Deepening Understanding
Featured Beyond Pronunciation: Exploring the Intertwined World of Intonation Contour and Melody in Chinese-American Art Songs
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Xiaoming Tian
Chinese language’s intonation is often underestimated by singers and overlooked in analysis. However, in the realm of Chinese-American art songs, intonation serves as a powerful medium of cultural hospitality, inviting listeners into a rich tapestry of linguistic and musical traditions. This paper critically examines how intonation contours shape melodic composition in Chinese-American art songs, particularly through the work of Chen Yi. By integrating vocal pedagogy, linguistics, music theory, and Chinese opera history, this research delves into Chen Yi’s “Monologue” and reveals how traditional Chinese musical elements merge with language intonation, enriching her musical expression. This interdisciplinary approach not only highlights the cultural and linguistic nuances of these compositions but also frames them as acts of artistic hospitality, where diverse cultural elements are welcomed and celebrated. Through this lens, we explore the dynamics of cultural exchange and the power of music as a hospitable space for different traditions to converge. This research underscores the significance of intonation in Chinese vocal performances, fostering a deeper appreciation and understanding of Chinese-American art songs.
Performance of Hospitality: Mouth as a Site of (un)Welcome
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Hurmat Ain
In my research I explore the site of mouth as the tongue’s resting place, turning to the metonymy of tongue and its performative and linguistic meanings to address issues of (South Asian) cultural identity: performance through speech, taste, and sexuality. The tongue metonymy, I argue, helps to focus discussions of hospitality around the migrant’s body, politics of identity, and place in a globalized world. I further examine definitions of hospitable spaces, using the mouth as example: it is where introductions of foreign objects take place. The image of the open mouth with tongue on display troubles ideas of intimacy and disgust or raw interiority against a polished exterior. The liminal and transient framing of the mouth as a site of negotiation of power and the encounter of possible (in)hospitality between the local/insider and the foreigner/outsider is a central setting in my project. To illustrate these connections, I analyze the work of contemporary artists, Bani Abidi and Mithu Sen who contribute to the discourse on hospitality and its limitations through a wide body of work on the subject. Sen repeatedly returns to the image of the mouth, its interiority, and visceral drawings/sculptures of tongue in her seminal works, To have and to hold (2002) and Border unseen (2014). In my paper, I read these and other performance works as troubling binaries of East/West, host/guest, public/private and colonizer/colonized.
