10th Symposium of the ICTMD Study Group on Music and Dance in Southeastern Europe

Researchers of traditional music and dance in Southeastern Europe gathered at the Department of Folk Music Research and Ethnomusicology in Vienna. Held from 23 to 29 September, the symposium focused primarily on migration and related processes of othering, as well as on the economic dimensions of movement and sound. The presentations offered a range of thought-provoking perspectives, linking diverse musical practices to affective economies, questions of (re)presentation and identity construction, cultural politics, and heritagization.

Eva Fekonja, a member of the program group Heritage on the Margins, presented an ethnography of the Sevdah Choir Rosa, which she has been following as part of her doctoral research. She focused on the different regimes of heritagization of sevdalinka that emerge within the choir and connected them to the singers’ affective and embodied experiences.

Mojca Kovačič, a researcher at the Institute of Ethnomusicology, discussed the racialization of Roma people and Roma music, as well as the political mobilization of Slovenian folk-pop music and the accordion, taking as her point of departure the ban on street music in Ljubljana during the Christmas season.

The symposium was accompanied by a rich cultural programme featuring traditional music, as well as a field excursion to the village of Stinatz (Stinjaki), home to a Croatian minority community.