. (Eds.). (2010). Musical Gestures: Sound, Movement, and Meaning. New York: Routledge.
• Gritten, Anthony and King, Elaine. (Eds.). (2006). Music and Gesture. Aldershot: Ashgate.
• Gritten, Anthony and King, Elaine. (Eds.). (2011). New Perspectives on Music and Gesture. Farnham: Ashgate.
• Gurumurthy, Premeela. (1994). Kathakalaksepa: A Study. Chennai: University of Madras Press. Austbø, Håkon; Crispin, Darla; Sjøvaag, Jonas. (2015). “The Reflective Musician: Norwegian Artistic Research Programme” Retrieved from https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/86413/86414/0/0
• Haynes, Bruce. (2007). The End of Early Music: a period performer's history of music for the twenty-first century. New York: Oxford University Press. Heywood, Thomas. (1612). An Apology for Actors. London: Nicholas Okes. Facsimile, New York: Garland.
• Knight, Douglas M. (2010). Balasaraswati: Her Art and Life. Wesleyan: Wesleyan University Press.
• Krishna, Thodur M. (2013). A Southern Music: The Karnatic Story. Noida: HarperCollins Publishers.
• Leante, Laura. (2014). “Gesture and Imagery in Music Performance: Perspectives from North Indian Classical Music” The Routledge Companion to Music and Visual Culture, (Eds. Shephard, Tim and Leonard, Anne: pp. 145-157. New York: Routledge.
• Le Faucheur, Michel. (n.d.). Traitté de l’action de l’orateur ou de la prononciation et du geste. (Cox, Nicholas Trans.) London. (Original work published 1657)
• Mason, David. (2006). “Rasa, ‘Rasaesthetics’ and Dramatic Theory as Performance Packaging” Theatre Research International. 31(01): 69-83.
• Menon, Indira. (1999). The Madras Quartet: Women in Karnatak Music. Chennai: Lotus Collection.
• Nair, Sreenath (Ed.). (2015). The Natyasastra and The Body in Performance: Essays on Indian Theories of Dance and Drama. London: McFarland.
• Narayana Menon, V. K. (1963). Balasaraswati. New Delhi: Inter-National Cultural Centre.
• Palisca, Claude V. (1989). The Florentine Camerata: Documentary Studies and Translations. New Haven: Yale University Press.
• Palisca, Claude V. (1985). Humanism in Italian Renaissance Musical Thought. New Haven: Yale University Press.
• Pearson, Lara. (2013). “Gesture and the Sonic Event in Karnatak Music” Empirical Musicology Review, 8(1): 2-14.
• Pirrotta, Nino, & Elena Povoledo (1982). Music and Theatre from Poliziano to Monteverdi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Poursine, Kay. (1991). “‘Hasta’ as Discourse on Music: T. Balasaraswati and Her Art” Dance Research Journal. 23(2): 17-23.
• Quintilian, Aristides. (1922). The Institutio Oratoria of Quintilian. (Butler, Trans.) Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
• Rahaim, Matt. (2012). Musicking Bodies: Gesture and Voice in Hindustani Music. Wesleyan: Wesleyan University Press.
• Rahaim, Matt. (2008). “Gesture and Melody in Indian vocal music” Gesture. 8(3): 325-347.
• Rink, John. (2015). “The (F)utility of Performance Analysis.” Artistic Practice as Research in Music: Theory, Criticism, Practice, Ed. Doganthan-Dack, Mine: pp. 105-119. Farnham: Ashgate.
• Sankar. (21.01.2009). “The Carnatic Dancer” https://nowandhere.wordpress.com/2009/01/21/aruna-sairam-the-carnatic-dancer/
• Schechner, Richard. (2001). “Rasaesthetics” The Drama Review. 45(3): 27-50.
• Soneji, Davesh. (2011). Unfinished Gestures: Devadasis, Memory, and Modernity in South India. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Soneji, Davesh. (Ed.). (2012). Bharatanatyam: A Reader. London: Oxford University Press.
• Toft, Robert. (2014). With Passionate Voice: Re-creative Singing in Sixteenth-century England and Italy. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Vatsyayan, Kapila. (1963). “Notes on the Relationship of Music and Dance in India.” Ethnomusicology. 7(1): 33-38.
• Wright, Thomas. (1604). The Passions of the Minde in Generall. London: Valentine.