Shaka Ponk on stage: stakes of multiple creative processes

In the Field of Popular Music, the recording allowed a double existence of the music, which is not without raising ontological questions. Indeed, the studio work leading to the creation of the disc object (or more widely to the recorded object) develops a creative and technical process in which, today, everything seems possible (adding virtual musicians, spatialization, effects of any kind, etc.). The concert, or the stage performance, has other creative constraints, linked in the first place to this mode of live broadcast where musicians and technology can not reproduce the recorded format. The challenge here is twice. On one side, it’s to measure the creative process created between these two supports and on the other side, it’s to develop an interdisciplinary approach of rock-pop concert. This interest in the theatricalization of the concert is directly related to the process of musical creation and these elements can be decisive in the choices made by the musicians.
The subject of this study is the French band Shaka Ponk. French Band of electro-rock, it will use elements of different musical currents (heavy metal, funk, hip-hop). The lyrics are mainly in English (occasionally in French or Spanish). The one of members is virtual : it’s Goz (a monkey), who is currently on stage (mostly in video form). This scenic element, constitutive of the group’s imaginary, is sometimes totally restrictive for the musicians (simultaneity of the movements, therefore of the music) and implies a preparation in the creative approach of the concert even pieces in link with this ” virtual member. Thus, in order to understand and apprehend the creative process at work at Shaka Ponk, I will present the result of analysis of live band songs played in the years 2014 to 2018.

The aim is to present the degrees of re-creation of the Shaka Ponk pieces from one medium to the other and to understand what creative processes are involved in performing this performative and interpretive transposition (including all non-musical elements). For this purpose, my study will rely on comparative musicological analyzes between studio version and live version based on a methodology developed in my previous work and on a test of analysis of the scenic elements (including lights, gestures, video…).

The results obtained are multiple and related to the use of technology, the presence of Goz or the format of concerts (television, festival, halls). Shaka Ponk is a group that uses the musical recreation, but also theatration, the musical changes in the service of the show.

JULIE MANSION-VAQUIÉ
CTEL — Université Côte d’Azur, France

Doctor in musicology, specialist of the Popular Music, Julie Mansion-Vaquié is Lecturer at the University Nice Sophia Antipolis (UNS /UCA). She is interested in the scenic recreation, the performance, the interpretation and the creation as well as in the various supports of existence in the field of the Popular Music. Member of the laboratory CTEL, she participates in the university network on the Song (Les ondes du monde). At the same time as her university program, she is a member Octandre associations and Instrumental Studio, and studied to the academy of Bordeaux (baroque flute, oboe, bassoon, MAO, instrumental and electroacoustic composition). Holder of a DEM of electroacoustic composition for which she received a prize SACEM, finalist of the competition Klang! 2015, winner twice in the Petites Formes 2018 competition (including the public prize, her works are regularly programmed in France and abroad. She is besides a composer for short films.