Current Project and Lens to Philippine Ethnomusicology
Tuesday, April 9th, 2024 from 4:00pm–6:00pm
2960 Broadway, Room 701C (The Center for Ethnomusicology), Dodge Hall, New York, NY 10027
ABSTRACT:
The sense of loss -- or survival at the edge of attention and audibility -- gives substance to the stories of marginalization of indigenous peoples in some Southeast Asian regions. Such narratives drawn from these regions are part of my project of song cycles. I trace this project from 2016 when I extended my research about the ideological substrates of the "Binanog" (Panay Bukidnon's hawk-eagle music dance tradition, Philippines) to research on a range of bird-inspired dances practiced among Southeast Asian indigenous groups, such as the Tai-Yai of Thailand, the Bidayuh of Malaysia and the Hmong of Laos, among others. My Asian Cultural Council-funded (ACC) project titled "Voices Lost in Industrial Winds" draws upon a range of sound sources, especially chants and rhythms that echo socio-political, economic, cultural, and other issues relevant to my research participants and their communities. I link my creative-research project to one of the many forms of Philippine Ethnomusicology's practices and methodologies, providing a perspective to its otherwise multi-and-dynamic countenances.
SPEAKER BIO:
Maria Christine M. Muco is Professor at the University of the Philippines-College of Music. She is a recipient of the 2023-2024 Asian Cultural Council Fellowship (NY and ASEAN), the 2022 Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Fellowship (Italy), 2016 Fulbright Foundation senior scholarship, and the 2016 Japan Foundation Asia Center (JFAC). Her publications include Sibod: Ideology and Expressivity in Binanog Dance, Music, and Folkways of the Panay Bukidnon, Ateneo Press, National Book Award (Philippines) finalist in 2017; "Visual Depictions and Ponderings: Sinday-Muro and Other Beings of Panay Cosmology", Humanities Diliman Journal, vol. 21, no. 1, July-December 2023, U.P. Press; "Indigenous Spirituality and Christianity: Rites, Music, and Crises among Panay Natives", Filipinas Journal, 2022; "Ang Limog sa Sugidanon", Mga Pag-aaral sa Epikong Bayanng Filipinas: Tradisyon, Lipunan, Inobasyon. NCCA, 2020; "Binukot and Nabukot: From Myth to Practice, Humanities Diliman Journal, vol. 14, no. 1, July-December 2016, Q.C., Philippines: U.P. Press; Mumunting Tinig, New Works for Children's Choral Pieces, NCCA, 2015; "As Healers Dance: A Processual View of Panay Bukidnons' Babaylan in Motion", and Back from the Crocodiles Belly. Sta. Rosa, California, U.S.A.: Center for Babaylan Studies, 2013.
Performers: Nicole Eliev (soprano), Yuk Shing Tang (pianist), Titus Levi (baritone)
Songs' lyricists: Jesus Insilada, Perla Supetran, Feliza Castor, Jocelyn Evangelyo, Master Sangkram, Kaying Lor, and Bidayuh Wynner.
