“TALKING MODERN: GENDER, TECHNOLOGY, AND MUSIC MAKING IN BURMESE MOVIES”
Jane Ferguson
Associate Professor of Anthropology and Southeast Asian History
School of Culture, History, and Language
Australian National University
From the early days of sailcloth cinemas, musical performances are essential to the film experience in Burma. The industry’s transition to sound-on-film “talkie” production enabled greater use of diegetic music making (characters that sing or play instruments as part of the story). This facilitated new kinds of ideological discussions about music in the movies. Following discussion of the historical context of the Burmese film industry, this presentation will explore ideas of musical performance and gender, as presented in colonial as well as post-colonial era Burmese movies.
Jane M Ferguson is Associate Professor in Anthropology and Southeast Asian History at the Australian National University, and currently the Fuller Visiting Professor of Southeast Asian Studies at Ohio University. Her research interests include ethnicity and nation in Myanmar and Thailand, Burmese cinema, unpopular culture, and passenger aviation. She is the author of Repossessing Shanland: Myanmar, Thailand, and a Nation-State Deferred, published by the University of Wisconsin Press.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JaneMFerguson