Radically Embodied Performance as Musical Structure

Radically Embodied Performance as Musical Structure (REPaMS) is an Artistic Research project that intersects insights and methodologies from Contemporary Philosophy, Music Ontology, Performance Studies in Music, Musicological Research, Music Analysis and Contemporary Performing Practices to describe, analyse and explore performer's creative agency, in particular relation to complex/experimental guitar notations and performing practices within Western Art Music.

REPaMS is centrally advocated on recent compositional practices evidencing a performative transformation of musical material, in which sound- producing actions are immanent layers of the music itself – as if the composer is bypassing the performer as a person and scoring directly for her body – challenging the performer's role as a creative agent and urging to rethink the paradigm of music performance as the representation of the work structure as an ideal. Instead, in this research it is pursued a notion of musical structure that is radically embodied, aiming for performer-specific notions of both musical structure and music analysis. Based on the premise that performers do not reproduce but create musical structures, by examining recent notational/performing practices as both products and processes, REPaMS pursues an artistic research methodology in which the interaction between notations, artistic practices and further non- musical elements emerge as process.

Taking as case studies major guitar works by Richard Barrett, Aaron Cassidy and Wieland Hoban, as well as by collaborating with emerging composers and approaching improvisational and notational practices, REPaMS examines the interaction between body and notation in shaping musical structures, taking the body as an extension of musical form itself. This approach to experimental performance seeks to reconfigure musical works as mediated through their virtual images, addressing what Paulo de Assis has recently labelled as 'hypermusic', that is, 'music that factually (and not only implicitly) includes component parts that go beyond music itself'. REPaMS will contribute to building analogical bridges between analytical and embodied perspectives, exerting an impact on artistic and research practices, formats of presentation for artistic research outputs, and performance pedagogy. The REPaMS project is supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme and is hosted at the Orpheus Instituut, with primary supervision by Paulo de Assis.