Rhythmic Bodies: Amplification, Inflection and Transduction in the Dance Performance Techniques of the “Bashment Gal”

Abstract

This article explores the rhythmic body with the example of the embodiment of the ‘bashment gal’ and the role she plays in the dancehall sound system session. It considers rhythm as an energetic patterning process operating both within and between media. Rhythm provides a means of communication and making sense that does not rely on representation or code. There are three elements to performance techniques of the rhythmic body – amplification, inflection and transduction. Amplification for the bashment gal’s performance techniques involves increasing the size or effort of her dance movements, dancing in a chorus line accelerating her tempo. In what is considered as a hyper-sexualized arena of the dancehall session, it is argued that the bashment gal has to be understood in terms of African traditions where sexual pleasure and fertility are not separate. With rhythmic inflection the bashment gal gives distinctiveness to her performance, as is much prized in the style and fashion of the dancehall scene. The transduction of patterning from one medium to another, via tympanic surfaces, helps to forge the sound system session and the bashment gal as a rhythmic whole and fosters her sense of identity as a rhythmic body.

Markets, bodies, and rhythms: A rhythmanalysis of financial markets from open-outcry trading to high-frequency trading

“…Much of the extant scholarship on Lefebvre's rhythmanalysis examines its potential in empirical explorations of, for example, festival spaces (Duffy et al, 2011), the night-time economy (Schwanen et al, 2012), pedagogy (Hopwood, 2014), street performance (Simpson, 2008(Simpson, , 2012, and various other phenomena relating to cities and the everyday (Cronin, 2006;Edensor, 2010;Goh, 2014;Vergunst, 2010). Others have discussed how Lefebvre's rhythmanalysis connects to his wider oeuvre and how it draws inspiration from and may be related to the work of other theorists, be they rhythmanalysts or not (Borch, 2005;Butler, 2012;Crang, 2001;Elden, 2004;Fraser, 2008;Henriques, 2014;Henriques et al, 2014;May and Thrift, 2001;Mels, 2004;Pantzar, 2010;Prior, 2011;Simonsen, 2005).…”

What More Do Bodies Know? Moving with the Gendered Affects of Place

“…That is, the immanent potentiality of the in-act also suggests that what emerges as a movement may be more than the past. According to Manning every experience is:…always a complex intertwining between what is absolutely what it has become or is becoming (an actual occasion) and what is in the realm of potential and can express itself…(Manning, 2015: 114)A minor gesture comes from experience itself and aligns with the vibratory body (Henriques, 2014). Furthermore, sometimes a minor gesture moves the unconscious towards the conscious (Manning, 2016: 7) as we shall suggest in the cameos below, so opening movement to become ‘more than’ the past, and ushering in a minor politics of affirmation.…”

Moments of friction in virtual reality: How feeling histories impact experience

“…Henriques (2014) defines amplification as a kind of intensity and that “these intensities are expressed across areas and volumes, as pressure, force, effort, heat or auditory volume” (84). Our focus on the amplitude of frictions, in Maria’s case, allows us to consider the relationship among the frictions, particularly as they were “expressed across areas”.…”

“…In an ironic reversal, in this instance, we-as designers-produced a feeling history for Maria earlier in the experience, priming her to read signs and engage with instructions, before stripping that away from her. Henriques (2014) defines amplification as a kind of intensity and that "these intensities are expressed across areas and volumes, as pressure, force, effort, heat or auditory volume" (84). Our focus on the amplitude of frictions, in Maria's case, allows us to consider the relationship among the frictions, particularly as they were "expressed across areas".…”