![]() ![]() ![]() Nonetheless, one could argue that Fiol-Matta’s project is rather restorative than revisionist. The other artists explored in the book, Myrta Silva, Ruth Fernández, and Ernestina Reyes were also revered and chastised as only divas are, the “management of their artistic persona” often misread by the general public and industry (8). Though rebelliousness granted creative freedom, it negatively impacted her career. By refocusing male authorship to the sonic power of female androgyny, Lucecita Benítez obtained unprecedented notoriety. The book opens with Puerto Rican singer Luz ‘Lucecita’ Benítez unsettling and masculine performance of “Génesis”, which won the best song in a Chilean song festival in 1969. How should we question traditional considerations regarding the voice and agency of women singers? How should we sustain a feminist listening and archive akin to performance, sound, silences and nuances? These are few of the questions that Licia Fiol-Matta’s The Great Woman Singer: Gender and Music in Puerto Rican Music pursues with archival, critical and theoretical expertise. ![]() Anchored in the work of Lacan, Foucault, and others, Fiol-Matta's theorization of voice and gender in The Great Woman Singer makes accessible the singing voice's conceptual dimensions while revealing a dynamic archive of Puerto Rican and Latin American popular music. Fiol-Matta also breaks with conceptualizations of the female pop voice as spontaneous and intuitive, interrogating the notion of "the great woman singer" to deploy her concept of the "thinking voice"-an event of music, voice, and listening that rewrites dominant narratives. Fiol-Matta shows how these musicians, despite seemingly intractable demands to represent gender norms, exercised their artistic and political agency by challenging expectations of how they should look, sound, and act. ![]() Licia Fiol-Matta traces the careers of four iconic Puerto Rican singers-Myrta Silva, Ruth Fernández, Ernestina Reyes, and Lucecita Benítez-to explore how their voices and performance style transform the possibilities for comprehending the figure of the woman singer. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |