ABSTRACT
So far, I have considered the place of song (ladhiw) in the context of an Amis village. These observations have centred on ladhiw as one half of a conceptual dichotomy whose other facet is yinyue. In setting up this distinction, I have referred to yinyue – or music – in default terms of what ladhiw is not; I have also described Amis song in terms of Shelley Errington’s (1994: 202–4) and Thomas Turino’s (2008: 23) frameworks, whereby ladhiw can be seen as having been appropriated (by Amis and non-Amis agents) from participatory modes to become presentational performances. This chapter is a selective refining of the above process – not so much in the context of a geographical space (village or otherwise) or event (Kiloma’an or otherwise), but in the construction of social groups and social identities: I examine the overlapping communities and subject positions of village singing ensembles, church choirs and national cultural troupes – each presenting a specific version of Amis-ness on some form of proscenium stage. I am concerned with the following questions: What might the term ‘performance’ – vis-à-vis ladhiw – mean to an Amis singer? Is there an Amis equivalent of this concept? How do varying styles and contents of ‘performance’ have an effect upon processes and products, across different groupings of singers and audiences? How can Bolter and Grusin’s (1999) concept of remediation apply to these different processes, which see new formats reworking and re-acknowledging earlier and still-existing ones, instead of completely replacing the incumbents with immediate difference and newness?
