Performance arts of my conpeople and yours

[Salmoneus]

Over on my blog, I'm starting a series on performance arts among my conpeople.
I'm starting with a historical-overview approach, and will look at each art in turn later on.

Any comments, questions?

Alternatively, what have you decided about this topic in your own conworlds?
(By 'performance art' I mean dance, music, spoken poetry, swordfighting displays (oh shit, I forgot about martial arts...), any sort of art based upon human behaviour, rather than on modifying the human environment (eg not painting, woodcarving, architecture, etc))

[Kereb]

the Rheans have a dangerous kind of show-fighting which is basically capoeira with sledgehammers

[Matrix]

Traditional Maja orchestra uses acoustic guitars for the strings section. Some modern orchestra uses an electric guitar or two.

[CatDoom]

Traditional Maja orchestra uses acoustic guitars for the strings section. Some modern orchestra uses an electric guitar or two.

That sounds interesting but, without knowing hardly anything about music, I have to wonder how well a guitar section would work. Is it possible to coordinate a large number of plucked instruments in the same way that you can bowed ones?

I've given some thought to the culture of the ʔuuleo (speakers of my Akana-based conlang ʔuuleomoh), though not a whole lot to the performing arts. Community dances and storytelling performances interspersed with traditional song are common social events. As far as musical instruments go, as a sheep-herding culture descended from nomadic horsemen, I suspect that they would have developed a variety of instruments strung with horsehair or sheep gut, in both plucked and bowed varieties. I'm imagining that the foremost among them would be a long-necked, two-string fiddle similar to the Mongolian Morin huur, which might be accompanied by the zither or lyre and a wide variety of wooden drums and other idiophones. A variety of flutes and whistles are used in dance music, but in other types of songs they are eschewed in favor of instruments that allow the player to sing or speak.

Dance songs are lively and energetic, as are the dances themselves, and among young, unmarried ʔuuleo men they take on the character of an athletic competition, with the participants trying to impress their elders and prospective lovers with their endurance and agility. The music that accompanies traditional songs and storytelling (which are typically blended into a single performance that alternates between verse and prose) are much slower-paced but generally more complex, as they are intended to match and enhance the mood of the episode which they underscore.

It's worth noting that cooking is considered a fine art among the ʔuuleo, and at social gatherings (like dances and storytelling performances) every family is expected to prepare and bring a dish to share. The women of a community earn prestige among their peers if they are known as good cooks, while the men are similarly lauded for their ability to procure rare or high-quality ingredients. As a result, the presentation and discussion of dishes at a community event is highly charged with elements of both performance and politics.

[ivazaéun]

Is it possible to coordinate a large number of plucked instruments in the same way that you can bowed ones?

Indeed it is. There's the pizzicato playing style for strings:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CAXpuPqfv0

...not to mention the superb Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KZjnFZvCNc

[CatDoom]

Cool!

[Salmoneus]

Update!

[Salmoneus]

And the story continues...


Matrix: but the rest of the orchestra is the same as in Europe? Why is that?

[Matrix]

Because I haven't made up the rest of it yet.

[prettydragoon]

The Rireinukave have many and varied kinds of performance art, as you might expect from a starfaring species. Here are a couple that I have especially noticed:

Eiha, a traditional form of theatre, is highly stylised and formalised. The characters are gods, demons, and heroes. The face and body paint and headgear of each actor show immediately who or what she is. The dialogue is stilted and archaic, the action is frequently interrupted by songs. There is a limited number of props, operated by stagehands painted black all over to make them "invisible".

Tañoyora is the martial art that could well be considered the national sport of Rireinu. It is very similar to quarterstaff, except the weapon is a length of steel pipe. Tañoyora was invented a thousand years ago by Remesena, a forest-dwelling ascetic, when she was attacked by some brigands. Unfortunately, in Human tañoyora means 'pole dancing'. This seems to give galactics some very odd ideas.

[Miekko]

A notion just struck me - how common has sex as a (somewhat respected) performance art ever been in human cultures? In the modern world, recorded sex performances are a kind of cheap entertainment, but how about, I dunno, acrobatic renditions of stuff from the racier parts of the Kama Sutra, performed to I dunno, musical accompaniment? Flourishing ribbon dances?

I guess some aspects of erotic dancing gets pretty close, but intercourse as performance could possibly be a thing cultures could do neat things out of - and also create huge neuroses among its population.

[CatDoom]

I remember a sci-fi story about a man who goes to a seedy establishment in a bad part of town to watch other people eat a meal in a dim, smoky room. Then he goes home and has sex with his wife right on the front step when she greets him at the door.

The Turin Erotic Papyrus shows nubile figures depicted similarly to images of dancers in other texts performing a variety of unusual and acrobatic sex acts with a comically dumpy-but-well-endowed man. It's unclear what it's meant to represent, but it was probably intended for display, since the art is of high quality and would have been expensive to commission. A fragment of hastily-scrawled caption reads (I'm not making this up) "..come behind me with your love, Oh! Sun, you have found out my heart, it is agreeable work..."

The scroll seems to be a satire of some kind, but if the activities of the courtesan reflect any kind of reality, then some of that stuff must have taken a good deal of training and practice...

[Salmoneus]

End of the history section!


Miekko: good question, although it does sort of presuppose a concept of "sex". I'd also note that although 'recorded sex performances' can be cheap entertainment for us, they can also be regarded as high art (unsimulated sex scenes in a highbrow film is as arty as you can get). Not to mention that a lot of sex scenes in mainstream films would probably be considered 'watching people (start to) have sex' in some cultures.

In terms of 'respected' performance art, one big stumbling block may simply be that performance artists are not normally respected no matter what the art, at least if they're there to entertain (rather than 'art' that is underlyingly religious, for instance). It's relatively rare for performers even to be notable, and even when they're notable there's usually something not wholly respectable about them. [Even as late as the twentieth century, at least in England a respectable man announcing that he was going to marry an actress would still draw shock and disappointment from relatives. Musical performer of highly artistic music I think had escaped from that during the 19th century, but only because of the immense cult of musical genius - they presented themselves not as mere performers but as almost religious figures driven by internal compulsions]

This is probably because performers generally are hierarchically transgressive, with people of quite low status being able to interact with people of high status. Both their employers and their abandoned class-cohorts view them with suspicion.

Also, both with sex and with performance, respectability is questionable. Prostitutes are sex performers in the sense of performing for their clients, and often in the sense of performing by themselves or with each other for an audience; they have often been highly 'respected' in some sense (for their beauty, intellect, wealth, power, etc), but not in the same way in which other people have been respected.


But yes, sex has often (always?) been used as an art. The Romans, in particular, made extensive use of sexual displays for entertainment, public and private, including both voluntary sex and rape.


[The Là do use what we would consider sex as a performance art, though that's only hinted at in the above (more details in the art-by-art descriptions); however, they themselves define sex differently]

[Salmoneus]

First of the art write-ups: salungàhara

The salungàhara is a sort of cross between amateur dramatics and therapy / religious ritual.

[Melbcentrix]

I've been developing a kind of male life
discipline suite of physical practices for the Latropeth
speaking deer tribe people that I'm calling
Primalistics (it includes hunting rituals , dance,
focus and self discipline ) and is hinted at
in my word compendium
melbcentrix.wordpress.com
A sort of primal tribal testosterone
loaded suite of integrated practices

[Salmoneus]

Finally put up another section: the somyangahàra. A form of formal lyric (and often comic) poetry.