Book launch seminar with Sven Bjerstedt

The book launch is followed by a round-table talk between Sven Bjerstedt, associate professor at Malmö Theatre Academy and Professor David Roesner at Ludvig Maximilian University in Munich, one of the world's foremost researchers in the field of musicality and theatre. Roesner will be having a lecture at IAC at 10 am on the same day. Learn more here

The seminar is held at Inter Arts Center. Please register to jan [dot] michelsen [at] thm [dot] lu [dot] se (Jan Michelsen) if you wish to participate at IAC.

Join via Zoom
Meeting ID: 625 7435 8794
Password: 527564

Book abstract

Art forms tend to mirror themselves in each other. In order to understand literature and fine arts better, we often turn to music, speaking of the ‘tone’ in a book and of the ‘rhythm’ in a painting. In attempts to understand music better, we turn instead to the narrative arts, speaking of the ‘story’ of a musical piece. This book focuses on two examples of such conceptual mirror reflexivity: narrativity in jazz music and musicality in spoken theatre. These intermedial metaphors are shown to be significant to the practice and reflection of performing artists through their ability to mediate holistic views of what is considered to be of crucial importance in artistic practice, analysis, and education. This exploration opens up possibilities for new theoretical and practical insights with regard to how the borderland between temporal art forms can be conceptualized.

The book will be of interest not only to scholars of music and theatre, but also to those who work in the fields of aesthetics, intermedial studies, cognitive linguistics, arts theory, communication theory, and cultural studies.

Review

"In this beautifully conceptualized, composed and articulated book, Sven Bjerstedt explores the storytelling qualities of jazz performances and the musicality of theatre. Based on in-depth, meticulous interviews with leading figures in both jazz improvisation and theatre, interwoven with rich and informed scholarship, this manuscript is a compelling read." Liora Bresler, Ph.D. College of Education, and College of Fine and Applied Arts,University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Professor Emerita.

Learn more about Öresund Collegium for Artistic Research