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French vaudeville and its European transformations during the long nineteenth century

Wed 6 and Thu 7 November 2024, Newcastle
Newcastle University, United Kingdom

French vaudeville made a profound impact on stage culture across Europe during the long nineteenth century thanks to the genre’s far-reaching and long-lasting circulation and theatrical influence. Alongside specialist practices of the titular theatre in Paris, the genre was produced across the French provinces and, from Berlin to Copenhagen, familiar narratives were also adapted into various European languages, with the concept and register of the genre translated into new contexts. While the concept, register and labelling of the genre sometimes remained similar, such dissemination at the same time often necessitated or enabled radical ‘afterlives’ including changes to aesthetic parameters or technical practices. This included reshaping the relationship between pre-existing music and text that was so specific to the French tradition, as well as its perceived “low” status, in new contexts.

In this two-day conference, we will explore the multi-layered nature of French vaudeville, investigating its Parisian, provincial, and wider European significance during the long nineteenth century. The genre and its contexts remain understudied compared to its contemporary ‘high art’ dramatic forms, largely due to the fragmented state of archival sources and the difficulties for scholars of reconstructing the ephemeral and corporal aspects of this popular entertainment. During our conference we will seek to address these problems not only by approaching vaudeville’s texts, practices, and cultures from a transnational and interdisciplinary perspective, but by experimenting with practice-based research. Alongside studies of vaudeville’s Parisian context, we invite scholars to engage with the circumstances of the genre’s production, social role and influence(s) in other European centres, as well as examining the power dynamics, continuities and/or transformation inherent in vaudeville’s exportation between cities and across borders.

We welcome propositions for individual papers from scholars of all stages from various disciplines. During the conference we will also encourage delegates to participate in workshop sessions where we shall experiment together with aspects of vaudevillian performance and stagecraft, led by artistic practitioners. The conference will include a dinner, and optional guided tour of the restored backstage of the nineteenth-century Tyne Theatre and Opera House. The conference will culminate with an optional public engagement event as part of the Being Human festival. Delegates are welcome to assist with running this event on the day or to attend in the audience.

Some of the topics addressed at this conference might include, but are not restricted to:

• The institutional contexts of vaudeville in Paris, regional France, and Europe

• Text-music relationship in vaudeville

• Musical reuse: origins, intertexts, and meanings

• The circulation of vaudeville (texts, forms, performance practices)

• Staging vaudeville: practices in set design, costumes, movement, declamation, singing

• Vaudeville and the concept of the ‘popular’

• Vaudeville and cultural/national identity

• Methodologies and approaches for the study of vaudeville

Abstracts should be up to 250 words in length. Please submit these alongside a biography in the dedicated google form. The deadline for application is Monday 3rd June.

Applicants will be notified about the outcome by Monday 1st July. Financial support will be available to cover travel and accommodation expenses for those without access to funding. The main language of the conference will be English.

The organising committee comprises:

Dr Hannah Scott, Newcastle University

Dr Katherine Hambridge, Durham University

Dr Sophie Horrocks David, Durham University

Any questions should be addressed to


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