Ritual and transgression: a case study in new music

• Author(s): Carvalho, Sara ; Marinho, Helena
• Date: 2010
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10773/7907
• Origin: RIA - Repositório Institucional da Universidade de Aveiro
• Subject(s): ritual; narrative; performance; transgression; deconstruction
• Document Type: Article
• Language: English

Description

This research lies on the concepts of ritual and narrative as applied in a case study of a musical theatre piece. In traditional musical narrative the focus is on construction, and one could speak of fields around which hierarchies, systems and rules of musical language are built. In this piece we find unpredictable transgressive musical gestures, acted out by performers, combined with conventional narrative procedures. This study aims to demonstrate that the concepts of musical narrative and ritual cannot be seen as isolated objects but as entities of transformation by composers, and how the trilogy composer/performer/listener (audience) is associated with narrative and ritual. Ritual and transgression can thus be linked to traditional concepts of musical narrative connecting composing, performing, and listening activities.