Articles
Article | Art-cycle model: a holistic approach toward artistic experience in music performance
Alfonso Benetti and Aoife Hiney, both researchers at the Instituto de Etnomusicologia - Centro de Estudos em Música e Dança (INET-md), published the article “Art-cycle model: a holistic approach toward artistic experience in music performance” in the journal Music Performance Research (V.12 - Special Issue on Artistic Research), available in open access.
This article proposes an art-cycle model based on autoethnographical practice aiming toward the sustainable development of the performer’s agency through documenting, evaluating, and understanding their musical practice and experiences. Literature relating to the evaluation of the performer’s musical practice tends to rely on external parameters, rarely focusing on whether the performer’s needs are met. Furthermore, there appears to be a dichotomy between the rehearsal process and the live performance experience, as they are frequently treated as separate entities, whereas we argue that musical practice is a cyclical process, an art-cycle, with phases of rehearsal punctuated by moments of performance that are followed by rehearsals. To address issues relating to the academic validity of the artist’s experiences and the development of the performer’s agency as an artist/researcher, the art-cycle model is based on autoethnography, affording a sustainable and flexible means of investigating the art-cycle from the performer’s perspective. Therefore, we suggest that the proposed model could be incorporated into the performer’s practice to analyze, evaluate, and disseminate their experiences through an interaction between critical self-reflection with art-making and artistic output, producing new and pertinent knowledge compatible with both artistic subjectivity and academic prerogatives.
