Thursday, 10/10 Professor Chun-bin Chen @ APEA & EthNoise

Please join us for the first APEA workshop of the academic year for a special workshop jointly hosted with EthNoise.

Chun-Bin Chen (Associate Professor, Taipei National University of the Arts)

Highway Nine Musical Stories:

Musicking of Taiwanese Aborigines at Home and in the National Concert Hall


 

Please note the special time and location of this workshop, Thursday, October 10th 5:00-6:20pm in Rosenwald 301.

Abstract

Taking “On the Road,” a musical theater production of Taiwan’s National Theater and Concert Hall as an example, this paper deals with musical modernity of Taiwanese Aborigines. Premiered in 2010, “On the Road” was a collaboration between Taiwan National Symphony Orchestra and Puyuma Aboriginal musicians from Nanwang Village. Located on the southeast coast of Taiwan, this village is connected with the National Concert Hall by Highway Nine, at a distance of about 230 miles. Beneath the simple plot of the musical about how a Han-Taiwanese musician brought the Aboriginal musicians to perform at the Hall, there seems to be another story being narrated through the performance of the songs. This hidden story is an Aboriginal musical story spanning the time from the period of Japanese colonial rule (1895-1945) to recent years when Aboriginal musicians have achieved recognition in Taiwan’s music industry. By examining how the songs were composed and how they were performed at the both ends of Highway Nine, I aim to trace trajectories of contemporary Puyuma Aboriginal music. The trajectories indicate impacts of the Japanese school song education, assimilation policies of Japanese and Chinese governments, and the Modern Folksong Movement. The Aborigines’ musicking, however, demonstrates a form of aboriginality celebrating family values and indigenous identity as a response to the musical modernity related to the settler impacts. This study thus may help us understand how socio-cultural interactions between the Aborigines and settlers shape contemporary Aboriginal music and how the Aborigines create, convey and perceive its meanings through musicking.

 

There is no pre-circulated material for this workshop.

Refreshments and catering by Shinju Sushi will be served at the workshop. We look forward to seeing you there!

 

Jiayi Chen and Sabine Schulz

Coordinators, Art and Politics of East Asia Workshop

 

Art and Politics of East Asia is a long-standing workshop that provides a unique space for graduate students working on the cultural production in China, Korea, and Japan. Our workshop brings together students from a wide range of disciplines, including East Asian studies, comparative literature, cinema and media studies, history, art history, and anthropology. We provide a collaborative space for attending to specific methodological and theoretical problems posed by the study of East Asian texts, media, and performances. At the same time, we continue to examine the pressing issue of what it means to study East Asian artistic forms and media beyond the boundaries of national cultural histories. To these ends, we hold meetings in which graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, and outside faculty are able to present and discuss their academic work. We also hold round-table discussions on issues of particular interest to graduate students studying East Asia.

For questions related to accessibility or accommodations for those who may need assistance in order to participate, please contact jiayic@uchicago.edu and sabines@uchicago.edu.

jiayic

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