Dance Semiotics

This paper aims to demonstrate that "semiotic processes" are inclusive in the frames of a general communication process. Through the encoding and decoding theory processes, I will focus on how these two scientific terms differ in their methodological comprehension. Taking examples from various life spheres and the arts field, the paper shall demonstrate the meaning component as final to generalise it in a unique communication process. In other words, the paper aims to show the path from a pure informational exchange process to an interhuman sort of interpreting meaning.

The study seeks to understand the portrayal of women in Nigeria's fast-expanding film industry- (Nollywood). It also seeks to understand how this representations and portrayals, though multifaceted, align or disagrees with Nigeria’s sociocultural dynamic. The study employs qualitative content analysis as its methodology to examine the latent and manifest contents of the selected films. The study is hinged on both cultivation and feminist film theories. The study further, examines the roles, stereotypes, themes and dominant genres that contribute to female characters' representation across a diverse range of Nollywood productions. the study’s population are all the movies produced from 2019-2023. Five movies were purposively selected to cover the five-year period for this study, which became the sample size for the study. The selected films are: Òlòturé, Citation, My Village People, The Wildflower and A Tribe Called Judah. The research uses simple percentage, frequency and chi-square as its method of data analysis. The study found that there is a relationship between movie genres and the way women are portrayed. It also noted that the crime genre which represents 45% is the most dominant and portrays women most negatively. Contrary to popular belief, the study found that Nollywood films portrayed women in a more professional capacity than in domestic roles. An intriguing aspect of this evolving narrative is the depiction of women in positions of authority and achievement, challenging traditional power dynamics and gender roles. The study therefore recommends that Nollywood producers conduct thorough research before the production of films in other to present women in ways befitting their realities, as this will help in combating gender stereotypes against women in the society and reduce gender bias or inequality amongst members of the society.

Critics of Nollywood especially gender activists, have challenged its predominant, if not exclusive portrayal of women for its narrowly traditional occupational and domestic roles and images. This paper seeks to examine various ways women are depicted in Nollywood films, including physical appearance, domestic and family life, occupational life and interpersonal relationships over a 20 year period spanning the video film era. The research employed a quantitative content method to analyse 10 films while the coding sheet that contained established content categories served as the data gathering instrument. A multistage sampling technique was used to draw the sample. The findings revealed that although there is a higher percentage of women than men in Nollywood films, women still play diminished central roles, and continue to be portrayed less frequently in roles that reflect current social realities than men, especially regarding the professions. Nollywood continues its penchant of de...

https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/bloomsbury-semiotics-9781350139442/

https://books.google.ro/books?id=AtiVEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT469&lpg=PT469&dq=nicoleta+popa+blanariu&source=bl&ots=mPQW-fSqX4&sig=ACfU3U3eUjsVLDTZhUeBGBMsNT8rS_OuKw&hl=ro&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi11fjf0u__AhXLPOwKHVuJD8Q4PBDoAXoECBsQAw#v=onepage&q=nicoleta%20popa%20blanariu&f=false

Along with changes in how the performing arts are understood and practiced, their semiotic approach also naturally evolves, together with the entire field of Performance and Dance Studies. Prefigured since antiquity (Lucian of Samosata 2009, Augustin 2002), the semiotics of performance is very indebted, in the 1930s–1940s, to The Prague School Theory of Theatre, and even later, in the 1970s, to the linguistic paradigm of structuralism. This has the great advantage of having changed the perspective on the aesthetic object. However, the semiotics of performance emerges with the awareness of the methodological risk to which it is exposed by some "tendency to reduce all the problems of sign to language" (Kowzan 1968, Lehmann [1999] 2002, Barba and Savarese [2008] 2012). In fact, performing arts cannot be reduced to a textual component or to one assimilated to the functioning of verbal language. New symptoms of identity crisis will also arise later when the nature of the performance and its semiotic approach are equally and insistently called into question. Semiotics will then try to cover the performative turn of theatre which debuted in the sixties. In such a context, semiotics is particularly interested in the "crisis of representation", "crisis of the body’s mediation", crisis of "classic textual invariant" (Helbo 2016: 342-345; Helbo, Bouko, Verlinden 2011: 100), as well as "crisis of the ‘authoritarian staging" (Pavis 2014: 238). These come together with "the idea of a performance that isn’t theatre" (Kaprow [1976] 2020) and the replacing of the "dramatic text" with the "performance text" (Schechner 2011: 25).
However, valuable contributions ingeniously used some acquisitions of linguistics and structuralism. To illustrate just a few of many possible examples, Erika Fischer-Lichte organizes her Semiotics of theatre (1992) according to the trichotomy "systema, norma y habla" from Eugen Coşeriu's "integral linguistics" ([1952] 1967), and De Marinis ([2008] 2012: 182-5) applies the principle of "double articulation" to the description of the actor's "physical actions". In his turn, Philippe Hamon (1972: 86-110) saw the character as a sign, "a kind of doubly articulated morpheme, manifested by a discontinuous signifier that refers to a discontinuous signified". In this sense, the character is part of the "paradigm" that the message builds.
In the 1970s, the idea of the "possibility of a theatrical semiology" (Pavis 1982: 9) has emerged, inspired by the models provided by the language sciences. It was a period of intense theoretical concerns, having as an object a hypothetical "theatrical language". (The latter had also fascinated Antonin Artaud in the 1930s.) Such preoccupations set the stage for a more pragmatic and versatile semiology, able to contribute to the analysis of some practical aspects: the staging, the scenery, the acting, etc. This direction took shape especially in the 1980s, with the reluctance against a "universal model" of theatrical semiology. Thus is born a "method of semiological inspiration" allowing reconciliation of semiology with other ways of approaching theatre:  aesthetics, chronicle play, dramaturgy, among them (Pavis 1982: 9). In this phase, "theatrical semiology" develops "as a descriptive system", "analysis of the show", rather than as an "axiological" system, "analysis of meaning" (De Toro 2011: 80). Hence, theatrical semiology loses its "radicalism", preferring a federal role of "epistemologist, of hermeneut, a propaedeutic role" (Pavis 1982: 9; Helbo 2021).
The transformations of artistic practice – the "avant-garde" after 1960 – imposed an adaptation of theoretical discourse (Bouissac 2011, Bouissac 2015, Elam 1980, Féral 2008, Féral 2011, Fischer-Lichte 1992, Fischer-Lichte 2008, Helbo 2011, Helbo 2018, Helbo 2021, De Marinis 1993, De Marinis 2011, Pavis ([1980] 1996), Pavis 2007, Pavis 2014, Schechner 2002, Schechner 2011, De Toro 1995, De Toro 2011). On the one hand, postmodern creators theorize their own theatrical or choreographic practice, and on the other hand, in their creative activity, they capitalize on theory (including structuralism, such as Kirby). In extremis, a "nonsemiotic performance" may appear (Kirby 1982), which goes along with the "nontheatrical performance" (Kaprow [1976] 2020). La sémiologie de la mise en scène gives way to a phénoménologie de la performance (Pavis 2007). The result is an "experiential semiotics" (Helbo 2016) which seeks a rapprochement between the lived experience and its conceptualization. This approach is more appropriate to the contemporary performance, with its extreme subjectivization and emphasizing of perception, with the central role it gives to the body, presence, (unpredictable) spectator-performer interaction, with the dissolution of the old narrative-dramatic structure and classical space-time landmarks. This calls for overcoming the "cleavages" between production and reception, between the "immanentist approach to meaning" (concerned with "the significance of the object to be decrypted") and, respectively, "a constructivist approach" (related to reception, insofar as "I build a message, and it builds me according to what I am") (Helbo 2021).
Thus, the theoretical discourse changes with its corpus of analysis, now refractory to the old constraints of elitist aesthetics. In it are found, by their "spectacular" nature, theatre, dance, dance-theatre, opera, circus, street arts, happening, performance, ritual, folklore. The new semiotics dialogues with performance theory, communication theories, pragmatics and speech acts theory, reception studies, reader-response, theatrical anthropology, cognitive and behavioral neuroscience.

Critics of Nollywood especially gender activists, have challenged its predominant, if not exclusive portrayal of women for its narrowly traditional occupational and domestic roles and images. This paper seeks to examine various ways women are depicted in Nollywood films, including physical appearance, domestic and family life, occupational life and interpersonal relationships over a 20 year period spanning the video film era. The research employed a quantitative content method to analyse 10 films while the coding sheet that contained established content categories served as the data gathering instrument. A multistage sampling technique was used to draw the sample. The findings revealed that although there is a higher percentage of women than men in Nollywood films, women still play diminished central roles, and continue to be portrayed less frequently in roles that reflect current social realities than men, especially regarding the professions. Nollywood continues its penchant of de...

Critics of Nollywood especially gender activists, have challenged its predominant, if not exclusive portrayal of women for its narrowly traditional occupational and domestic roles and images. This paper seeks to examine various ways women are depicted in Nollywood films, including physical appearance, domestic and family life, occupational life and interpersonal relationships over a 20 year period spanning the video film era. The research employed a quantitative content method to analyse 10 films while the coding sheet that contained established content categories served as the data gathering instrument. A multistage sampling technique was used to draw the sample. The findings revealed that although there is a higher percentage of women than men in Nollywood films, women still play diminished central roles, and continue to be portrayed less frequently in roles that reflect current social realities than men, especially regarding the professions. Nollywood continues its penchant of de...

Num encontro em São Paulo, convidado para uma aula-performance no Mestrado da Faculdade Cásper Líbero em maio de 2017, Eufrásio Prates apresentou seu trabalho como músico e falou a respeito de suas pesquisas sobre a estética holofractal 3. Na entrevista que nos concedeu, a conversa extrapolou a pauta inicial e fomos parar em um universo de música como comunicação (ou incomunicação), em como a estética absorve os novos paradigmas propostos pela física moderna e na crise dos modelos explicativos para entendermos ciência, natureza, artes e a sociedade, quando Prates apontou a semiótica como uma das chaves para interpretar o mundo que nos cerca.

As men have traditionally been in power in the film industry, Theorists believe that the camera shows us the world through the stereotype eyes of the „male gaze ‟ (Lovey 2004). The representations of women in Nollywood videos fail to depict them in ways which evaluate the sordid reality of things in the real world. To achieve this false representation, the filmmakers have resorted to reversal in roles of women and men in the society. The implication of such misconstructions is that women are made to be seen and read in both the films and in real life as outlaws and evil to their families and society as a whole. This paper aims at outlining and critically analysing the role of women in Nigerian videos using two Nigerian videos Omata Women (2003) and More than a Woman (2004) to interrogate how Nollywood videos thrive on conflicting framings of women in ways which lead to understanding how the videos reproduce societal fears and anxieties that are borne out of patriarchy and the filmma...

A kultúra antropológiai vizsgálata maga is egyfajta sajátos(an lehetetlen) szöveg-elemzés. Szövegelemzés, hogyha a kultúrát multimediális kommunikátumok (szöve-gek/textusok) rendszerének fogjuk fel. Sajátos(an lehetetlen), mivel: minden kulturális közösség sajátos kommunikációs közegeket (médiumokat) alakít ki, s ezért nem alkalmazhatunk semmilyen előre definiált kategória-rendszert ezekre nézve. Az egyes médiumok ugyanis jellegükben, minősé-gükben nagyon különbözhetnek egymástól, még hogyha kommunikációs csatornáik azonosak is. A kultúra vizsgálata így elvileg csak konkrét (multimediális) szövegek elemzéséből indulhatna ki; és mivel: az antropológus általában külső megfigyelő marad, más kultúrák vizsgálatá-nál (ez a más kultúra lehet akár saját kultúrájának egy réteg-vagy szubkultú-rája is) ráadásul egy kulturális "outsider" is, aki arra a lehetetlen dologra vál-lalkozik, hogy levetkőzze a maga sajátos etnocentrikus látásmódját, és belülről próbálja megragadni a vizsgált kulturális közösség fogalmait, kategóriáit. A "szöveg interpretációja" így antropológiai szemszögből amolyan az "interpretáció interpretációja" kellene hogy legyen, tehát a kulturális szövegek antropológus kutatója a szövegek funkcionális beágyazottságának a kommunikációspecifikus interpretációjára vállalkozik, ahol az elemzés során a (szöveg)alkotó,-befogadó sajátos fogalmi kereteit próbálja megragadni a szöveg szociokulturális kontextusának a figyelembevételével. Mivel az elemzés során a kutató maga is a szöveg befogadójává válik, és nem rázhatja le magáról előítéleteit, ismereteit, érzéseit, legalább tudatosítania kell, hogy ezek korántsem azonosak azoknak az ismereteivel, érzéseivel stb., akiknek az adott kommunikátum valóban szól, és így "illetékes" befogadói a szövegnek. A lehetőségekhez mérten erről az "illetékes" befogadásról kellene fogalmat alkotni.

Historical, archeological and scientific theses which are based on researches have shown that humans are perpetually in a level of development. Factually, humans engage themselves in one or more things and the resolve is a desirous taste emanating from the intellectual instincts of wanting to curb challenges around him. In the archaic times, man was predominantly facing challenges on how to ensure a continuous existence by means of enacting theatrical and dramatic performance on his little stage. Theatrical performances in the 20 th c have gone beyond stage performance but this should not be mistaken for the fact that stage performances are not relevant in our contemporary dispensation (living society). With the advanced use of technology, African entertainments in order to educate, inculcate and teach morals, have therefore moved to a greater height where the people need not go to theatre houses to encapsulate their environmental happenings either moral or immoral just as theatre and the environment are symbiotic, the society provides the material for performance while the theatre produces for this same society, so also is the African society and her film industry.

In her article "Paradigms of Communication in Performance and Dance Studies" Nicoleta Popa Blanariu approaches from an interdisciplinary perspective the measure in which performing arts (theater, music, ballet, Indian classical dance, folk dance, etc.), as well as ritual performance constitute a corpus that may be analysed by means of theoretical and conceptual tools in communication studies and semiotics. Popa Blanariu analyses the relation between signification and communication in performing arts, between different codes and artistic expressions through which these are realized, between verbal and the other artistic "languages," and takes into consideration how "linguistic" functions manifest themselves within "languages" specific to various forms of art.

In her article "Towards a Framework of a Semiotics of Dance" Nicoleta Popa Blanariu constructs a framework of based on de Saussure's, Peirce's, and Barthes's thought. She applies Ferdinand de Saussure's concept of semiosis defined as a cultural system of conventions. In dance this occurs when choreographic signs are encoded, for example in magic, ritual, or religious expressions of movement. Further, Charles Sanders Peirce's concept of the role of "intelligent consciousness" is crucial for the engendering of signification and thus to dance. In dance, the choreographer "interprets" the world and by means of selection and interpretation, the choreographic sign reveals its object and this process is related to abstraction. In semiosis dance involves a process of "culturalization" (Barthes), whereby codes of dance represent the spontaneity of "natural" of movements and feelings within a repeatable system of expression. Last but not least, Edmund Husserl's notion that dance belongs to the domain of "pre-reflexivity" of signal and entails symbolic qualities derived from its embedding of cultural codes is employed by Popa Blanariu in her building a framework of the semiotics of dance.

The unarguable fact that Nigeria, nay Africa, is a patriarchal society is reflected in almost every facet of life. Suffice it to say that, women have in one way or other been marginalized, subjugated, exploited and their lives dominated over by their male counterparts for a long time now making them no more than silent characters in societal life. They are almost always reminded of being women and as such expected to just obey even at the expense of their health. However, continuous agitations over the years have considerably projected the image of women in the quest for gender balance so as to assert the humanity of the female person. Civil Society Organizations and the academia have used several media to advance the course of the woman. Particularly, the theatre has been one of such media profusely employed to enhance gender balance especially as theatre is the very art that mirrors society, unearths societal un-doings and then proffers solutions to them. Thus, the portrayal of societal issues through the various arts of the theatre has profound influence on the viewing public. Specifically, film (and in this case Nollywood) has also been used for political mobilization, agenda setting activities plus awareness creation on sensitive issues in Nigeria. The question is whether Nollywood has enhanced the advancement of the gender balance struggles in Nigeria? This research establishes that more needs to be done in this regard. It concludes that producers, scriptwriters, actors, and other stakeholders alike need a new orientation to create the appropriate and needed female characters that could enhance the entrenchment of gender balance ideals in Nigeria.

Resumo: Dentre os numerosos efeitos transformadores provenientes do crescimento e penetração das novas tecnologias computacionais nas linguagens artísticas contemporâneas, um dos mais notáveis é a integração de meios, linguagens e técnicas diversificados em torno da experiência estética, ora classificada como transmidiática. Este artigo visa demonstrar que tal processo de integração apresenta uma relação de mutualidade constitutiva com um novo paradigma holonômico.

The phenomenon of Nollywood films has become as pervasive as the succeeding discourse that it generates, and therefore a common social denominator in the mediation of cultural, social, political, economic and religious issues among the Nigerian people and beyond. Although there is a dearth of critical evaluations of the film culture in Nigeria, it is also apparent that such evaluations have paid scanty attention to the fundamental subject of gender. In this regard, filmmakers have more often than not produced films with stereotyped and fixed themes (perhaps as factual or fictive stories), constituting negative portrayal of women. This obscene female portraiture may have proceeded from the psycho-cultural and social context of the film-makers. This paper explores the negative framing of women in home video films within the cultural values of the Nigerian society. It posits that women are represented as cheats, murderers, homebreakers and the like, which negates the core of the moral values of the society. It concludes that positive female roles are those that explore women as morally upright, hardworking, industrious and making meaningful contributions to their families, society and the nation, therefore women should be framed in positive light to avert negative 'Imageable influence'.

Contemporary dance is a field full of interpretative possibilities for a Semiotics interested in dynamic and performance open texts connected to theatre practice and/or multimedia.

This monographic issue is the result of the International Congress "Il senso della danza. Dance research e pratiche transmediali" organised in September 2008, in Urbino (Italy) by the Centro Internazionale di Semiotica e Linguistica of Urbino University. Curators of the congress: Nicola Dusi, Cristina Righi and Kathleen Delaney.