Abstract: Two centuries-old mask traditions native to Austria and Bavaria enjoy ongoing popularity due to a creative mingling of old and new elements (heavy metal music and fireworks alongside hand-carved wooden masks and birch rod switches). The Krampus is the menacing companion of St. Nikolaus, who visits children on December 5 and 6, although nowadays groups of Krampusse may appear alone. The Perchten, who are associated with the magical female folk-figure Perchta, appear on January 5 and the week before. While the Perchten and Krampusse represent distinct traditions, their history has intersected at various points, and their contemporary manifestations share many elements, including a movement towards a “modern” aesthetic and the employment of such resources as tourist publicity and the internet to promote their appearances, educate the public, and network with each other. While the house visit was formerly the primary setting for these masked figures (or mummers), today it is the public parade.
These parades, while rooted in and resembling conventional display-custom performances marked by a static division between performer and spectator, actually consist of a kind of fluid, interactive ritual theater in which the partially improvised, partially scripted performances of masked figures and the responses of spectators shape one another. Contemporary manifestations of Perchten and Krampus traditions will be explored in light of the ongoing cultural dialogue between performers and non-performers who seek to define and interpret the tradition, and the interplay of academic and popular discourses surrounding invented tradition, Folklorismus (folklorism) and Rücklauf (feedback), and the nature of authenticity. Questions of cultural heritage “ownership” surface in the debates over form and meaning, while in the hands of the Perchten and Krampusse themselves, tradition emerges as an active process and collaborative artwork rather than a fixed commodity with boundaries which can be defined and navigated by outside observers.

Abstract: << Twenty years after the first appearance of Heavy Metal in the western world, the first heavy metal bands were born in The Popular Republic of China spearheaded by Tang Dynasty. Their pioneer status as well as their music that is the product of a mix between heavy metal and Chinese traditional-inspired music will have a lasting impact on the Chinese Metal scene, that still either claims their legacy or calls to go beyond it. From the debuts of Metal in China until it's folklorisation or the refusal to“ sound exotic”, the numerous incarnations of Chinese metal are made between globalization and stakes of national/local order, like these bands that choose to express a pro-Han national identity or those who claim “another” Chinese identity.
Through a Nine months field investigation in the Chinese metal scene in Beijing, as well as the analysis of Chinese Metal diffusion supports (album artworks, lyrics, instruments, scenic visuals, etc..), this thesis aims to question the identities and imaginaries at work in the Chinese Metal using the researcher-amateur's perspective.
By focusing my work on the metal music's actors in China( mainly musicians and producers), it appeared to me that Metal is a cultural bridge( or a battlefield ) between local, national and transnational imaginaries. Far from the “exotic” image that is being maintained by the Metal scene in the West, the Chinese scene appears to be way more diversified and contrasting than the bands with a “ folkloric” sound that are way more popular outside of China's borders. Our research shows that Metal in China has made itself into Chinese Metal, a musical subculture that is crossed by musical, political and identity stakes. >>
[SOURCE: https://theses.hal.science/tel-04152882/]