Disembodying from the embodiment :
a research into music performance and its physical dramatisations
Dr Nellie Seng / Music Nellie Seng is a pianist, pedagogue and mother. A graduate of the Juilliard School and the Graduate Center, City University of New York, Nellie is currently the Head of Keyboard Studies at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore. Her key interests in research include healthy technique and the post-injury recovery of musicians; as well as the study of movement and sound. Under the auspice of the DAR:E project, Nellie’s study on artistic embodiment was an exploration on how physical embodiment became a performer’s Achilles heel to music performance.
9
Performative Research
From what research is
To what research does
This research has sought to raise awareness of the alignment between physical embodiment being action, and sound. Quite often, one hears the comment: “looks so musical” in a concert or in a performance class. In short, the embodiment of a feeling; the act of musical performance has become a physical manifestation of that feeling which has eventually been taken to the forefront of the stage. It could be said that an audience now expects visual excitement, but visual excitement may detract from the focal point of music being a highly auditory sense. Ironically, audiences no longer listen but rather, they watch music.
