This dissertation provides both an historical outline and contemporary ethnographic account of the Panamanian musical practice called “música típica popular,” which is commonly understood in Panama to denote a specific kind of vernacular music that is widely embraced. By examining the social-historical processes, events and discourses that have contributed to the genre’s development, this study seeks to develop greater understanding of what I argue is this music’s particular and pronouncedly ambiguous relationship to prominent themes of Panamanian cultural nationalism. Specifically, I endeavour to show that early on in its history música típica popular epitomized Panama’s (liberalist-identified) national ethos of progressive modernity and cultural cosmopolitanism while at the same time maintaining alignments to specific territories and musical practices significant to Panamanian vernacular imaginaries. The historical outline covers música típica popular’s development beginning from the late nineteenth century to the present. Its focus is on the genre’s tandem commercialisation and massification, performance and production technologies and associated performance modalities, shared musical/sonic traits, repertoire and approaches to innovation through musical mixing or fusión (fusion). One of the central goals here is to trace and examine points of alignment between música típica popular and dominant paradigms governing isthmian geo-cultural self-identification—particularly the interplay between a rural-identified “vernacular” culture and the perceived urban cosmopolitanism of Panamanian metropolites. Through ethnographic research this study also aims to examine the various sonic, social and economic factors that contribute to notions of música típica popular as a particular socio-musical collectivity actively in dialogue with discourses of Panamanian national and cultural identity. To this end, notions of “genre” and “style” provide an analytical framework particularly for coming to terms with the interplay between sensibilities of convention and common practice, and a need for meaningful differentiation among practitioners. It is my contention that while música típica popular practitioners actively cultivate links both to themes of Panamanian music-cultural vernacularism and cosmopolitanism, on the whole the relationship of the genre to nationalist discourse should be more properly understood as one of sustained ambiguity: not wholly aligned to one theme or the other, and in fact doggedly and often productively resistant to such binary categorizations.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Cette thèse en recherche-création est une réflexion sur l’espace du geste-son. La dé- marche artistique de l’auteure, reposant sur six éléments : le corps, le son, le geste, l’image vidéo, l’espace physique et l’espace technologique, a été intégrée dans la conception d’un système de captation de mouvement en vision par ordinateur, le SICMAP (Système In- teractif de Captation du Mouvement en Art Performatif). Cette approche propose une nouvelle pratique performative hybride. Dans un premier temps, l’auteure situe sa démarche artistique en s’appuyant sur les trois piliers de la méthodologie transdisciplinaire : les niveaux de Réalité et de perception (le corps et l’espace-matière), la logique du tiers inclus (l’espace du geste-son) et la com- plexité (éléments du processus de création). Ces concepts transdisciplinaires sont ensuite mis en relation à travers l’analyse d’œuvres arborant un élément commun à la démarche de l’auteure, soit le corps au centre d’un univers sensoriel. L’auteure met ensuite en lumière des éléments relatifs à la pratique scénique susci- tée par cette démarche artistique innovante à travers le corps expressif. Le parcours du performeur-créateur, menant à la conception du SICMAP, est ensuite exposé en passant par une réflexion sur l’« instrument rêvé » et la réalisation de deux interfaces gestuelles pré- paratoires. Sous-entendant une nouvelle gestuelle dans un contexte d’interface sans retour haptique, la typologie du geste instrumental est revisitée dans une approche correspondant au nouveau paradigme de l’espace du geste-son. En réponse à ces recherches, les détails de la mise en œuvre du SICMAP sont ensuite présentés sous l’angle de l’espace technologique et de l’application de l’espace du geste- son. Puis, les compositions réalisées lors du développement du SICMAP sont décrites d’un point de vue artistique et poïétique à travers les éléments fondateurs du processus de création de l’auteure. La conclusion résume les objectifs de cette recherche-création ainsi que les contributions de cette nouvelle pratique performative hybride. / This research-creation thesis is a reflection on the gesture-sound space. The author’s artistic research, based on six elements: body, sound, gesture, video, physical space, and technological space, was integrated in the conception of a motion capture system based on computer vision, the SICMAP (Système Interactif de Captation du Mouvement en Art Performatif – Interactive Motion Capture System For Performative Arts). This approach proposes a new performative hybrid practice. In the first part, the author situates her artistic practice supported by the three pillars of transdisciplinary research methodology: the levels of Reality and perception (the body and space as matter), the logic of the included middle (gesture-sound space) and the com- plexity (elements of the creative process). These transdisciplinary concepts are juxtaposed through the analysis of works bearing a common element to the author’s artistic practice, the body at the center of a sensorial universe. The author then puts forth elements relative to scenic practice arisen by this innovative artistic practice through the expressive body. The path taken by the performer-creator, leading to the conception of the SICMAP, is then explained through a reflection on the “dream instrument” and the realization of two preparatory gestural interfaces. Implying a new gestural in the context of a non-haptic interface that of the free-body gesture, the topology of the instrumental gesture is revisited in response to a new paradigm of the gesture-sound space. In reply to this research, the details of the SICMAP are then presented from the angle of the technological space and then applied to the gesture-sound space. The compositions realized during the development of SICMAP are then presented. These works are discussed from an artistic and poietic point of view through the founding elements of the author’s creative process. The conclusion summarises the objectives of this research-creation as well as the contributions of this new performative hybrid practice.