Knowing‐through‐Performing

Music may be considered a form of “knotting,” as Ingold (2015, 18) puts it, in which “contrary forces tension and friction are productive generative outcomes.” Interdisciplinary approaches to performative ways knowing have grown exponentially since Blacking's (1973) ethnomusicological research among the Venda late 1950s. Studies sound, sense, performativity flourished multitude strands contested positionalities. In recent review interwoven perspectives on sensorial research, Howes (2019) details breadth sensory experience, range from “sensory models” cultural interaction (Classen 1990; 2005) anthropological writings about fieldwork ethnography” (Pink 2009) developed through “sensuous scholarship” (Stoller 1997) complex processes “sensational knowledge” (Hahn 2007). this multilayered approach sensoriality, scholars continued refine well critique analytic around “sensualization” discipline. Tim (2011, 314, 316) highlights concerns with that derive “representational theory knowledge production” tendency separate senses lead “closed epistemologies.” Rather, he argues researchers should attend “the social life” (326), particular, how affordances influence perceiver, whereby perception is understood an interlinked exchange nexus relational experiences (see Gibson 1979; 2000). Drawing upon John Dewey, (2018) further analyzes engaged “being-in-the-world” enfolds “doing” into wider sense “undergoing” incorporates continuous renewal past present. Other elaborated various dimensions ecological perceptual case studies performance practices, including music audition (Clarke 2005),1 sonic materiality voice (Weidman 2014, 2015), power vocal vibration create felt “atmospheres” (Eisenlohr 2018), kinesthetic, Indigenous, improvisatory (Daughtry 2015; Downey 2002; Elliott Culhane 2017; Magowan Wrazen 2013; Svašek Meyer 2016; Tamisari 2008). The three articles volume take up diversity song, deaf experience overarching remit reorient Western biases away authorial primacy textual knowing-as-performing dynamics habitual artistic but every characterized emergent, responsive, contingent, attuned enaction. Two focus techniques histories performing sound song spiritual while third article attends challenges being song-signing. Each variously addresses themes relationality, resonance, empathy, access, illustrating critical exchanges between expressive receptive sounding-voicing seeing-listening, whether performer, listener, or sign-language user. Stéfane Aubinet's begins by raising issues Sámi yoik can invoke echoes present environmental relations (re-)sounding presences affect connection people, animals, places landscape. Yoiking thus interweaves historical interpersonal co-presencing participation performativity, those who share repertoire able converse melodically each other beings. Yoiks open both genders all ages, member community will their own yoik. Thus, it honoring another sing someone else's Distinct concepts singing, rhythmic melodic also inseparable evocation powers they refer therefore recognizable animals themselves. As Aubinet notes, citing Ánde Somby, actually ultimate applause you get yoiker.” all-pervasive evidenced ability yoiker sustain deceased keep memory spirit alive. Empathy key animal, action akin actor, although effects viscerally impactful. one noted, she would not wolf for fear manifesting evil herself due its status sometimes associated devil reindeer herders. It might said, then, skill yoiking highlight relationships some yoikers seek avoid danger unless know handle carefully. For others, gives them opportunity express deep devotion admiration these creatures, thereby enlivening even yoiker's imagination. lyrics accompany enable intensification invocation detract it. assert language seen different yoiking, still incorporate accentuate “presentification” experience. Ultimately, practice caring others environment. encodes history, family, over time allows networks compassion extended outwards humans nonhumans. examining enduring Sami powerful listeners, invites us think critically we our interactions singers text. By extension, consider deeply evocative practices writing speaking work. This raises issue authors generate themselves writers together participants readers We overflow becoming intertextual methods summon participatory, imaginative, intercorporeal affinities subjects text, presence co-presence. evocations, enter dialogue mutual accountability recompose subject matter imaginary sonic, musical, (inter)action, come moved evocations. analysis questions assess what happening process soundings performance. What given sounding inhalation, exhalation, vocalizing incantation? knowing-through-yoiking, breathing, patterns, musical develop enskilled continuum muscular movements, require fine adjustments achieve appropriately tuned postural most effective timbral resonances. These immersive bodily tensions art singing become “knotted” audience's attention extent becomes expression “optimal experience” flow (Csikszentmihalyi 1990). Carola Lorea takes question relation practitioners Bengali esoteric teasing out inseparability experiencing subsumed bodies, breath, psycho-physical practice. early sessions her teacher, describes down texts slowly repetition, at same commenting “bhab: hardly translatable term, meaning emotion, mood, ecstatic feeling, feeling divine.” Despite scholarly efforts escape textually privileged knowing, ethnomusicologists anthropologists often rely script mnemonic catalyst re-create forms enhance greater oral/aural proficiency. Indeed, resonates my taught women north east Arnhem Land. However, developing proficiency listening-sounding-singing fundamental order understand just heard “spatio-acoustic mosaic,” Feld's renowned account rainforest birdsong Papua New Guinea illustrates. When Kaluli describe “dense, multi-layered, overlapping, alternating, interlocking” texture human loss, multiplicity “insides,” “underneaths,” “resonances” interleave “lift-up-over-sounding” (Feld 1982, 86). moving beyond repertoires, considers sounds “feel” body and, thus, “sacred intentionality,” Baul Matua songs. Although distinct philosophies affective shape yoik, tonalities resonate body, curative potentialities. context, transformation related overflow, drenching listeners life-giving properties. emerge cosmological cosmogonic vibrations reverberations two-sided drum Brahma, interlinking seed substance song. To adept performer-listeners requires ready encounter new world-making. Given benefit understanding, academic practice, listening assist decolonizing remain otherwise muted academia. Whose implied such onto-epistemological shifts entail without impinging others’ “rights interests” drawing (Nakata 2002, 283)? Recognizing convergences Indigenous non-Indigenous responsiveness constantly evolving changing circumstances, rather than replacing modality 286). situation rights true too convergence nondeaf members, assumed “epistemic authority” former needs better aligned communication modalities latter, Robinson outlines “Knowing DEAF-Listening: Epistemologies Ontologies Revealed Song-Signing.” Kelly Fagan thorny problem access uncovers exclusion unwittingly imposed people do fully appreciate sign systems holistic engagement semiotics signing. brings fore nature hearing prejudice differences occur understandings speaking-singing DEAF participants, illustrate distinctive knowing. political undercurrents injustice embedded population's treatment deafness reveals need perspective centered terms. impairment, emphasis visual terms “reading” facial expressions listen heightened, does feel vibratory responses. explains, “tactile reach” extends world person “listen better.” “reach” song-signing must going embodied significance determining ACCESS generated. distinguishes ACCESS, legalities entails making suitable provision increasing recognition place facilitate inclusion. Creating consonant difficult manage events. shows, two domains venues, when appearance interpreter did align aesthetics performance, creating dissonance dancing. separation exacerbated disjointed spatial location interpreters stage, marginalize using inequality communication. There appears taken-for-granted assumption hearing-speaking epistemology being-in-the-world experienced has effect disempowering primarily visual-tactile expression, ultimately exclusion, injustice, marginalization. important address development anthropology within knowing-through-performing begun innovations arise reposition experiential “knot” relying emergent processes. age where virtual reality digital media applications growing exponentially, equally challenging human, inviting alternative modes engaging last decade, collaborations research-funding bodies increasingly toward reflexive integration methodologies span arts, humanities, sciences. “reflexive practitioner,” however, long been concept participatory arts socially co-learning, imagining, co-creating (see, e.g., Freire [1970] 2005). parallel expanding possibilities ethnographic multimodal experimentation generating interdisciplinarity. Ideas once focused specific genres invite thinking diverse fields inquiry, urban planning, public health, conflict studies. Consequently, there cross-fertilization ideas prompted relationship rethought. example, reconceptualizing idea color “a physical environment,” Brazilian artist, Helio Oiticica proposed path “‘transmateriality,’ ephemeral, transitory phenomena (anything actions extrasensorial experiences) produce leave material traces back point forward similar events any longer yet manifest” (Schneider Wright 2013, 14). kinds resonances visually sonically evoked work pioneering artist Bill Fontana's installation Shadow Soundings, comprising live-streaming, recordings, video footage 25 de Abril Bridge Lisbon, Portugal. Exhibition visitors move freely high atrium space large beanbags cushions spread floor lie flat gaze absorb light, traffic movements bridge.2 artists taken advantage intensifying aesthetic audio-visual realities draw awareness crises. composer, Leah Barclay's “Listening Underwater” highlighted conservation audible previously unheard depths waterways world. Alternative extend theater, thespianism actor word very moment utterance, imagination, echo, enaction, actors immersed potentialities Voicing immanent “though first only words spoken” (Rodenburg [1997] 2020, xxiii). Similarly, ethnochoreologists listening, responsiveness, enskilling instrumental, vocal, dance relearning habituated practices. Moving attending detailed precision hand arm gestures foot precise transformations consciousness absorbed activity time. Yet, seems fewer adopted acting analytical “sensual practical understanding” (Lindsay 1996, 201).3 Perhaps less unwilling learn creates dilemma character, frame audience “what eyes” (Hastrup 1998, 30; cited Wilkinson-Weber 2012, 150). Nonetheless, stage offered significant opportunities reflect character (that simultaneously oneself self) virtuosic capacity track frames reflection. Theater origins Jerzy Grotowski's Polish Laboratory Theatre, incorporated perspectives, Eugenio Barba's International Theatre Anthropology, sought find common principles regardless traditions (D'Onofrio 2018, 3). Peter Brook's Centre Research toured globe materials, Colin Turnbull's Ik Mountain People, director-performer Phillip Zarilli's builds Richard Schechner Victor Turner, trains “actors Asian martial arts” Since efforts, contemporary theater change theoretical approaches. Some companies combine insights mode opening imaginaries audiences. Manifesto Poetico co-directed international anthropologist, Paige Allerton. Their dramatic trilogy, Epic Borders, held second projects Northern Ireland August 2019. Entitled “Belfast 1919,” was hosted produced Patrick O'Reilly, director Tinderbox. Using “spatial dramaturgy” clever implementation elastics “morphopoiesis”4 space, movement, across borders, political, historical, conceptual bordering debordering.5 large-scale, multimodal, collaborative works deal legacies conflict, intergenerational trauma, peacebuilding. “Sounding Conflict: From Resistance Reconciliation,” AHRC/ESRC Partnership Crime Conflict Security Project6 Senator George J. Mitchell Institute Queen's University Belfast, brought musicians, artists, directors, curators, interdisciplinary sciences team drawn anthropology, science, exploring creative responses though storytelling, variety environments influences impacts performativities peacebuilding.7 return positioning center inspired look “bring joyful, playful spirit” (Singh Guyer 2016). Singh provocation unusual juxtapositions help students discover reimagine history. “canonical ghosts,” trouble canonical stasis possibilities, “allowing mark us” (Brandel 2016, 206–7). Malaby (2009, 210) proposes playfulness involves disposition experimentation, “marked interest uncertainty challenge perform arises competition, legitimacy improvisation innovation premise indeterminate circumstances encourages.”8 trend dislocate demands reflection implications “schizophonic”9 creativity power, performativity. play works, Lorea's attest, contexts crux obligation. value potentiality vital life-force animate[s] activate[s] energies inspiration, invention” (Heble Caines 2015, 2). series Acting Together: Performance Creative Transformation Conflict, Cohen, Gutierrez Varea, Walker 6) concern “reciprocity perceivers/participants engaging” (emphasis original). They so ethical complexities production context-sensitive seeking respect difference recognize vulnerabilities sounds, images, acts entail. follow Lederach's (2005, 5) call “venture mostly uncharted territory artist's way applied change, canvases poetics relationships, imagination discovery” based four elements, placing heart recognizing “interdependence,” “even [one's] enemies”; “cultivating paradoxical curiosity” contradictory positions; openness inclusive disposition; “risk-taking,” “peacebuilding . journey guided risk” (Cohen, 2011, 11–12). A arena artistic, performative, indeed gained momentum, stemming action, producing multisensoriality, purpose facilitation, types encounters generated, spaces practice-led performed located. quest continues perturb “how differently” (Lather 200). Even more perceptions empathy voicing, empathic itself inequalities imbalances, F. Robinson's commentary complete times, analyze now under threat. “manipulates” “modifies” hear affectively, rapidly shifting altered 40) leaving reverberating impressions globe. COVID-19 resonances, remains disentanglements disruptions impacting socio-somatic knowing-though-performing. Furthermore, ask moments crisis increased facing deaf, disabled, conflict-torn societies, impact flows exchange, digitally mediated entanglements.