City Research Online

Abstract

This creative interdisciplinary research project extends current audiovisual practice by developing new strategies for the integration of music, dance and film. Through the digital manipulation and re-contextualisation of audiovisual materials the piece explores the role of embodied actions and interactions in dialogic exchange. Morriña (pronounced mour-een-ya) examines notions of identity as seen through the lens of the diasporic Galician (north-west Spanish) community. The word morriña has no direct English equivalent but can be described as the despondency caused by the nostalgic longing for one's lost homeland. It is intimately linked to large numbers of Galicians who were driven to emigrate in successive waves from the mid-19th Century onwards. The struggle to preserve a Galician identity has, consequently, been at the forefront of regional life, and has resulted in several social, cultural and political projects that have emphasised particular facets of Galician identity such as: a primordial 'celtic' heritage, the centrality of the metaphorical Galician rural land/sea-scape, the importance of the family-agrarian sphere, and a dominant matriarchal orientation. These ideas are simultaneously cherished and rejected by Galician migrants. The piece refers to the gestural and musical aspects of Baile Gallego, a traditional social folk dance form which remains a popular and 'preserved' aspect of Galician cultural identity. The dance and musical traditions refracted in the piece explore the ways in which discrete communities attempt to hold on to perceptions of particular identities and show how memory and nostalgia are distorted over time.

Publication Type:	Composition
Additional Information:	Copyright Miguel Mera 2015
Subjects:	M Music and Books on Music > M Music N Fine Arts > N Visual arts (General) For photography, see TR
Departments:	School of Communication & Creativity > Performing Arts > Music

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