Authentic Bodies: Diverse Embodiment and Disabled Identity in String Performance Practice.
Tools
Tools
Gallagher, Niamh. 2025. 'Authentic Bodies: Diverse Embodiment and Disabled Identity in String Performance Practice.'. In: Performance Studies Network International Conference 2025. Guildhall School of Music & Drama, London, United Kingdom 10 - 13 July, 2025. [Conference or Workshop Item]
|
Text
Performance Studies Network_7th International Conference_Programme_0.pdf - Supplemental Material Download (1MB) | Preview |
Abstract or Description
This presentation was a part of a panel entitled: For Embodiment in Music Performance. With Mira Benjamin, Scott McLaughlin, Emily Worthington, Tim Parker-Langston and Bea Hebron.
‘Embodiment’ is an umbrella term that acknowledges the various ways of knowing that are held – lived, experienced, enacted, practiced – in human bodies. Embodied work is positioned at the intersection of creative and critical methodologies, emerging from the ‘practice turn’ (Schatzki et al., 2001) and aligning with post-textual (Small, 1998; MacArthur, 2010) and practice research (Bulley & Sahin, 2021) discourses in music and sound. Embodied research (Spatz: 2017) thus proposes a wide range of activities – from performance to sound design to listening – as spaces of being-doing-knowing (Nelson, 2022) and recognises technical, sensory, affective, perceptual and tacit knowledge forms as investigative territories. In technological and/or ‘cyborg’ (Dyer & Kanga, 2023) musicking, the embodied perspective reframes questions of agency and situatedness between practitioners and materiality.
This themed session explores the multivalent implications of embodied frameworks for research in music performance – spanning historical instrumental and vocal performance practices, experimental performance with technology, popular songwriting, and performance within disability studies. The session will include a provocation (10 mins) and position statements (50 mins), followed by 30 mins of open discussion with panel and attendees. The provocation will be delivered by Mira Benjamin (City UoL) & Scott McLaughlin (Leeds), with panel contributions from Zubin Kanga (Royal Holloway), Emily Worthington (York), Tim Parker-Lamngston (Goldsmiths), and embodied research demonstrations from PhD candidates Niamh Gallagher (Goldsmiths) and Bea Hebron (City UoL).
The session opens with a provocation (Benjamin & McLaughlin), introducing the framework of ‘technique as knowledge’ (Spatz, 2015) which is a connecting thread running through the various panel contributions. We propose embodiment as epistemic (a site of knowledge) and as methodology (a mode of research), and position these perspectives in relation to cognitive and otherwise instrumental theories of embodiment.
Worthington and Parker-Langston present embodied research approaches in historical music performance. Parker-Langston critiques notions of ‘simplicity’ and ‘repetition’ in Fanny Hensel’s Lieder, proposing embodied research as a feminist methodology, and engaging with ‘reparative musicology’ (Cusik, 2008) to envision the dimensions of reparative practice research. Worthington frames Historically Informed Performance as embodied research into the past, proposing practice research methods for historical instrumental performance.
Gallagher and Hebron present audiovisual documentation of embodied research in two distinct performance contexts. Gallagher explores themes of embodied adaptation and authenticity in her project, ‘Authentic Bodies: Diverse Embodiment and Disabled Identity in a String Performance Practice’. Hebron presents embodied technique as a transdisciplinary methodology in her project ‘Songs as Process: Embodied Intersections of Songwriting and Verbal Scoring’.
Kanga, Benjamin & McLaughlin discuss collaborative practice research in McLaughlin’s composition we are environments for each other, in which conventional playing techniques of violinist (Benjamin) and pianist (Kanga) become entangled through a bespoke electric-violin-resonator-piano-feedback system. Drawing on the framework of ‘material indeterminacy’ (McLaughlin, 2022) inherent in performing with musical instruments, we ask how the embodied approaches of two players may form an emergent, coalitional technique through a materially contingent object; an entangled technique.
In presenting these snap-shots of embodiment in a wide range of performance contexts, the panel presentation sets-up a space to discuss how the knowledge-generating work of performance can take a leading role in establishing transmissible and interdisciplinary methods for practice research.
|
Item Type: |
Conference or Workshop Item (Panel) |
||||
| Keywords: |
Embodiment |
||||
| Departments, Centres and Research Units: |
|||||
| Dates: |
|
||||
| Event Location: |
Guildhall School of Music & Drama, London, United Kingdom |
||||
| Date range: |
10 - 13 July, 2025 |
||||
| Item ID: |
39185 |
||||
| Date Deposited: |
14 Jul 2025 09:50 |
||||
| Last Modified: |
14 Jul 2025 10:02 |
||||
|
URI: |
View statistics for this item...
 |
Edit Record (login required) |