3 - Emotion and Reason-Supremacy of Music Educational Institutionalization —Invariant and Persistent Creativity and Play in Local Performing Arts of Northeast Thailand

Buddhist monks are invited to hold memorial services for the dead, such as the sacred and solemn custom observed by Theravada Buddhists. However, the host villagers of Northeast Thailand invited the modern performing arts, Molam Sing troupe, to amuse their relatives and guests, and appreciate their performance despite the upbeat sound making the people go berserk. What is the appeal of this Molam performing art? This presentation extends the concept of mediation connecting music and society, pioneered by sociologist Antoine HennionHe examines how music acts with other mediations, transforming those who enjoy music and those who do something with it. The research method used to examine the various media, technologies, and institutions between the performers and the recipients of Molam music in rural areas of Northeast Thailand extracts the mediating elements characteristic of the target music and unravels specific combinations. The mediators describe a cross-section of stage costumes, sound technologies, socialities of performance, and institutionalization of music education shared between the bearers and enjoyers of music. This presentation features several Molam performing arts as a collage, from classical stage to contemporary performances. It invites our panel audience into the depths of Molam performing arts that have been spun between institutions and emotions, traversing the mediations that connect music and society by addressing stage costumes, sound technology, and the social nature of performance to engage the emotions of producers and consumers of music and the institutionalization of diverse music exerting control over locally woven emotional liberation devices.