The study explores the interplay between emotions and the experience of music and dance in trance states. By highlighting the unique and significant role that music plays as a catalyst for stimulating empathy, it examines how the body’s senses are engaged during these experiences while illustrating the subtle distinctions of emotions. It revisits the theoretical frameworks presented by Judith Becker and Martin Clayton concerning "trance" and "entrainment," respectively, through the lenses of biology, psychology, and neuroscience.

Focusing on the folk dance "Dage" from a Thai-Myanmar immigrant community in Taiwan as a case study, the research utilizes concepts from gene-culture evolution and enactivism to investigate the trance experience elicited by the body's movement in "dage". The study examines the materiality of sound and the environment, combined with body movements, to explore how this trance process reflects the coordination between the body, brain, and environmental systems. Additionally, it elucidates the dynamic interactions with social and cultural contexts and delves into the actively immersive emotional expressions involved. Overall, this research contributes to a deeper understanding of the embodied nature of emotional experiences in cultural practices and provides a framework for further interdisciplinary exploration of music and emotion.

This paper explores how maqsum—a foundational rhythm in Middle Eastern music—is adapted within predominantly white, feminist spiritual drum circles across North America. In these settings, maqsum is recontextualized as a “universal” rhythm, often detached from its cultural origins and reframed to fit Western pedagogical and spiritual paradigms. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Ontario, Canada, the study asks: (1) How is maqsum rhythmically and pedagogically simplified to align with North American learning styles, thereby severing ties to Middle Eastern traditions? (2) What ethical and epistemological tensions arise when facilitators who promote feminist ideals assert spiritual authority over a rhythm drawn from historically marginalized contexts?

Engaging scholarship in ethnomusicology, affect theory, and decolonial critique (Ahmed 2004; Arewa 2006; Mignolo 2020; Stoever 2016), the paper theorizes this process as sonic reterritorialization: the absorption and transformation of non-Western forms within colonial frameworks of meaning and value. Facilitators often invoke affective language—describing maqsum as “healing,” “intuitive,” or “viscerally familiar”—to justify its use while obscuring its cultural embeddedness. The conversion of complex rhythmic structures into standardized 4/4 time increases accessibility but also reflects a logic of extraction rooted in colonial pedagogies.

Ultimately, the paper argues that such affective framings universalize and abstract maqsum, transforming it into a tool for individualized spiritual expression. In doing so, they reproduce epistemic erasures that echo colonial histories of cultural appropriation, even under the guise of inclusive and feminist spiritual practice.

Since the Syrian conflict began in 2011, Türkiye took in the largest number of Syrian refugees in the region, with over 3.6 million currently residing in the country. This large-scale displacement has reshaped many facets of Turkish society, including rising anti-refugee sentiment. Against this backdrop, this research explores how Syrian musicians navigated displacement through cultural production, asserting 'aesthetic agency' (Bohlman 2011) to confront challenges such as racism, economic marginalisation, and cultural assimilation. Drawing on multi-sited ethnographic research conducted in Istanbul and Gaziantep from 2020 to 2022, I explore diverse musical spaces—from street performance and music schools to cultural organisations and the lived experience of individual musicians—highlighting how musical creativity functions as a vital form of resilience amid increasing hostility. This study builds on recent scholarship on the politics of Syrian music and displacement, including Silverstein’s (2024) work which examines how embodied musical practices articulate shifting socio-political realities. By reinterpreting Philip Bohlman’s conceptualisation of ‘aesthetic agency’ to center the musician’s subjectivity (not just her musical output) in the transformative and challenging process of displacement/emplacement, this study expands theoretical discourse in ethnomusicology by integrating analytical frameworks from forced migration studies, particularly theory related to agency and the politics of belonging. Although conducted before Syria’s recent political shifts, this research remains vital as some Syrians begin returning to an uncertain homeland. The evolving dynamics of migration do not erase the cultural transformations of the past decade; rather, they underscore the enduring impact of displacement on artistic practices and diasporic belonging.

Choreographic methods enhance our understanding of place by engaging bodily memory, environmental rhythms, and community narratives. This movement-based workshop explores the intersection of music, dance, environmental narratives, and site-specific choreographic inquiry. Drawing from interdisciplinary approaches integrating music, dance, and film, participants will investigate how movement-based practices serve as tools for spatial and cultural exploration.

Building on site-specific performance studies (Kloetzel & Pavlik, 2009) and ethnomusicological perspectives on embodied knowledge (Sklar, 2000), this workshop introduces (a)shore (2024), a cinematic short dance film, as a model for exploring the intersections of movement, environmental narratives, and interdisciplinary collaboration. (a)shore utilizes shorelines as liminal spaces between land and ocean, and between progress and preservation. Through movement, the film serves as an interpretive tool, revealing layered histories and contemporary concerns tied to specific geographies.

Using (a)shore as a framework, the workshop unfolds in four phases:

Conceptual Foundations: Participants engage with embodied ethnography and site-specific methodologies, exploring how movement responds to environment, history, and cultural narratives.

Video Screening & Reflection: Excerpts from (a)shore prompt reflection on movement choices, spatial relationships, and the dancer-environment interaction.

Guided Discussion: Participants reflect on how movement and setting shape meaning and emotions.

Embodied Exploration: Participants engage in guided exercises exploring bodily communication and environmental rhythms, culminating in collaborative movement creation.

This workshop demonstrates how choreography bridges dance, sound, and spatial practice while advancing performative research methodologies. By foregrounding movement as embodied ethnography, it contributes to interdisciplinary discourse on environmental justice and the role of the body in knowledge production.