AHRC Research Centre for Cross-Cultural Music and Dance Performance
The AHRC Research Centre is unique in its focus upon research questions raised by the performance of music and movement, and their inter-relationships, in African and Asian artistic practice. It co-ordinates the research of 40 academics and performers from dedicated facilities within SOAS, UniS and Roehampton. Research and support staff have specific tasks and are employed for specific periods. Research scholars from other UK institutions are invited to collaborate in short-term projects with Centre researchers, and it is hoped that Centre performer-researchers will travel to other institutions to continue with elements of their research.
The objectives of the Centre are:
- To promote, co-ordinate, and disseminate research on cross-cultural performance with particular reference to Asian and African traditions, fostering and supporting projects at SOAS, UniS and Roehampton, and encouraging the participation of scholars from other universities in Britain and overseas in these research projects;
- To address research questions raised by the performance of sound and movement, seeking a symbiosis between the performance concerns of ethnomusicology and musicology, and exploring analysis methodologies utilized in theatre and dance research;
- To sponsor resident performer-researchers at SOAS, UniS and Roehampton, encouraging collaborative research between practitioners and academics;
- To encourage the development of additional research projects that take further the Centre projects.
The research context of the Centre is framed by the following aims:
- To investigate the interface between sound and movement in African and Asian music and dance traditions;
- To explore theoretical perspectives and methodologies, and evaluate their appropriateness, to understand participants’ conceptualisations of artistic practice;
- To interrogate Western-based criteria for the analysis of non-Western music and dance performance and to explore how non-Western theories and conceptualisations could enrich the analysis and practice of Western performance traditions;
- To examine the mediation of cultural performance in dance and music through technology and institutionalised conventions of production;
- To explore the transformation and interpretation of music and dance heritages
in contemporary performance; - To create systems of documentation and analysis in a variety of media.
