https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4230-825X
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ABSTRACT
This article encourages further discussion of certain concepts and practices for the music theatre creations by the composer Constança Capdeville (1937-92) in keeping with the time and context of her compositions. Her music theatre works incorporate by a certain hybridism as they juxtapose various artistic expressions such as dance, music, and theatre. Throughout the 1970s, the performance concept as understood today was not fully recognized, either by composers or by the performers, who collaborated with Capdeville within the context of the Portuguese music scene. In this regard, the composer António de Sousa Dias believes this stemmed from the tendency to connect the term with performance art or with certain positions linked to happenings or free improvization, which were not the main concern of Capdeville. Given the difficulty in classifying her musical works, we here discuss some etymological issues around the performance and re-performance concepts. Capdeville’s music theatre works combine different artistic expressions leading us to reflect on documentation strategies including interdisciplinary approaches from fields such as (digital) philology, computer science, archiving research and performing arts documentation, detailing here some perspectives and practices currently applied for preserving such artistic productions.
Acknowledgements
I would like to dedicate this article to the pianist Olga Prats (1938-2021) who greatly contributed to the progress of my research, providing me with new knowledge that is very useful for understanding certain aspects of performance. A special thanks, therefore, to Olga for her dedication and friendship.The article was made with the support of CESEM – Centro de Estudos de Sociologia e Estética Musical da NOVA FCSH, UID/EAT/00693/2019, with the financial support of FCT through National funds.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 In the beginning, this group consisted of Constança Capdeville (direction, interpretation and composition), Alejandro Erlich-Oliva (double bass), João Natividade (choreography, dance, movement and mime), Luís Madureira (voice), Olga Prats (piano), Oswaldo Maggi (mime), António de Sousa Dias (assistant director, percussion, sound synthesis). Subsequently, the group underwent changes, incorporating new members and replacing others.
2 ‘Ela situava-se um pouco como Varèse que, quando lhe perguntavam se estava à frente do seu tempo, ele respondia que estava no seu tempo, os outros é que estavam atrás.’ António de Sousa Dias interviewed by Magalhães in Lisbon on January 6, 2017.
3 Personal notes by Constança Capdeville provided by Janine Moura.
4 Luís Madureira, member of ColecViva, interviewed by Magalhães in Lisbon on February 24, 2021.
5 Integrating the Tanztheater Wuppertal and the Pina Bausch Foundation, both directed by Salomon Bausch. Available at: http://www.pinabausch.org/en/home (accessed on 12.11.2020).
6 Exhibition presented between September 21, 2018 and January 20, 2019, at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence.
7 An exhibition that took place between November 9-15, 2005, at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Available at: http://pastexhibitions.guggenheim.org/abramovic/ (accessed on 25.09.2020).
8 See: https://pomeranz-collection.com/?q=node/39#flou (accessed on 16.03.2021).
9 In this context, iterability is understood as an action or a process of repetition, hence the capacity for an act to be repeated in different contexts in a performance.
10 Such as Rudolf Von Laban (1879-1958), who used geometric figures to represent movements in dance.
11 Note that in Capdeville’s performances, the magnetic tape acquired a significant role, applied as a musical instrument/performer, and therefore sometimes eliciting the need to analyse waveforms through specific software (e.g., Sonic Visualiser) to distinguish between the recorded and the acoustic sounds, and inputs or outputs of the usage of recordings during performances.
12 Focused listening without using any other source of information.
13 This different practice is characterised by applying various music-related documents (e.g., information on the recording) and music representations (e.g., scores, feature visualisations) while listening.
14 See: https://tkb.fcsh.unl.pt (accessed on 05.01.2021).
15 See: http://www.memorekall.com/home-en.php (accessed on 10.01.2021).
16 See: https://blackbox.fcsh.unl.pt/home.html (accessed on 05.01.2021).
17 ‘MotionNotes is a real-time multimodal video annotator based on keyboard, touch and voice inputs. Its main differentiating character is that it allows video recording in real-time and taking notes directly over the running video.’ Available at: https://motion-notes.di.fct.unl.pt (accessed on 25.06.2021).
18 João Natividade, interviewed by Magalhães in Colares on June 7, 2021.
19 For further information, see: http://logiciels.pierrecouprie.fr/?page_id=672 (accessed on 05.01.2021).
20 Numbering assigned by the composer Carlos Alberto Augusto, at that time the sound technician who collaborated with Capdeville, also responsible for assembling the tapes and their operation during the performance.
21 Designation attributed by the composer: Intervention 1, Intervention 2 […] Intervention 8.
22 The audio tape recording corresponding to the live performance from 1982.