Open AccessA chronotopic approach to identity performance in musical numbers: a choreo-musical case study of ‘Rewrite the Stars’ and ‘This Is Me’
Author(s) -
Nashwa Elyamany
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
visual communication
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.432
H-Index - 35
eISSN - 1741-3214
pISSN - 1470-3572
DOI - 10.1177/1470357220974069
Subject(s) - musical , agency (philosophy) , narrative , identity (music) , sociology , entertainment , chronotope , aesthetics , psychology , linguistics , visual arts , art , social science , philosophy
Musical numbers, as viral modes of entertainment, influential forms of visual culture and catalysts of popular discourse are dense with multivariate aesthetic performers, and are interlaced to punctuate the melodramatic narrative texture in advancement of the plot and characterization in musical films. Performing identity through dancing bodies has been the subject of several film, music, culture, performance and communication research endeavours yet has rarely been explored from multimodal discourse analysis perspectives. To examine the ‘resilient identities’ underlying performances, the article adopts an eclectic approach informed by the Bakhtinian chronotope with regard to two numbers drawn from a recent American musical film in order to pinpoint: (a) the full repertoire of multimodal resources of narrative agency and identity performance; (b) the emotional experiences evoked by the musical numbers; and (c) the social practices that constitute, maintain and resist social realities and identities. The unconventional approach to the analysis of the musical numbers is what makes the current research project stand out among interdisciplinary studies of musical discourse.