Academy of Creative and Performing Arts
About this portal
The portal is used for the presentation of dissertations, papers, essays, artistic work, and work-in-progress of the ACPA PhD candidates. Furthermore, it is used by supervisors and other coaches to insert comments on the work of these candidates.
contact person(s):
Marcel Cobussen ,
Gabriel Paiuk url:
http://www.hum.leiden.edu/creative-performing-arts/
Recent Activities
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Ebifananyi : a study of photographs in Uganda in and through an artistic practice
(last edited: 2023)
author(s): Andrea Stultiens
connected to: Academy of Creative and Performing Arts
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
In Luganda, the widest spoken minority language in Uganda, the word for photographs is 'ebifananyi'. However, 'ebifananyi' does not, contrary to the etymology of the word photographs, relate to light writings. 'Ebifananyi' instead means things that look like something else. 'Ebifananyi' are likenesses.
This research project of Andrea Stultiens explores the historical context of this particular conceptualisation of photographs and its consequences for present day visual culture in Uganda. It also discusses the artistic practice as research method, which led to the digitisation of numerous historical collections of photographs. This resulted in eight books and in exhibitions that took place in Uganda and in Europe.
The research was conducted in collaboration with both human and non-human actors. These actors included photographs, their owners, Ugandan picture makers and visitors to the exhibitions that were organised in Uganda and Western Europe. This methodology led to insights into differences in the production and uses of, and into meanings given to, photographs in both Ugandan and Dutch contexts.
Understanding differences between ebifananyi and photographs shapes the communication about photographs between Luganda and English speakers. Reflection on the conceptualisations languages offer for objects and for sensible aspects of the surrounding world helps prevent misunderstandings in communication in general.
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The deep-rooted microtonality of the bass clarinet
(last edited: 2023)
author(s): Henri Bok
connected to: Academy of Creative and Performing Arts
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
The existing literature only partly acknowledges the microtonal possibilities of the bass clarinet, restricting the options mainly to quartertones. When measured, the results of the proposed fingering patterns are often approximative.
This PhD project of Henri Bok proposes a new microtonal approach of the bass clarinet, further developing the instrument’s capability to produce not only exact quartertones, but also smaller units: eighth-tones and 31-tones. The ‘root-overtone’ microtonality of the bass clarinet is explored as well, using the natural overtones which can be generated on top of roots, as a means to create more microtonal variants, often in the form of nano tones. The numerous fingering patterns that are the outcome of this research have been documented in the appendices. All these fingering patterns are shown in combined audio/video recordings. Instruction and demonstration videos clarify the different subjects of this research. Audio recordings illustrate the use of the microtonal bass clarinet playing in the pieces which were the result of the collaboration with several interested composers. The findings are also applied in a number of compositions of the author. The extension of the bass clarinet’s microtonal possibilities presented here will allow bass clarinettists, composers and other instrumentalists to inform and enrich their creative processes.
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The 'cello' in the Low Countries : the instrument and its practical use in the 17th and 18th centuries
(last edited: 2023)
author(s): Elske Tinbergen
connected to: Academy of Creative and Performing Arts
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
This research of Elske Tinbergen is only available in Dutch.
In 20e-eeuwse naslagwerken is niet veel geschreven over de cello in de Lage Landen in de 17e en 18e eeuw, wat doet denken dat het instrument in die tijd hier niet of amper gebruikt werd. Echter, geschreven en pictoriale bronnen alsmede instrumenten en bladmuziek uit deze twee eeuwen geven wel informatie. Op basis hiervan kan gesteld worden dat de cello in de Nederlanden veel meer gebruikt werd dan gedacht. Er werden hier instrumenten gebouwd, er werden zeer veel afbeeldingen geproduceerd (schilderijen, maar ook bijvoorbeeld gebruiksartikelen zoals tegels, drinkglazen en
zilver) en er is ook een substantiële collectie muziek voor cello gecomponeerd, zowel voor cello solo als cello continuo.
De meest verrassende uitkomst van het onderzoek is wel dat er door veel cellisten in de 17e eeuw een andere streektechniek (n.l. onderhands) werd gebruikt dan in de 18e eeuw. Deze uitkomst wordt ondersteund door een overweldigende collectie afbeeldingen. Deze andere streektechniek resulteert in een andere klank en articulatie wat een ander karakter aan een muziekstuk geeft.
Daarnaast is er uitgebreid onderzoek gedaan naar Alexis Magito, lid van een beroemde 18e-eeuwse Rotterdamse familie van voornamelijk kermisklanten maar ook van enkele musici. Alexis was cellist, componist en graveur. Tijdens dit onderzoek is veel informatie over zijn levensloop boven water gekomen. Twee van zijn cellosonates zijn door de promovenda op cd gezet.
Conclusie: het onderzoek laat zien dat de cello ook in de Lage Landen wijdverbreid was en dat er vele verschijningsvormen en speelwijzen waren.
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Imagined Voices : a poetics of Music-Text-Film
(last edited: 2023)
author(s): Yannis Kyriakides
connected to: Academy of Creative and Performing Arts
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
'Imagined Voices', a research by Yannis Kyriakides, deals with a form of composition, music with on-screen text, in which the dynamic between sound, words and visuals is explored. The research explores the ideas around these 'music-text-films', and attempts to explain how meaning is constructed in the interplay between the different layers of media.
Issues that initially arose out of the research, were directly related to the question of 'voice': Who is narrating? And where is the voice located? These questions became more pertinent after noticing a phenomenon occurring during performances of these works: that when we read text synchronised to music, we become very aware of an inner voice silently reading along. This effect of hearing one's own voice in the music, was a discovery that had many consequences for the ways in which the ideas about listening and the role of multimedia could function within music.
In the creative work of the research, that has resulted in over thirty works of 'music-text-film' the media are set up to highlight ways of listening that puts emphasis on the role of the listener/spectator. A state of limbo is created between the narrative voice of the text and the implied voice of the music, due to the absence of a conventional focal point to pin it on - an actor or a singer. The thesis suggests that because of this vacancy and the way the projected word takes the place of the sung or spoken voice, the inner voice of the audience becomes activated. This then becomes a vital immersive dimension in the performance, as the inner voices of the audience find their place within the fabric of the music.
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Audible absence: searching for the site in sound production
(last edited: 2023)
author(s): Budhaditya Chattopadhyay
connected to: Academy of Creative and Performing Arts
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
Ambient sound is a standard term used by sound practitioners to denote the site-specific background sound component that provides a characteristic atmosphere and spatial information in a sound work. In this project Budhaditya Chattopadhyay sets out to examine how ambient sound is used as a site-specific element to create spatial awareness in sound production. Taking a critical attitude towards the notions of diegetic sound, mimesis, presence, artistic transformations of soundscapes, and technological innovations, the project highlights the inherent similarities and differences between the ways ambient sounds are used in film and sound art; the aim has been to investigate how the latter practice informs the former and vice versa. The dissertation cites examples from a substantial number of representative Indian films and focuses on three of the recent sound artworks. These case studies are examined via critical listening, historical mapping, and thorough analyses of the sound production processes. The project also draws inputs from prominent sound practitioners in the form of semi-structured interviews.
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Discantare Super Planum Cantum : new approaches to vocal polyphonic improvisation 1300-1470
(last edited: 2023)
author(s): Niels Berentsen
connected to: Academy of Creative and Performing Arts
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
Today’s performances of medieval polyphony have a lot in common with those of other ‘classical’ or ‘early’ music. Ensembles perform pieces written by known or lesser known composers, which the listener can revisit by listening to recordings or reading a score. In the middle ages, however, the performance of compositions was only one of the ways available to singers for creating polyphonic music. The ability to improvise a second or third voice above a plainchant melody, called discantare super planum cantum (‘singing above the plainchant’) or cantare super librum (‘singing on the book’), was a crucial skill for a church musician in the middle ages, and singers were trained at this from an early age.
Niels Berentsens’ project aims to expand our knowledge of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century polyphony, through music-historical scholarship as well as practical experiences. An in-depth investigation of the material remains of late medieval musical culture—compositions and theoretical writings about music—forms the basis for experiments with polyphonic improvisation above plainchants together with colleague-singers and students. The project has developed new ways of understanding late medieval polyphony, which are useful not only for teaching and analysis, but which may form a stimulus for contemporary performance practices of early music as well.