The International Conference Protest Song and Social Change (ICPSong’16) integrates the plan of activities of the 1st year of the Observatory of the Protest Song, recently launched in Grândola. The ICPSong’16 is organized by the Institute of Ethnomusicology – Center for Studies in Music and Dance and the Institute of Contemporary History of the School of Social Sciences and Humanities, of the New University of Lisbon (FCSH/NOVA), and by the Municipality of Grândola, Portugal. It will take place at the FCSH/NOVA in Lisbon, at the center of the city, from 15th to 17th of June 2016. 

 

The ICPSong’16 proposes reflection and practice about diverse relationships between what is commonly called protest songs and processes of social change in the 20th and 21st centuries from a variety of scientific and performative perspectives in turn of three specific domains, though not limited to them:

1. Resistance;

2. Revolution;

3. Social awareness. 

The ICPSong’16 recalls the historical experience that conducted to the instauration of democracy in Portugal in April of 1974, in which the protest songs, then called intervention songs performed an important role as form of fight against the dictatorial government and the colonial war. The ICPSong’16 proposes also three areas of performance in workshops of music composition, performance and network building through music.

 

Involving Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts, the ICPSong’16 welcomes participation in different approaches and formats. Participants are invited to present individual papers, panels, round tables, animation as well as participation in the performance workshops about different perspectives of conception, production and reception of protest songs. The ICPSong’16 welcomes multiple theoretical and methodological approaches, and exploration of performance practices integrating situations of resistance, revolution and in local, and in exile situations in regional, national and transnational settings involving songs and music of protest of all kinds.

 

With a rich academic and social program, with diversified production and reception of music performance, between Lisbon and Grândola, the ICPSong’16 counts with the participation of keynote speakers such as David McDonald (Indiana University, Bloomington, USA) about protest songs and Palestinian resistance; Michael Frishkopf (University of Alberta, Canada) about music and the new Arab revolutions; and Noriko Manabe (Temple University, USA), about songs and the anti-nuclear Japanese movement. The ICPSong’16 counts also with the participation of key animators for workshops such as Vitor Lima (Academia de Música Viana do Castelo, Portugal) polyphonic singing the Heróicas of Fernando Lopes-Graça; Mário Correia (Sons da Terra, Sendim, Portugal) on building of urban-rural-transnational networks through music and Maze (André Neves, Dealema) with composition of rap poetry of intervention in Portugal;  The ICPSong’16 produces and shows, in its space, the exhibition  Discos na Luta e Revolução dos Cravos (Records in the Fight and the Carnation’s Revolution) by Hugo Castro et al.

 

The ICPSong’16 calls to participation in the proposed scientific and performance domains in the languages of the organization (Portuguese and English), and also in Spanish and French. It includes a visit to the emblematic village of Grândola, in Alentejo, symbol of resistance and protest, immortalized in the song of José Afonso that served as the code for the military action, broadcasted through the radio, in the night of the Revolution of the 25th of April, 1974.  

 

 

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