recurrence (in two parts)

Authors

  • Julia Ulehla Postdoctoral Fellow, Queen's University

Abstract

This essay explores the author’s process of trying to understand how to responsibly forge a relationship with traditional song heritage given conditions of ethnocultural rupture. Weaving together Slovácko folk songs transcribed by the author’s great-grandfather, an archival recording of the author’s grandfather, audio/video documents of her own embodied performance, dreams, folk tales, and analysis, the piece meditates on the many facets of “living song” (živá píseň). The author explores her process of learning how to approach the life of song, and how songs might be cared for. The performance of practice-based research is posited as a means to confront and dismantle patriarchal white supremacy within one’s body and spirit, thereby making possible the recovery of exiled strands of self and the forging of ancestral connections.

Author Biography

Julia Ulehla, Postdoctoral Fellow, Queen's University

An artist-scholar, Julia Ulehla received a PhD in ethnomusicology from the University of British Columbia, where she held the Killam Doctoral Fellowship. She is currently a SSHRC postdoctoral fellow in the Cultural Studies Department at Queen's University.

Downloads

Published

2023-07-07

Issue

Vol. 9 No. 1-2 (2023): Performing Practice-Based Research

Section

PBR and Embodied Narratives of Identity

License

Copyright for articles published in this journal is retained by the authors, with first publication rights granted to the journal. By virtue of their appearance in this open access journal, articles are free to use, with proper attribution, in educational and other non-commercial settings.

Manuscripts submitted to Performance Matters should be original works that have not been published elsewhere. Note that authors are responsible for obtaining permission to include copyrighted material in any article or review published in Performance Matters.