Towards an aesthetics of gaelic song performance

Identifying criteria for the judgement of execution and performance in folk or traditional contexts presents considerable challenges. Primarily addressing the question of the presence of the body in entertainment and performance, this paper interprets various examples from Ireland and Scotland to initiate a discussion around such questions. Drawing on the ethnographic present and historical evidence from the past to argue that such matters originate in the body and that metaphors arising from traditional discourse foreground the body as a site upon which these ideas are culturally inscribed. Dancing, singing and performance in general speak to an aesthetic where the body is engaged and active, usually in the presence of others either in dance or song or in combination. The Reformation, colonialism, the rapid onset of modernity and other processes have disguised, but not eradicated, the continuity of these deeply ingrained attitudes. Modern folk aesthetics relate diachronically to the cosmological concept enech, a term meaning both ‘face’ and ‘honour’, engaging an idea situated at the interstices of aesthetics, politics and indeed, economics, within an older Gaelic worldview. The paper argues for an ethically grounded notion of aesthetic principles, capable of great transformations when executed with proper ability, skill and judgement. Although focusing on the Gaelic world, the paper suggests that such concepts also apply to other cultures beyond it.