Intercultural Collaboration through Networked Performance

As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to affect individual musicians, ensembles and concert institutions, streaming technology has become a central vehicle through which musicians and audiences can meet. But this forced move to digital presence also suggests new possibilities, beyond the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. This paper discusses how networked performance, a format which has engaged artists for decades as an artform in its own right, may also contribute to the sustaining of cultural heritage among migrant/minority communities as well as to the development of innovative intercultural artistic practices. Building on the experience of our group, The Six Tones, as well as on research carried out by Roger Mills (2019) and Ximena Alarcón Diaz, we wish to develop a more robust understanding of the possibilities, and the limitations, that networked technology affords. The central source of our own work is drawn from Musical Transformations, an ongoing project which studies the intersection between traditional and experimental music in globalized society. We address the role of social interaction in the practice for intercultural collaboration, developed by The Six Tones since 2006, and discuss how such interactions are made difficult when collaborating through mediation of digital technology. In this context we believe that it is possible to also study what the limitations that the technologies impose and what the nature of these limitations amount to. Such a study may be useful also in other areas of digital interaction. Qualitative analysis of video documentation from rehearsals and performances constitute the foundation for the study. In the presentations we further discuss the projected creation of a scene for intercultural exchange at Manzi Art Space in Hanoi, with reference to the first networked performance carried out live on a scene in Hanoi on July 12, 2020, curated by The Six Tones at Manzi. This project situates the discussion even more immediately in the current developments of music culture at the time of the pandemic. The presentation, by the four authors, is supplemented with video from networked performances, as well as interviews with the group and guest performers documented on video. Musical Transformation