The Local Arrangements Committee is pleased to offer the following evening workshops.
SATURDAY (October 25)
8:00pm-9:00pm WORKSHOP 1: New England contradance, co-sponsored by the SEM Dance Section (Beckham Hall, Fayerweather)
SUNDAY (October 26)
8:00pm-9:00pm WORKSHOP 2: Solkattu with David Nelson (Fayerweather Theater Rehearsal Room)
A hands-on introduction to solkattu, also known as konakkol, South India’s language of rhythm. The patterns and processes of Karnatak rhythm will be presented using the teaching method David Nelson has developed at Wesleyan since 2000, recently published as Solkattu Manual by Wesleyan University Press. Participants will be given an overview of the subject, and specific exercises designed to develop basic rhythmic skills and demonstrate fundamental Karnatak rhythmic concepts.
David Nelson, mridangam, has been performing and teaching South Indian drumming since 1975. From his principal teacher, the renowned T. Ranganathan, he learned to accompany a wide range of styles, including Bharata Natyam, South India’s classical dance. He has a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University, where he is Artist in Residence in South Indian drumming. He has accompanied well-known artists throughout the United States, Europe, India, and China. He has also written extensively on South Indian drumming, including a major article in the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music and a recently released book published by Wesleyan University Press.
A reception sponsored by Wesleyan University Press to celebrate the release of David Nelson’s new book, Solkattu Manual: An Introduction to the Language of Rhythm in South Indian Music, will immediately follow the workshop.
8:30pm-9:30pm WORKSHOP 3: Javanese gamelan with Harjito (World Music Hall)
The Javanese gamelan orchestra is made up primarily of bronze percussion instruments such as metallophones and gongs, but also features drums, wooden xylophones, flutes, strings, and singers. Gamelan music is often performed during ceremonies, rituals, and special events as well as to accompany shadow puppet and dance performances.
In this hands-on workshop on Javanese gamelan, participants will learn about the instruments that make up the gamelan orchestra, the various tuning systems, as well as traditional performance techniques. While gamelan music emphasizes the ensemble element of performance, the mastering of individual techniques contributes to the melodic tapestry of the sound as a whole.
I.M. Harjito is a graduate of Indonesia’s state conservatory for the traditional performing arts in Surakarta, Central Java, where he worked closely with one of the major figures of 20th-century Javanese music, R.T. Martodipura. Harjito has taught Javanese gamelan and directed ensembles in Indonesia, the United States, Canada, and Europe. He is also a composer of traditional and innovative works for gamelan and other instruments. An Artist in Residence at Wesleyan University for over twenty years, he also teaches Javanese gamelan at Brown University and UMass Dartmouth and serves as artistic director of the Gamelan Kusuma Laras ensemble of the New York Indonesian Consulate.
9:30pm-10:30pm WORKSHOP 4: Shape Note Singing with Neely Bruce and Tim Eriksen (Memorial Chapel)
Tim Eriksen and Neely Bruce will offer a practical introduction to the music of The Sacred Harp (1991 edition) — American four-part harmony, a cappella, over a period of 250 years. Come ready to sing! No prior experience necessary. Eriksen (MA, ethnomusicology, Wesleyan ‘93) is an eclectic musician who has worked as a consultant in Hollywood, and for MIM, “the world’s first global music instrument museum.” Bruce, on the Wesleyan music faculty since 1974, is a composer, performer and scholar of American music.
MONDAY (October 27)
8:00pm-9:00pm WORKSHOP 5: Afro-Brazilian Dance with Gleide Cambria, co-sponsored by the SEM Dance Section (Crowell Concert Hall)
This workshop will explore the movements and gestures of some orixás (deities of the religious culture of candomblé) as they are used in the context of contemporary Bahian afro dance and some of the main movements and steps used in maracatus, organized groups that parade during carnival in some regions of the Northeast of Brazil – especially, in the State of Pernambuco – with a percussion ensemble and a danced royal procession.
Gleide Cambria is a dancer and choreographer with more than 20 years of experience in different forms of Afro-Brazilian dance. She was born in Bahia, the Brazilian State that is well known for the richness of its African cultural heritage. She is initiated in candomblé (an Afro-Brazilian religion) in the cult house of her grandmother. Among other activities with music and dance, she organized a dance group for the most famous Bloco Afro (a black Carnival group) of the city. With this group (Balé Afro Dilazenze) she worked during 12 years as a dancer and as the choreographer.
8:00pm-9:00pm WORKSHOP 6: Peking Opera Percussion: Reciting Patterns, Performing Percussion, with Po-wei Weng (Beckham Hall)
Percussion music is an essential artistic component occupying a central position in Peking opera performance. It is an integrated complexity encompassing interrelated subsystems of signs that not only form the rhythmic skeleton, but also signify various theatrical and cultural meanings that can hardly be conveyed by melodic instrumental and vocal music in Peking opera.
In this workshop, I will demonstrate how Peking opera performers learn and perform those sophisticated percussion patterns through the following activities: 1. show how to recite luogujing, the “oral notation” of Peking opera percussion; 2. practice a few percussion patterns; and 3. use these patterns to demonstrate how percussion music cooperates with actors in Peking opera performance.
Po-wei Weng (M.A., Ethnomusicology, Wesleyan University; M.A., Musicology, National Taiwan University) is a Ph.D. candidate in Ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University. His musical career began with a ten-year period of professional training in Peking opera as both musician and actor. He was a Chinese flute major in the college and a winner of several Chinese flute competitions in Taiwan. Since he came to the United States in 2004, he has been an active performer of Chinese flute and Javanese gamelan, and also an instructor of Peking opera percussion. As a scholar, Weng has published articles on Chinese operatic and traditional music in Taiwan. His M.A. thesis, Dynamic Interaction: Significance and Communication in Peking Opera Percussion Music (2006), explores the complex signification system of Peking opera percussion, examining how these musical conventions are contextualized into an active and interactive process of performance-building. Weng has also conducted extensive fieldwork on ritual and folk music of Penghu archipelago in southwestern Taiwan, which has resulted in two co-authored books: The Shao-Fa Ritual Music in the Penghu Archipelago (The Bureau of Culture, Penghu County, 2005) and Nanguan and Bayin Music in the Penghu Archipelago (BCPC, 2004). At the doctoral level, Po-wei Weng expands his research interests into film/TV music, music and technology, and music, globalization and post-colonialism. His recent research focuses on the soundscapes of Pili budaixi, a Taiwanese techno-mediated, televised puppetry, and the music in Chinese wuxia/kungfu movies.
8:00pm-9:30pm WORKSHOP 7: Hollywood Film Music: The Studio System and the Individualists with Mark Slobin and Jeanine Basinger (Center for Film Studies Goldsmith Family Cinema)
Jeanine Basinger, Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies and Curator of the Wesleyan Film Archives, Trustee of the American Film Institute and author of many books on Hollywood in the studio era, will discuss the way music was organized in that system and how mavericks such as Alfred Hitchcock and
Orson Welles deviated from the model. Mark Slobin, Professor of Music and editor and author of the new anthology Global Soundtracks: Worlds of Film Music will offer his analysis of selected clips to flesh out the discussion.
A reception sponsored by Wesleyan University Press to celebrate the release of Mark Slobin’s new book, Global Soundtracks: Worlds of Film Music, will immediately follow the workshop.