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The Abakuá are an all-male ceremonial association founded in Cuba in the 1830s which persist to this day as exponents of a form of Afrocuban folklore. Legally recognized on the island for the first time in 2005, the Abakuá community has asserted its autonomy and criticized state uses of folklore through public performance events. One such event on August 23, 2011, mobilizes members of the community-at-large alongside professional folkloric performers. The participation of Abakuá community members transforms the event from an official-style folkloric show to a community-centered event through changes in performance practice and the intense affect that catalyzes. This changes not only the structure of performance but the significance of the event, as it no longer centers on official messages, but rather becomes a vehicle for mobilizing the community and demonstrating their autonomy. Examining the event in terms of affective politics, this article proposes the concept of feelings of coherence to understand how collaborative agency of performance intersects with intensity of affect and meaning in performance. Using evidence from interviews and observation, the analysis of the event shows how the community successfully re-frame the event and motivate participation through processes experienced by the individual but operating at the level of the collective.

In the era of knowledge economy, social development has higher requirements for artistic talents’ quality. The teaching mode of music and dance in colleges and universities needs to be changed urgently. This study introduced deep learning theory and designed a SPOC teaching mode for music and dance in universities to improve the quality of music and dance teaching. Firstly, the K-means clustering algorithm was used to extract the features of online learning behavior. Radial basis function neural network was used to predict students’ performance to improve teachers’ mastery of students’ online learning behavior. Subsequently, the teaching quality evaluation system was constructed using hierarchical analysis. Finally, the effectiveness of the teaching model was tested. The results showed that under this teaching model, students’ overall literacy score reached a maximum of 11.5, and their average score in music and dance reached a maximum of 94, an increase of 11 points compared to the SPOC teaching mode. This indicates that the teaching mode gives full play to the advantages of SPOC teaching, enhances students’ enthusiasm and initiative in learning, and improves their professionalism and comprehensive quality.

Abstract Smart wearable items are becoming more well recognized and are steadily making their way into people’s lives as a result of the ongoing advancement of technology and people’s growing concern for their health. In this work, we investigate the stimulation of physiological signals and the level of happiness indicated by people’s emotions using the linkage of smart gadgets and biological data. To reduce motion artifacts from wearable PPGs, we first suggest a sparse representation-based approach. To address the issue of poor model generalization brought on by individual signal differences (inter- and intra-individual) in human ECG data, a wearable ECG individual signal difference reduction technique based on Balanced Distribution Domain Adaptive (BDA) is also suggested. In addition to making a significant contribution to the advancement of intelligent control technology, medicine, and other fields, it provides an effective baseline for research on the satisfaction level of group music and dancing based on physiological signals.

Culture and heritage contribute to South Africa’s competitiveness as a tourism destination. By focusing on South Africa’s cultural diversity as a unique competitive factor, more tourists can be reached, thereby increasing the impact of South Africa’s attraction as a tourist destination. However, cultural tourism is challenging to manage because cultural attractions vary in popularity and attract different types of tourists who want to experience culture differently. Although research has already been done in South Africa to promote cultural tourism, a gap in the literature still needs to be bridged. There is a particular gap in the literature on Afrikaner culture tourism. This study intended to determine which cultural elements attract tourists to Afrikaner cultural attractions. Cultural elements can be depicted and presented at a cultural attraction to give a better understanding of the culture in question. Cultural elements can be evaluated according to the importance of the element within the culture and what contribution the element makes to the cultural attraction. Cultural elements can be divided between tangible and non-tangible cultural elements. Tangible cultural elements can be moving or static but can be physically touched, such as, for example, monuments and clothing. Non-tangible cultural elements cannot be handled but transmit cultures, such as music and language. This study aimed to perform an empirical analysis to determine which cultural elements should be presented at an Afrikaner cultural attraction in South Africa. The empirical study consisted of an exploratory research design. It was executed by employing the qualitative method, involving 15 research participants who were followers of six Afrikaner cultural attractions on Facebook websites. A semi-structured interview schedule was used to put questions to the research participants. The interview schedule comprised mainly open-ended questions on demographic information, Afrikaner cultural elements and creative principles of tourism. The results were captured via voice recordings, transcribed into Word and categorised in themes and sub-themes according to Creswell’s six data analysis steps. With regard to the demographic profile, most participants were men, with an average age of 44. A high level of education was evident in the respondents. It was clear from the results that the 15 participants visited Afrikaner cultural attractions many times, while 80% of the participants recently visited the Voortrekker Monument. Orania is the most popular Afrikaner cultural attraction for the participants. From participants’ answers, the term “cultural elements” can be seen as shared cultural goods with which individuals within a culture can relate and give meaning to the culture because it is essential and unique. The study filled a gap by determining that tourists want to experience the following cultural elements at an Afrikaner cultural attraction: history, language, music and dance, food, traditional way of life, faith, monuments, traditions, traditional clothing, cultural festivals, handicrafts, artefacts and archaeological remains, cultural values, art, heroes, architecture and traditional houses. Furthermore, the researchers determined the five most important Afrikaner cultural elements: history, language, music and dance, food and the traditional way of life. Within the history-culture element, tourists want to learn about Afrikaner history, from the European heritage to today, the Great Trek and how Afrikaners stand together, and the wars and battlefields of Afrikaner history. The language-culture element’s presentation must teach tourists about the origins of Afrikaans; specific Afrikaans words, and Afrikaans literature and drama. The Music and Dance cultural element of the Afrikaner culture must focus on folk plays and folk songs and present contemporary “sokkie” and Afrikaans music for tourists. During their experience of the Afrikaner food culture element, tourists want to learn about traditional foods and ways of food preparation, such as biltong, chutney, koeksisters, bobotie and barbecued meat. According to the participants, the traditional way of life of the Afrikaner must, for tourists, showcase the social and community life, such as storytelling and togetherness around meals, as well as the outdoor life, such as farming activities. The study’s recommendations are aimed at marketers and managers of existing or prospective Afrikaner cultural attractions, academics, and the general public, focusing on Afrikaner cultural tourism. The study filled a gap by determining the most important Afrikaner cultural elements for tourists to experience at an Afrikaner cultural attraction. The literature contribution can also be valuable in practice because it is the first study to offer guidelines as to which Afrikaner cultural elements should be the focus of destination and attraction managers and marketers. The study also recommends that cultural attractions use technology to attract and retain a younger market. It is also essential that attractions make a more significant investment in the training of their staff, seeing that the successful presentation of especially the non-tangible elements is largely linked to the quality training of staff. The study also emphasises that combining cultural and food experiences can give an attraction a competitive advantage. Furthermore, the study’s contribution does not have to be limited to Afrikaner culture because unique cultural elements also exist within every other cultural context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Musical Chilena is the property of Universidad de Chile and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

PREVIOUS RESEARCH HAS SHOWN THAT HUMANS tend to embody musical meter at multiple beat levels during spontaneous dance. This work that been based on identifying typical periodic movement patterns, or eigenmovements, and has relied on time-domain analyses. The current study: 1) presents a novel method of using time-frequency analysis in conjunction with group-level tensor decomposition; 2) compares its results to time-domain analysis, and 3) investigates how the amplitude of eigenmovements depends on musical content and genre. Data comprised three-dimensional motion capture of 72 participants' spontaneous dance movements to 16 stimuli including eight different genres. Each trial was subjected to a discrete wavelet transform, concatenated into a trial-space-frequency tensor and decomposed using tensor decomposition. Twelve movement primitives, or eigenmovements, were identified, eleven of which were frequency locked with one of four metrical levels. The results suggest that time-frequency decomposition can more efficiently group movement directions together. Furthermore, the employed grouplevel decomposition allows for a straightforward analysis of interstimulus and interparticipant differences in music-induced movement. Amplitude of eigenmovements was found to depend on the amount of fluctuation in the music in particularly at one- and two-beat levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I present an ethnotheory of the music/dance relationship in Swedish polska, based on dance fieldwork and interviews I have conducted with polska dance musicians. I discuss three mechanisms that these musicians use to communicate movement patterns to dancers: iteration (entrainment via repetition), metaphor (timbral weight conveying motional weight), and sympathy (musicians’ movements mapping dance movements). I then discuss how musicians use these mechanisms to control four motional parameters: pulsation (rate and consistency of tempo), lean (degree and direction of tilt over the dance axis) viscosity (level of perceived air resistance), and libration (degree and timing of vertical motion). The work is intended in part as a case study of how theories of both music and dance can benefit from a focused analysis of the relationship between those two domains, as well as how studies of music/dance relations can benefit from the application of ethnographic research techniques.

The paper portrays the Plazuela de la Campana, a historical small square in the Port of Veracruz, Mexico that fell into ill-use and was revived with a strategy of music and dance events. The case demonstrates how music and dance became a new tradition that nurtures a collective attachment to the Plazuela and contributes to it being regarded as heritage. The privately initiated revitalisation borrows potency from prior nostalgic memories and traditions to overpower the past notoriety of the square. Dance and music, besides creating pleasant associations, effectively build a network of friendships that engages people in the square and through which the history of the place becomes remembered. All these effects deepen the meaningfulness of the Plazuela, which fosters personal affection towards the square and ultimately, it is proposed, translates into a general appreciation—a lesson to be learned for emerging urban planning practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background Cerebral palsy (CP) is a developmental disorder of movement and posture that occurs due to damage to the developing nervous system. As part of therapy, wearable sensors that trigger interactive feedback may provide multi-sensory guidance and motivation. A prototype of a heel-strike real-time feedback system has been developed which records the number of heel strikes during gait and indicates successful heel contact through real-time auditory feedback. The first aim of this feasibility study was to test the prototype accuracy. Since the end user for this device is a child, the device should be esthetically appealing and sufficiently motivating for children to perform repetitive challenging therapeutic movements. The second aim of this study was to collect feedback from the subjects with regard to the device usability and understand if the bell sound used as feedback used was motivating enough for children to continue using the prototype. This would help us in developing the next generation of the device. Methods The prototype was tested with typically developing children and children who have CP. The accuracy in detecting heel strikes was calculated. As part of the study, the subjects were also asked questions to test the device compliance and acceptability of the musical beats with the pediatric population. Results The device accuracy in identifying heel strikes is 97.44% (95% CI 96.31, 98.88%). The subjects did not show any hesitation to put on the device and the sound feedback motivated them to move. Based on this pilot study, a minimum age limit of 5 years is appropriate and the intervention study should be conducted for no more than 30 min per week. Conclusions The pilot study showed that a main study can be conducted to test auditory feedback as an intervention to promote motor learning in children who have cerebral palsy. No adverse event or safety issues were reported in the feasibility study.

Multiple forces vie to control the narratives of the Lingsar festival, a major annual event initiated about 350 years ago that uniquely brings together the indigenous Muslim Sasak and the migrant Hindu Balinese on Lombok, an island east of Bali in Indonesia. This attention to the festival is not surprising because governments, political and religious figures, commercial interests, and tourist industries compete to define and benefit from such events worldwide. Since 1983, I have noticed a variety of changes in religious beliefs, ritual personnel and protocol, interreligious relationships, sociocultural identities, founding narratives, and performing arts over time. Once, this festival featured beliefs and performing arts that were localized, neither truly Hindu nor Islamic, and ingrained into the natural, ancestralized environment. However, the festival had to Islamize and Sasakize (that is, become more Sasak) to retain relevance among the Sasak, and had to Hinduize and Balinize to remain relevant among the Balinese. Despite these changes and increasing pressures from reformist organizations, the festival continues; in fact, it has grown in popularity and, by 2019, attracted up to 50,000 people. A tolerance of ambiguity—allowing for changing and contradictory artistic narratives, multiple ritual positions and interpretations, new positionings of interreligious relationships, and deviation from public rhetoric—has been crucial to maintain the Lingsar festival into the 21st century.

In Venezuela, people of West African descent developed rituals for wellbeing within Catholic contexts. This study analyses performances directed at fulfilling health-related desires. The first is ritual street performance staged as part of Corpus Christi,under the name of the Devils of Corpus Christi. It includes instrumental music, dance, special clothing, theatrica lity and high symbolism. The second performance is the Feast of Saint John, celebrated with drums, songs, dances and rituals. These ritual music festivities also present communal benefits like solidarity, pleasure and unity, since people can express their unique identities through them and use them as acts of resistance.

This paper explores relationships between musical and balletic structure in Balanchine's choreographies of Tchaikovsky's op. 48 Serenade and Stravinsky's Orpheus. It demonstrates how movement in music (phrase shapes, melodic directions) and movement in ballet (in individuals and in the corps de ballet) may respond to one another, especially in how each art form follows and alters its own conventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Cerebral palsy (CP) is a developmental disorder of movement and posture that occurs due to damage to the developing nervous system. As part of therapy, wearable sensors that trigger interactive feedback may provide multi-sensory guidance and motivation. A prototype of a heel-strike real-time feedback system has been developed which records the number of heel strikes during gait and indicates successful heel contact through real-time auditory feedback. The first aim of this feasibility study was to test the prototype accuracy. Since the end user for this device is a child, the device should be esthetically appealing and sufficiently motivating for children to perform repetitive challenging therapeutic movements. The second aim of this study was to collect feedback from the subjects with regard to the device usability and understand if the bell sound used as feedback used was motivating enough for children to continue using the prototype. This would help us in developing the next generation of the device. Methods: The prototype was tested with typically developing children and children who have CP. The accuracy in detecting heel strikes was calculated. As part of the study, the subjects were also asked questions to test the device compliance and acceptability of the musical beats with the pediatric population. Results: The device accuracy in identifying heel strikes is 97.44% (95% CI 96.31, 98.88%). The subjects did not show any hesitation to put on the device and the sound feedback motivated them to move. Based on this pilot study, a minimum age limit of 5 years is appropriate and the intervention study should be conducted for no more than 30 min per week. Conclusions: The pilot study showed that a main study can be conducted to test auditory feedback as an intervention to promote motor learning in children who have cerebral palsy. No adverse event or safety issues were reported in the feasibility study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2005, a ban on dancing in beer bars was brought by the State of Maharashtra targeting the exploitation of bar dancers and the damage to society and public morality that dance bars were seen to engender. In 2006, the ban was successfully contested in the Bombay High Court, and in July 2013, this judgement was upheld in the Supreme Court. In this article, I explore the historical context to the bar girls, the ban and the court cases, and examine the kinds of justice that the court rulings represent. The dance bar ban constituted an almost exact repeat of the anti-nautch campaign of nineteenth-century India that left courtesans and devadasis marginalised from classical performing arts, and the majority of bar girls were in fact from courtesan and dancing girl communities. I also discuss the parallel history of marginalisation of transgender female erotic performers in India. I combine an interdisciplinary approach encompassing expertise on Indian dance and ethnomusicology as well as broader work on South Asia, modernity, gender, law and development. The article synthesises ethnography on the contemporary situation of India’s excluded erotic performers and changing patterns of work and social position and the deeper history of their circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Journal of Nanjing Normal University / Nanjing Shi Da Xue Bao (She Hui Ke Xue Ban) is the property of Nanjing Shifan Daxue and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this essay, we present a comparative analysis of the UNESCO heritage nomination process for two African Diaspora music and dance forms: samba de roda, from the Bahian Recôncavo (a coastal area of the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia), and maloya, from Reunion Island (a former French colony in the Indian Ocean, which is now officially an "overseas department of France"). samba de roda, as the Brazilian candidate, was included in the III Proclamation of Masterpieces of the Intangible Heritage of Humanity, in 2005. And maloya, the French candidate, was inscribed onto the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, in 2009. Despite a number of formal commonalities between samba de roda and maloya, such as responsorial singing, choreography, and the main musical instrument types, the controversies raised during their respective processes of nomination were quite distinct. The former is regarded as a traditional and less well known style of samba, the musical genre widely recognized as the musical emblem of Brazil. The latter competes with séga-a genre of popular music consolidated in the local media-for the position of chief musical representative of Reunion Island. The disparate symbolic identities attributed to these musical expressions pave the way for a distinct manner of employing the international resources related to the safeguarding of intangible heritage. This suggests that the local impact of the inclusion onto international lists depends as much on the contextual particularities of each candidacy as on central decision-making bodies such as UNESCO.