Accepted Panels

Traditional performing and visual arts, a matter of national proud in many countries today, until quite recently were job of grossly socially marginal communities and groups. Often socially inherited profession, installed in the frame of exchange system, art always was a highly uncertain as a source of incomes. In the middle of 20 century social status of many traditional artistic communities all over the world was still very low. But between the 1900s and 1950s, music, dance and theater went through crucial transformation: from predominantly dependant character it got the status of high art worldwide. Due to crucial changes in patronage and the emergence of the government institutions as main patrons, traditional artistic families were replaced by other forms of social organization of art. The ideas of the “national”, “classic”, and modern, contemporary, emerged and developed. While certain segments of art practice were codified and even became frozen, creating peculiar “museums of art”, or cultural heritage, other parts of practice continue to develop and still are under perpetual transformation. That creates phenomena of so to say “heritagesation” and “exotisation”, wiping out the cultural and social contexts of art and making it alien. Today the situation in various communities, social strata, ethnic groups, whose traditional job is connected to art and performance, varies a lot. While some communities demonstrate some success and social mobility, engaged in national and international festivals, others decline or even vanish. Apart form musicians, dancers and various drama players, there are traditions of story-telling, puppetry, martial and ritualistic art, etc., we want to explore. We invite the participants to talk on the problems of identity, social set-ups and tools to survive, as well as approaches to deal with contemporary problems, noted among various artistic communities – both traditional and modern - of different countries.