The Choreography of Gender in Traditional Vietnamese Music

Nguyen Thanh Thuy

This Ph.D. project in artistic research is concerned with the function of gesture in traditional Vietnamese music. Building on gender analysis of musical performance in TV shows, and further on autoethnographic inquiry throughout the artistic projects, the artistic output articulates a critical understanding of these practices. The aims of the project are to investigate the social function and meaning of musical gesture in traditional Vietnamese music, and to develop artistic responses that articulate an individual voice. The research questions that emerge from these conceptual and artistic aims are: 1. What gender conventions can gesture analysis of musical performance unveil? 2. In what ways can music created through the choreographic structuring of movement reveal and question gender conventions in musical performance? 3. How can my performance, in intercultural and interdisciplinary artistic collaborations, challenge current gender norms and instigate change in practices of traditional Vietnamese music? The method and design of this Ph.D. project builds on qualitative analysis of gesture in musical performance, with particular emphasis on employing a gender perspective in this analysis. In the artistic work, analysis of gesture has constituted a point of departure for the creation of a series of intermedia works that seek to develop methods that combine the practices of choreography and musical composition. Intercultural collaboration has provided particular challenges and possibilities in the development of each of these works. The results of the artistic work are published online in The Research Catalogue. The outcomes of the project outline how gendered gesture is taught in higher music education in Vietnam, and taken together with the historical overview of how nationalism and communism has shaped the country, that this teaching has an immediate relation to nation branding. The teaching of traditional music is equally related to the commercialised views of women as it is grounded in the preservation of tradition. Further, the development of a practice of composing music using gestural-sonorous objects as material became the central artistic method throughout this Ph.D. project. It has offered novel possibilities of approaching gestural materials and creating new choreographies and music based on a critical approach to the image of women in popular media. The results finally suggest that intercultural and inter-disciplinary artistic practice can propose social change, and provide counter images of traditionally gendered behaviour.

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This Ph.D. project in artistic research is concerned with the function of gesture in traditional Vietnamese music. Building on gender analysis of musical performance in TV shows, and further on autoethnographic inquiry throughout the artistic projects, the artistic output articulates a critical understanding of these practices. The aims of the project are to investigate the social function and meaning of musical gesture in traditional Vietnamese music, and to develop artistic responses that articulate an individual voice. The research questions that emerge from these conceptual and artistic aims are: 1. What gender conventions can gesture analysis of musical performance unveil? 2. In what ways can music created through the choreographic structuring of movement reveal and question gender conventions in musical performance? 3. How can my performance, in intercultural and interdisciplinary artistic collaborations, challenge current gender norms and instigate change in practices of traditional Vietnamese music? The method and design of this Ph.D. project builds on qualitative analysis of gesture in musical performance, with particular emphasis on employing a gender perspective in this analysis. In the artistic work, analysis of gesture has constituted a point of departure for the creation of a series of intermedia works that seek to develop methods that combine the practices of choreography and musical composition. Intercultural collaboration has provided particular challenges and possibilities in the development of each of these works. The results of the artistic work are published online in The Research Catalogue. The outcomes of the project outline how gendered gesture is taught in higher music education in Vietnam, and taken together with the historical overview of how nationalism and communism has shaped the country, that this teaching has an immediate relation to nation branding. The teaching of traditional music is equally related to the commercialised views of women as it is grounded in the preservation of tradition. Further, the development of a practice of composing music using gestural-sonorous objects as material became the central artistic method throughout this Ph.D. project. It has offered novel possibilities of approaching gestural materials and creating new choreographies and music based on a critical approach to the image of women in popular media. The results finally suggest that intercultural and inter-disciplinary artistic practice can propose social change, and provide counter images of traditionally gendered behaviour.
Nguyen Thanh Thuy - The Choreography of Gender in Traditional Vietnamese Music - 2019
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(I will henceforth refer to the piece by its abbreviated title, Vodou Vibrations)

Vodou vibrations sounds of memories of fields and burdens living in translations and broken bows balancing on plateaus while speaking to one self and scratching the surface of the raft while drifting away (2014)

Vodou Vibrations is a choreographed piece for a single performer, but also a site-specific project, with video projections and pre-recorded sounds, performed by me and choreographed by Marie Fahlin. The choreography aims to challenge my habitual movements, into which I have been socialized as a Vietnamese woman and đàn tranh player, by introducing effort through choreographies that explore more forceful and aggressive movement qualities. The music is drawn from a number of sources, including an earlier composition of mine for six đàn tranh. The piece premiered at Inter Arts Center, Malmö in 2014 and has since then been performed in many different venues in Sweden, the UK, and Vietnam.

to the thesis front page

Premiere at Inter Arts Center Malmö Sweden 2014

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