Performing Disorder

Abstract

The presentation is focusing on the dialectics of agency and structure, encompassing social and cultural practices in the context of popular music studies. The idea of this contribution is to highlight a cultural anthropologist's perspective on collective interactions. We want to exemplify this methodology on the situations of heavy metal and hard rock concerts. Our approach is centered around German and Anglophone enquiries and literature on metal and hard rock shows. Concerts are highly performative events combining practices of creativity, attention and recognition that manifest in the synergies between artists and audience. The evocation of atmospheres through sound and motion produces a space for distinction and identification. Thus the concert as a cultural event allows to observe the processes of signification and subjectification. This approach can be seen as an orientation for ethnographic works in qualitative research.