The contrasto: observational analysis of an extemporaneous vocal-gestural performance in Tuscany, Italy

ABSTRACT

The poesia in ottava rima (‘poetry in octave rhyme’) is a living tradition of improvised-sung poetry widespread in the rural areas of Central Italy. In this article, I describe and interpret the interaction that takes place between two poet-performers and between poet-performers and the audience, highlighting the importance of embodiment and gesture during the poetic duel and the active role of listeners. This paper aims to highlight the strong binding of speech and gesture and the bodily expressiveness of the onstage improvised sung poetic duel, analysing the contrasto as a ‘vocal-gestural performance’. The ultimate aim of this study is to examine the ways in which visual information in the form of gestures contributes to the way musical performance is experienced. Furthermore, we apply insights from ethnomusicology and gesture studies, together with digital video and audio recording and associated analysis software, to the study of contrasto performance.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethnomusicology
• extemporaneous poetry
• gesture studies
• Contrasto
• Ottava rima
• Italian traditional music

Introduction

In this article, I investigate performance interactions in the improvised-sung poetry called ottava rima (literally ‘octave rhyme’) in the southern part of Tuscany called ‘Maremma’, which takes the form of a public vocal duel called contrasto (pl. contrasti, literally ‘contrast’, meaning ‘contest’) between two poeti (‘poets’).¹ This poetic improvisation sung by a soloist without instrumental accompaniment is a cultural practice of oral tradition still relatively widespread in the rural areas of Central Italy (Tuscany, Upper Latium, and part of Abruzzo). The ottava rima has been practiced for seven centuries, often used in written epic poetry.² The term ottava rima refers to both the literary poetic form and the folk tradition of singing improvised lyrics. This tradition of improvised-sung poetry in ottava rima is based on the ottava, that is the ‘octave’:³ a stanza of eight hendecasyllables structured according to the rhyming scheme ABABABCC. Even today poets, mostly men,⁴ coming from Tuscany, Lazio and Abruzzo, meet regularly on special occasions dedicated to the contrasto, a poetic contest in which two poets compete in verse in a given theme suggested by the audience. Notably not all ottava rima are improvised, such as the narrative ottava, performed by a single poet, focused on a story or an epic poem, and not all improvised ottava rima are competitive, such as the May Day celebrations.

In this study, the contrasto in ottava rima (‘contest in octave rhyme’) is the object of observational analysis and interpretation not only as a kind of verbal art, oral poetry, or sung poetry, but also, and above all, as a ‘dramatised’ extemporaneous performance, or more precisely, a vocal-gestural performance.

This study is the result of an investigation carried out over a period of six years, between 2011 and 2016, in a rather discontinuous and occasional manner. The research resulted from my residence in the same region where the field research was carried out as well as my insider position as a native to the region under study.⁵ My investigation was rooted in ethnographic methodologies including fieldwork and participant observation, interviewing and focus-group meeting. In this case study, the audiovisual recording proved to be an indispensable research tool to observe, describe, and analyse the poet-performers’ behaviour and their bodily expressivity, and in particular the vocal-gestural action in their theatrical performances. I made more than 50 h of audiovisual recordings focused mainly on performances of improvised poetry contests. Initially, these audiovisual materials were intended (and used) for analytical purposes. Afterwards, I decided to edit the footage, adopting an observational approach, for a documentary film, Cantar l’Ottava (D'Amico 2016),⁶ which includes both performances and interviews with the poet-performers who have been the protagonists of this audiovisual ethnomusicological research.⁷

My approach attempts to take a ‘holistic’ view of the subject, addressing not only singer-poets but also their interaction with audiences. I discuss how performance is a reflexive activity created in the interaction of performers and their audience. Listeners play a fundamental role in this kind of vocal-gestural performance: ‘the audience not only collaborates in the construction of the performance, but in a certain sense it also constructs the artist himself to the extent that it grants him the power to represent it’ (Pagliai 2021: 71). Close examination of the relationship between sound and gesture significantly enhances our understanding of the way extemporaneous singing is conceptualised by the performer, and the study of audience members’ behaviour enables us to better understand the performance dynamics.

The arguments discussed here will be based on ethnographic descriptions and observations of the Tuscan contrasto in both informal or private gatherings and public performances on stage. The object of analysis will be the contrasto as a performative event and as a model of interaction between the singer-poets and between poets and the audience during an extemporaneous performance, highlighting the relevance of non-verbal communication of the performers during the poetic duel. I address these issues by analysing audiovisual recordings. I consider practical, multi-camera video recordings as a useful aid to study the behaviour of several individuals simultaneously and therefore facilitate the study of non-verbal communication and interaction. In this study, I have observed and analysed video recordings of poetic improvisations to: describe and measure the types of physical gestures (e.g. hand lifts, head nods) and, by extension, other non-verbal behaviour, such as eye contact and facial expressions; interpret the function of the gestures (e.g. expressive or illustrative); and examined their effect (e.g. the listeners’ reaction).

The premise of this study is that observing the performers’ vocal gestures and audience responses can provide a window into which all participants experience contrasto performance. The main questions I aim to elucidate are: how and to what extent do the gestures of the performers affect musical communication? How and to what extent does the audience affect the conduct and outcome of the vocal duel? Are there subtle or substantial differences between private (‘at a table’) and public (‘onstage’) contests? Are audiovisual means useful or even necessary methodological tools to conduct an effective gestural analysis of individuals involved in musical interactions? I shall address these and related questions through an audiovisual analysis of some selected performances of the contrasto in Tuscany. Detailed analysis of these performances indicates that these questions can be answered using observational methods with the aid of audiovisual recording and suggests other important issues that may not have been raised had this approach not been adopted.

The final aim of this article is to highlight the bodily expressiveness of the poet-performers, analysing the improvised contrasto as a vocal-gestural performance in which the interaction between the extemporaneous poets and between them and the audience tends to condition, influence and, sometimes, determine the performative development and the outcomes of the poetic competition. In this study case, I apply insights from ethnomusicology and gesture studies, together with digital video and audio recording and associated analysis software, to the study of a contrasto performance. I hope to make a case for the importance of ethnography in the study of musical communication.

Speech and gesture: the embodiment in musical performance

This study, characterised by a text-sensitive and performance-based approach, is oriented towards an ethnography of performance as a cultural system (Bauman 1975; 1977) and of musical performance (Béhague 1984; Clayton, Dueck and Leante 2013; Gabrielsson 2003; Herndon and McLeod 1980. The processes of interaction between performers and audience during a musical performance have been analysed in the context of Indian and Pakistani qawwali (Qureshi 1995 [1986]) and Hindustani khyāl performance (Clayton 2007a; Clayton and Leante 2013, 2015; Leante 2016). Kendon (2004) and McNeill (1992, 2005, 2016) demonstrated that gesture is the complement of speech, revealing information that verbal utterance alone cannot convey in social interactions. Jane Davidson (1993, 2001, 2005) was one of the first scholars to apply the principles of gesture studies to musical performance. Inspired by McNeill and Kendon’s gesture studies, Clayton (2005, 2007a) has outlined a proposal concerning the most appropriate scheme for classifying gestures with reference to Indian music performance: markers, illustrators, and emblems. Markers of musical process or structure include marking focal moments or beating out a regular pulse; illustrators are tied to the content of the singing, appearing analogous to the melodic flow or ‘motion’; and emblems have verbal equivalents: ‘Well done’ (Clayton 2007a: 75).

The tight correlation between sound and movement has been highlighted by the studies of Godøi and Leman (2010) with the introduction of the concept of musical gesture. In the Preface to their book Musical Gestures: Sound, Movement, and Meaning (2010), they write that ‘musicians make music with movements’, adding that ‘music is basically a combination of sound and movement, and that music means something to us because of this combination’ (2010: ix). The two collections of essays edited by Gritten and King—Music and Gesture (2006) and New Perspectives on Music and Gesture (2011)—are particularly enlightening in Musical Gesture Studies, as they explore the relations between music and gesture from several theoretical perspectives and examine the nature of certain types of gesture in musical performance. The extemporaneous poets communicate not only in words but also through gestures and, more broadly, can be considered a ‘cross-modal’ phenomenon as a combination of ‘motor actions, vocalization, and imagination’ (Fatone et al. 2011: 203).

In the ethnography of performance as a cultural system, contrasto takes the form of a vocal-gestural performance that goes beyond the conception of artistic action and artistic events (Bauman 1977) to expand the conceptual content of folkloric performance as a social act and communicative phenomenon. The poetic duel is a complex act of communication and is therefore entrusted to multiple means of communication. The motor behaviour implied in the improvised sung poetry constitutes a central part of the communication established between two extemporary poet-singers in a poetic competition. To use Matthew Rahaim’s words, the performer becomes a ‘musicking body’ that is ‘a trained body in action, engaged mindfully in singing and/or playing an instrument’ (Rahaim 2012: 143). At the same time, the contrasto is a musical-gestural performance characterised by a lively interaction involving both poets-singers and listeners, in which imagery and gesture are implicated in the process of musical meaning construction.⁸

Video-based observational analysis is an essential methodological tool for understanding the process in which para-musical communication in a performative occasion intervenes during the singing performance—in particular, the embodiment⁹ in musical performance (Alaghband-Zadeh 2017; Clayton 2007b; Clayton and Leante 2013; Leante 2016). In this study, I have implemented the musical and videographic transcriptions with audiovisual samples accessible through QR codes to make this article a hypertext.

The contrasto in ottava rima

Singing the ottava rima by ‘peasant poets’ (Kezich 2013) constitutes a traditional vocal practice widespread among the working class in some rural communities of Tuscany, Latium, and Abruzzo. Practitioners of the octave rhyme tradition are generally farmers, shepherds, bricklayers, labourers, miners, artisans, and street vendors. However, over the past 20 years, this traditional practice has been revived, expanding the realm of ottava performers to include poets across various social strata. Currently, this includes both the young and old, men and women, and those from both the countryside and cities. Notably, older adult poets, admired for their exceptional wit, rhyming skills, and extraordinary mnemonic abilities, stand as paragons of experience. They can memorise thousands of lines and uphold a substantial ‘formulaic’ baggage of rhymes.

Rural folk maintained their tradition of improvised poetry and exclusively committed to using the time-honoured chivalric stanza known as ottava rima. This is sung extemporaneously to the present day in diverse rural environments across central Italy. The language of the folk octave is a blend of Italian and Tuscan dialects, along with courtly archaisms—forming a poetic language enriched by sediments from chivalric epics.

From a diachronic perspective, the contrasto has existed in Tuscany since the fourteenth century, as attested by the Trattato de li contrasti, written by Gidino da Sommacampagna in approximately 1381–84 (Da Sommacampagna 1870; Franceschini 1983; Robins 2001). Nonetheless, while historical evidence places the contrasto as a poetic text in the Middle Ages, its musical iconography dates to the eighteenth century. A transcription of an ottava called ‘Ottave alla Fiorentina’ (Florentine-style octave) was featured in Giuseppe Baretti’s study ‘An account of the manners and customs of Italy, London’ (1769). Jean-Jacques Rousseau embraced it in Les consolations des misères de ma vie ou recueil d’airs, romances et duos (1781). The ‘Ottave alla Fiorentina’ is found in the chapter dedicated to the character of the Tuscans and the essence of improvisation in contrasting octave rhymes accompanied by a stringed instrument. This instrument is no longer used in the living oral tradition (Ghirardini 2017).

Previous ethnographic research has extensively examined improvisation in ottava rima through the lens of numerous Italian ethnomusicologists (Agamennone 1986, 2002, 2017; Barontini 2002; Carpitella 1977; De Giovanni and Ricci 1988; Ghirardini 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020a, 2020b; Leydi 1973; Sarego 1987) and anthropologists (Kezich 1982, 1986, 1996, 2013). These approaches perceive octave rhyme poetry as a text-centred oral tradition. Most of these studies prioritise analysing the sung text, sound form, and a diachronic perspective of ottava across the centuries. For example, Valentina Pagliai used linguistic anthropology to reveal the connections between performance, politics, and the creation of social identities in the Tuscan contrasto, conceptualising improvised poetry as a social act (Pagliai 2002, 2009, 2010, 2021). Tiezzi (2009) and Ghirardini (2020a) observed that improvised poetry in ottava rima serves not only as entertainment but also as a way of life. This practice serves as a means for the community to develop a sense of belonging and as a unique language for addressing current issues and overcoming potential conflict situations. These conflicting discourses and negotiations are mediated through musical and para-musical communication (often involving gestures). Therefore, a comprehensive understanding of this verbal duel form is crucial. Nonetheless, only a few studies (Caruso 2021; D’Amico 2018; Tiezzi 2009) have contributed to the development of a meaningful framework for understanding contrasto as performance and adopting a ‘holistic’ view to observe and analyse poesia in ottava rima in which the structure of performance comprises the participants, performers, and audience. In these studies, the poetic duelling of contrasto is ‘seen’ and analysed as a musical performance using video analysis. Here, the poets’ bodily communication and their interaction with the audience are integral components of the performance. This interaction is not passive; rather, it actively contributes to shaping the event and its meaning.

The improvised contrasto is a poetic competition between two (sometimes more) poet-singers: the proponent and the opponent. They engage in extemporaneous sung poetry centred on a tema (theme). Members of the audience propose the theme based on two opposing characters that each poet must embody. The topic can be political (communist vs. capitalist), social (landlord vs. peasant), satirical (mother-in-law vs. daughter-in-law), epic (Dido vs. Aeneas), or can involve current issues. The skill required of a poet in octave rhyme is twofold. First, it is crucial to adhere to the formal rule of the obbligo di rima (obligation to rhyme). This entails following the metric form of the ottave incatenate (chained octaves) in stanzas comprising eight hendecasyllable verses. The first verse of the poet’s response to their opponent must rhyme with the closing couplet of the preceding octave (according to the scheme ABABABCC, CDCDCDEE, etc.). Second, each poet must support their arguments with the theme assigned by the audience. It is customary to conclude the poetic duel with one or two tight octaves in which the two poets alternate, each delivering a line of hendecasyllables.

In this improvised poetry contest, the poet—in their relationship with their counterpart but also with the listeners—must demonstrate their creative, expressive, and communicative skills to capture the audience’s attention. First, the performers consistently embrace the challenges proposed by the audience and must improvise based on the ideas offered to them. In assigning the role associated with a given theme, poets are often tasked with supporting arguments that may not necessarily align with their personal opinions or worldviews. Furthermore, because extemporaneous poets from a small circle often participate in the same poetic contests, their ability to be inventive, not repeat themselves with the usual stereotypical phrases, amaze the audience with rhetorical phrases, metaphors, and allusions, or displace the opponent with an unexpected joke, becomes the most appreciated quality both by the duelling participants and the audience. Improvisation comprises the extemporaneous originality of the content, and each improviser’s creativity is reflected in their ability to compose surprising verses ‘on the spot’. This is achieved using various gestures for expressive and/or communicative ends.

According to some poets, the ability to improvise ottave is a natural, innate gift that is honed over time. The poet Emilio Meliani addressed improvisation in octave rhyme and innate talent and asserted that:

Poetry in octave rhyme is something that comes from deep within you. It’s a strange thing. You can’t learn. It cannot be learned or even taught; you have to have it in you and, of course, you can perfect it. It is something inside you that drives you to compose verse. Here, all of a sudden, a good familiarity with rhymes, a decent memory, a little knowledge, and a little training make this poet come out. Actually, poet is a big word; I’d say he’s an estempore cantore [improvisational cantor].¹⁰

The contrasto in Tuscan Maremma: performance practice and contexts

In Tuscan Maremma, the contrasto was traditionally performed—occasionally even today—at a tavolino (‘[tavern] table’). These performances traditionally occurred during the veglie (‘vigils’), which are evening gatherings held in the farms during convivial gatherings in the rural taverns, called osterie, or during the wedding banquets that occurred in the countryside. The contrasto a tavolino is appreciated by many listeners and performers for its intimacy and informality. As poet Marco Betti asserted, ‘true poetry is appreciated at the table when there are no constraints even of the themes sometimes, but each one takes turns […] The true essence of the poet is found in the octaves at the table’.¹¹

In recent decades, probably owing to the decline in convivial occasions related to peasant and artisan life and the disappearance of specific places of socialisation (including taverns), the primary venue for contrasto performances has become the stage.¹² Cultural associations comprising enthusiasts and connoisseurs of this poetic tradition now typically organise gatherings of improvisational poets to perform improvised sung poetic duels.¹³ These formal gatherings are held mostly in the case del popolo (‘people’s houses’), recreational clubs located in some rural villages in the Tuscan Maremma, where poets perform on a stage in front of an audience.¹⁴

I use a synchronic perspective to analyse how the gestural behaviour of poets changes in relation to the changing context. The change in the performance context, from the familiar and friendly environment of the countryside banquet to the ‘spectacularisation’ of the public performances on a raised stage¹⁵ before an audience seated in the stalls, has not substantially changed the vocal style or improvisational technique of Tuscan poeti. However, based on interviews with the poets and my observational analysis, some emerging elements revealed the difference between the informal improvisation ‘a tavolino’ and the formal improvisation practised ‘sul palco’. In the performance ‘sul palco’, the poets become ‘actors’ on a stage, commencing and concluding the ‘show’ with greeting and farewell octaves, respectively. Their aim is to entertain their audience, whose response determines the success of a performance and the poet’s fame. According to Betti,¹⁶ poets performing onstage must observe a certain ‘etiquette’, encompassing their demeanour, costume, and self-presentation to the audience. When performing onstage, poets employ gestures, postures, and body movements, acting as ‘characters’ in a theatrical play, all without transforming the poetic duel into a pantomime. This entails a significant expressiveness and ‘theatricality’ in the poetic gestures, emphasising corporal codes of non-verbal communication, such as proxemics and kinesics, posture, facial expressions, gazes and glances, head movements, and gestures. Thus, the differential element between the two performative contexts lies above all in the theatricality or ‘performativity’ (Caruso 2021) of poetic improvisation. Therefore, the poet Giampiero Giamogante posited the following:

There is a distinction to be made when you perform publicly. Therefore, usually on stage, even if they improvised stages but are relieved by the people who listen to us, the theatricality has its own importance. Perhaps, the poet who naturally gesticulates is certainly seen in a different way from the one who timidly fails to be very engaging. While the contrasto ‘at the table’, that is when you are seated, the theatricality doesn’t matter; however, the importance of the things you say matters. Furthermore, normally, the listeners of a table are just the fans or sometimes other poets who certainly have a different ear. Hence, few tricks are required, little theatrical gesture is needed, the verse is needed, hendecasyllable is needed, knowledge is needed, and generosity is needed when it’s your turn. There is a distinction to be made between the performance on stage (and we see a lot of them) and the confrontation at the table (maybe we see a little less? Maybe that’s what we young people lack a little?); however, that is actually the most important moment of singing in ottava rima.¹⁷

Numerous audiovisual recordings of the poets in action enable us to conduct a comparative analysis. The following images include a comparison between singer-poets’ gestures in different vocal performances, both ‘at a table’ and ‘onstage’. The first example concerns a contrasto a tavolino that was held in 2015 in a private house, Podere Pianizzoli, in Ghirlanda, a hamlet of Massa Marittima (Grosseto), during the annual meeting of poets in octave rhyme in memory of poet Lio Banchi.¹⁸ Two esteemed extemporaneous poets—Niccolino Grassi and Dante Valentini—representing the older generation, infused the banquet with improvised contrasti. In the first sequence, we observe the contrasto between Grassi, sitting with his hand raised, and Valentini, standing (Figure 1A–B). The performance appears relatively static, featuring modest hand gestures of the poets to emphasise the sung words. However, overall, the body language and gestures remain subdued, enabling focus on poetic invention. The second example focuses on a contrasto filmed in Pomonte (Scansano, Grosseto) in 2016 at the 19th International Meeting of Poetic Improvisation. In this case, the contrasto ‘America and Cuba’ between the poets Niccolino Grassi and Donato De Acutis occurred onstage in front of an audience. The images depict the exasperated and ‘theatrical’ deployment of gestures by Grassi, aimed at listeners who attempt to harangue with particular vehemence (as visible from his facial expressions) (Figure 2A–B).

Figure 1. Contrasto between poets Niccolino Grassi and Dante Valentini (Ghirlanda 2015).

Figure 2. Contrasto between poets Niccolino Grassi and Donato De Acutis (Pomonte 2016).

A real ‘dramaturgy’ or mise en scène is often enacted during the poetic competition performed onstage. Listeners show their appreciation verbally and gesturally; they are, in a sense, performers themselves. The audience actively participates in the performance, contributing comments, applause, or laughter, thereby influencing the development of the challenge and occasionally determining the outcome of the poetic competition.

The ritualised gesture is apparently simple, without many individual or collective morphological variations. To a superficial observation, it may appear limited to the cyclic movements of the arm which emphasises the speech with a periodicity punctuated by the caesuras of the lines, which in the second quatrain is repeated almost symmetrically to the first […]. But also the eye, the chin, in rotating, leaning out, and moving away from the head, manifest emotional vibrations—not to be overlooked—in the moment of the challenge, of the provocation addressed to the interlocutor. The torsion of the torso and the spreading of the arms involve the audience in a continuous circularity that underlines with laughter, jokes, applause, the anticipation of rhymes, and incitements, responding alternately to the mocking and histrionic winks of the poets striving for the triumph. (De Giovanni 1999: 24, translated by the present author)

The primary quality that characterises an experienced poet is their dramatic verve—their poetic ability to captivate the audience and meet their expectations. The poetic gesture is a stylistic trait of each singer-poet and an element articulated and enhanced in public performances onstage. The aim of being in tune with the listeners and the consonance established between the poet and the listeners were well expressed by Betti when he said that ‘the poet while singing, tries to make the listener vibrate with him’.¹⁹

In the staged performance, the protagonists are both the poets and the audience. The audience proposes the themes and judges the gara poetica (poetic contest). The contrasto is an atypical competition because it is characterised by the absence of an external jury judging the poetic challenge:

It must be noted that the poetic contrasto is not intended to be the real one. The ultimate aim of both poets is to produce a harmonious and engaging contrasto, aiming to display their prowess in devising poetic solutions to the rhyme problems while also cooperating to ensure one’s opponent does not stutter. Thus, fair play is considered essential, and the contrasto as such, despite what is sometimes said, has no winner or loser, comparable to a frisbee than a table tennis game. (Kezich 1982: 195)

The losing poet is the one who lascia cadere la rima (lit. lets the rhyme drop)—this occurs when the poet fails to find words that rhyme according to the octave scheme. However, this situation rarely occurs on stage. During the poetic challenge, the two opponents collaborate to support each other: If one notices their opponent’s struggle, they deliberately provide easily completable rhymes (or occasionally suggest the rhyme in a whisper) to garner a swift response from the opponent. The dynamic generates a type of complicity between the improvising poets, a sort of ‘antagonistic cooperation’ (Agamennone 2002: 200) or nuanced interplay between conflict and cooperation (Pagliai 2002). The sequence below represents a moment where Grassi lets the rhyme ‘fall’ during a duel with Meliani. Grassi pauses, head bowed, and then struggles to resume the confrontation (Figure 3A). After some hesitation, he gestures discouragement by touching his forehead (Figure 3B). At this juncture, he turns to his opponent, Meliani, who discreetly whispers the rhyme, enabling Grassi to resume the duel (Figure 3C).

Figure 3. Sequence in which poet Niccolino Grassi ‘lets the rhyme fall’ during a contrasto with the poet Emilio Meliani (Ribolla 2017).

Suggestions by contenders to not ‘let the rhyme fall’ is not only a noble gesture of fair play towards the opponent, which is certainly part of the ethics of a poetic duel but also represents a way to maintain the rhythm of the challenge against an audience that requires a fast pace. The contrasto has its own ethics (the ‘etiquette’ of the ottava rima previously mentioned by Betti), including what is socially acceptable. For example, in the contrasto, no vulgar, trivial, or offensive gestures or expressions are allowed during poetic improvisations.²⁰ That is a tacit rule concerning the poet’s proper demeanour. Therefore, the contrasto performance is subject to the range of community ground rules that regulate speaking in general (Bauman 1975, 1977).

The non-verbal communication between the two contenders (e.g. motor behaviour, gestures, facial expression, and gaze) conveys codified meanings. Furthermore, the audience’s actions, such as their gestures, words, applause, and laughter, also become an integral part of the performance context. Tiezzi defined this phenomenon as a ‘multi-participant dialogic activity’ (2009: 6), where the poets creating the contrasto are both interlocutors between themselves and interlocutors of the public. In this ‘multi-directional orientation mode’ (Tiezzi 2009: 7), the poet, while improvising, turns to both the contender and the audience.

This study primarily focuses on the interactions among performers onstage and between them and the audience. Hence, the central issue is whether and how these interactions manifest as triangulation, wherein the audience, through its emotionally active participation, becomes a co-protagonist of the competition. The study explores whether and how the audience can subsequently condition, influence, or even determine the development and outcome of the performance through its response. These multi-directional interactions, in addition to being ‘audible’, also become ‘visible’ to the camera’s lens (Figure 4).

Figure 4. The triangular interaction between the two poets and the audience during the contrasto.

Considering these observations, I believe that the contrasto does not have two generative components (as suggested by the duality of the opponents), but three. I consider that: 1) the audience is essential to the performance; a contrasto cannot exist without the presence of an audience, and 2) the audience is not indifferent, neutral, or simply a passive element, but is instead participatory, strongly involved in the generation and development of the performance—becoming an influential element in the outcome of the poetic competition. This study employed the videographic transcription method to analyse these interactions among the three components. Regula Qureshi (1995 [1986]) distinguished between the videograph, where a conventional musical transcription is placed in parallel with transcriptions of each participant’s behaviour (each person, or group of people, being allotted one row in the transcription), and the videochart, which dissects the musical transcription into chunks and juxtaposes them with pertinent behavioural observations to extract evidence of interaction. The videograph method does not involve only the transcription of sung texts and melodic profiles but also facilitates frame-by-frame analysis,²¹ showing the most significant moments of the poetic performance regarding ‘vocal-gestural performance’ (Caruso 2021; Clayton 2007a, 2007b; Clayton, Leante and Tarsitani 2021).

Ethnography of contrasto as a vocal-gestural performance

The improvised contrasto is a poetic-musical event, representing a communicative process through which the film medium can be ‘watched’ (as well as ‘read’ and ‘listened to’) as a poetic competition that becomes a theatrical performance. The videos analysed here were captured during field research, primarily in Ribolla, in the municipality of Roccastrada, a small town near Grosseto in Maremma. Since 1992, this locale has been hosting the ‘Incontri di poesia estemporanea’, a meeting of the most acclaimed poeti in ottava rima of Central Italy. Organised by the local cultural association (Sergio Lampis Improvvisar Cantando Association), the event takes place in a small theatre attached to a cultural centre (Sala ARCI). Here, poets from all over Central Italy gather not only to perform for an attentive audience of connoisseurs but also to meet each other and consolidate old friendships. This event provides a crucial arena to observe how an attentive and knowledgeable audience (including other poets) can significantly enhance a performance event. This study focuses on the analysis of the contrasto performances I had the opportunity to observe and record during the 2011 and 2016 editions of this meeting/competition. The attendees included some of the most acclaimed poets in octave rhyme of different ages, genders, and social statuses, hailing from both Tuscany and northern Lazio.

For the detailed analysis of gestural interactions between performing poets or between poets and listeners, it was imperative to record multiple, simultaneous views. Consequently, the performances were recorded using two digital cameras (the Sony HXR-NX100 and the Canon Vixia HFR21). In the 2011 meeting, I used two fixed cameras on tripods for static shots. The first camera, which was positioned in the centre of the room, captured a wide frontal view of both performers, whereas the second—placed backstage, behind the poets—focused on the audience throughout the performance. The positioning of the cameras at these two angles made it possible to film both the poets in ‘action’ (from the perspective of the audience) and the ‘reaction’ of the audience (from the perspective of the poets) (Figure 5). In the 2016 meeting, the setup for this performance involved one hand-held camera, used for both frontal and side shots, to film the poets from different angles during their performance. Some shots were also taken with the hand-held camera from an elevated side balustrade to film in real time both the ‘action’ of the poets onstage and the ‘reaction’ of the audience in the stalls, with rapid camera movements in sequence (Figure 6).

Figure 5. Setup of video cameras during a fieldwork trip in 2011, including one frontal fixed shot of the stage and one fixed shot of the audience.

Figure 6. Setup of video cameras during a fieldwork trip in 2016, including one hand-held camera shot of the stage and one fixed shot of the audience.

The first filming session was followed by an analysis of the video recordings using split screen and picture-in-picture techniques, which made it possible to review different stage and audience views simultaneously. Split-screen is a video-editing technique in which the frame is divided into different, nonoverlapping images (Figure 7A), whereas the picture-in-picture technique involves a minimised image included in the main frame (Figure 7B). The multi-camera setting of the second shooting session enabled us to film the poets from different angles during their performance (Figure 8A) and acquire more details of their gestures with a fixed camera positioned onstage behind the poets, facing the audience (Figure 8B).

Figure 7. Split screen (7A) and picture-in-picture (7B) images used for the videographic analysis. The two duelling poets are Enrico Rustici and Pietro De Acutis, shown during an improvised contrasto (Ribolla 2011).

Figure 8. Two different camera angles: shot in front of the stage with the mobile camera (8A) and onstage behind the poets with the fixed camera (8B) during a contrasto between Emilio Meliani and Niccolino Grassi (Ribolla 2016).

The staged performance of the contrasto in its public, theatrical dimension has some rules and codified behaviours that regulate its development. The contrasto ‘sul palco’—unlike the contrasto ‘a tavolino’—has a structure that can be categorised into three main sections (Figure 9). The performance etiquette of the contrasto demands that each contest begins with some initial procedures, starting with the singing of the greeting octaves (ottave di saluto), improvised in free rhyme (always following the octave rhyme scheme ABABABCC). In this ‘opening ceremony’, all the poets participating take turns onstage to greet the audience, honour the guests, or praise the host town and the virtues of the citizens and their sense of hospitality. The greeting octaves mark the beginning of the performative act, whereas the farewell octaves (ottave di congedo) mark the end of the competition.

Figure 9. The tripartite structure of the contrasto on stage with the following sequence: ottave di saluto – contrasto – ottave di congedo.

The documentary Cantar l’Ottava shows poet Meliani singing the octave of greeting to open the poetic competition during Ribolla’s extemporaneous poetry meetings in 2016. The captions enable us to show the sung text, highlighting the metric pattern of the two ‘chained octaves’ (ABABABCC and CDCDCDEE). Moreover, they simultaneously enable the viewer to observe the emphasis of the vocal gestural performance, waving his left arm and using a strong and sustained tone of voice with a declamatory impetus, which constitutes a stylistic characteristic of the Pisan poet (Figures 10A–B and 11A–B).

Figure 10. Ottave di saluto sung by Emilio Meliani (Ribolla 2016).

Figure 11. Ottave di saluto sung by Emilio Meliani (Ribolla 2016).

In public tournaments, poets commence with a few opening octaves to greet the audience, following which they are paired off for the poetic contrasto. A preliminary stage of choosing the theme precedes the singing duel. Each poet interprets a part of a specific theme chosen by the audience. In the examined case of Ribolla’s extemporaneous poetry meetings (Incontri di poesia estemporanea), an individual from the organising committee—specifically, Domenico Gamberi, an ex-miner, fan of ottava rima, and promoter of the event—passes by the audience in the hall to collect the biglietti (notes), mentioning the tema (theme) proposed by the audience. Subsequently, the presenter—representing the organisation—proceeds to the draw, reads the selected theme, and announces to the audience and contesting poets the opposing characters that they are required to impersonate during the poetic competition. The argument is assigned only a few seconds before the contest, which, therefore, is conducted entirely extemporaneously. The two poets improvise and sing one octave each in rapid succession; each of them must begin their turn with a line that rhymes with the final couplet of the opponent.

Gestures were studied using video recordings and observational analysis software. This involved coding specific behavioural aspects linked to the video’s time code. The following videographic transcription of a video clip, taken from the documentary Cantar l’Ottava, was made with the video-editing software Videopad Professional to conduct an observational analysis of the performance. This software has also proved effective in combining musical transcriptions made with scorewriter MuseScore with video recordings of performances, as it aided us in displaying both the music score and the video frames and in measuring the temporal dimension in which poetic improvisation takes place (Figure 12). Moreover, effective video-editing software enabled us to visualise and record when each action/gesture occurred during the performance, who produced the action/gesture (performer or audience), and how long it lasted (duration).

Figure 12. Observational analysis conducted by combining the video-editing software Videopad Professional and the notation software MuseScore.

The videographic transcription featured a contrasto titled ‘War and Peace’, sung by two poets from different generations and regions. Enrico Rustici, a young poet from Braccagni (Tuscany), embodied the ‘pacifist’, whereas Pietro De Acutis, an older poet from Bacugno (Lazio), represented the ‘warmonger’. After roles were assigned, they exchanged glances (Figure 13A) to decide who would start. In the dynamics of onstage relationships, the poeti are keenly aware of hierarchies linked to seniority, which bestow authority. While age is the primary criterion, other factors such as experience and performing ability also play a role. During a performance, both the poets and astute listeners recognise performers’ relative seniority. In this case, the sequence portrayed the youngest’s (Enrico Rustici) gesture of his left hand (Figure 13B), inviting his seasoned opponent to begin the octave—a deferential act towards an experienced elderly poet; however, the eldest (Peter De Acutis) humbly declined, waving his opponent to commence with the microphone (Figure 13C). This observance aligned with the ‘etiquette’ of the ottava rima.

Figure 13. ‘Etiquette’ between a young and an elderly contender at the beginning of the vocal duel. Contrasto ‘War and Peace’ between poets Enrico Rustici and Pietro De Acutis (Ribolla 2011).

The poetic challenge commenced. In the following transcription, Enrico Rustici, symbolising Peace, is denoted by ‘ER’, while Pietro De Acutis, representing War, is denoted by ‘PD’ (Table 1).

Table 1. Description of the performers’ gestures and their interaction with the audience through a partial videographic transcription of the contrasto ‘War and Peace’ (poets: Enrico Rustici and Pietro De Acutis).

Timing	Frames and analysis	Sung Text	Metric form
00’:00’’	ER turns his gaze to the audience and raises his armin the act of amplifying the sung word.	ER: Il cuore assai mi dole e mi si serra il sentimento davanti al tuo arsenale tu che sei un cultore-e della guerra la porti nel confin ‘nternazionale	A B A B
00’:28’’	ER addresses the audience (‘you see’) with a raised finger, speaking of ‘him’ (the opponent in front of him) accusing him of being a capitalist (certain of capturing the consent of ‘his’ leftist audience).	Ma il mio intuito vedete che un’erra dice che lui è uno schiavo del capitale la guerra rende i popoli più tristi ed è un bengodi per i capitalisti.^25	A B C C
00’:45’’ 4sec.. 00’:49’’	Thunderous and prolonged applause from the audience.
00’:48’’	PD makes the upward and downward movement of the flat palm of the hand as if to give a history lesson (the Vendée war)^26 to the young contender.	PD: I risultati la storia li ha visti la guerra a volte sai è la panacea la Francia che ha vissuto giorni tristi quando il nemico in casa essa v’avea.	C D C D
01’:44’’	PD tries to make eye contact with his opponent,while ER looks down to concentrate on creating the next improvised stanza. PD lashing a last anticlerical joke to the thoughtful contender, in visible difficulty, snatches the applause of the audience.	Reazionari quei preti quelli misti scateronno la guerra di Vandea se avesser vinto co’ la lor’azione avremmo ancora il Papa ch’è padrone.^27	C D E E
01’:44’’ 6sec.in. 01’:50’’	Warm and prolonged applause from the audience with a ‘bravo!’.
01’51’’	ER addresses the opponent making the gesture of launching the invective, while PD lowers his gaze, with a political lash (‘the others won’ refers to the post-war victory of the Christian Democrats and the defeat of the Communist party, while ‘the Pope reigns inside the Parliament’ refers to the strong influence of the Vatican in Italian politics).	ER: Ma il risultato di quell’equazione vinsero altri ma non cambiò il vento guarda all’Italia, tricolore in azione che’l Papa regna dentro il Parlamento	E F E F
02’:11’’ 6sec. 02’:17’’	The audience intervenes by ‘breaking’ the ottava with laughter and applause. Some spectators nod their heads.
02’:16’’	ER turns to the audience with his outstretched arm and his open left hand in the act of rejecting and pushing away (the priests)	Questa per noi è una costernazione io nella pace invece mi ci metto pace in Italia, i preti assai lontano! rompin le palle dentr’al Vaticano!^28	E F G G
02’:29’’ 8sec.n. 02’:37’’	Laughter and prolonged applause. Numerous ‘bravo!’. There is a buzz in the hall. We can observe a few approving shakes of the head and nods. The anti-clerical invective arouses enthusiastic applause from the listeners.
02’:34’’	PD holds out his hand to give his history ‘lesson’, this time mentioning a very sensitive topic to the audience in the room: the partisan war. The nods of approval from the audience become more evident.	PD: Tu metti all’ateo il ramo in mano ma quest’Italia che un tempo fu insana anche quello credente non fu vano che in un momento è uscito dalla tana. Anche lui ebbe quel fucile in mano ti parlo della guerra partigiana pur se passata, pur se è vetusta io la ritengo ancor una guerra giusta.^29	G H G H G H I I
03’:22’’ 7sec.n. 03’:29’’	‘Bravo!’ Prolonged applause. There is considerable audience involvement, both responsive and participatory. Comments and shouts can be heard in the hall, marked by body sways and hand claps.

The realm of octave poets involves a repertoire of physical movements, termed ‘gestural rhetoric’ (Clarke and Davidson 1998). Specific actions, postures, gestures, and movements consistently align with the expression of extemporaneous poetry, imparting distinct significance to both performers and audiences. The videographic transcription highlighted the contenders’ proxemics (Hall 1966) and kinesics (Birdwhistell 1952), encompassing postures and gestures. Notably, the illustrative gestures (Ekman and Friesen 1969) that are closely intertwined with discourse were spotlighted to elucidate concepts through manual and arm movements. Clayton also used the term illustrators to describe gestures associated with the melody’s movement or flow, while markers refer to gestures indicating musical structural elements such as pulse or cadence (Clayton 2007a: 75; see also Fatone et al. 2011).

Both poets employed illustrative and regulatory gestures for communication and expression, enhancing spoken words; however, each possessed distinct gestural styles and codes. Rustici’s gestural corpus involved ‘evocative’ movements, such as raising his left arm to emphasise words or sentences and seeking audience approval (Figure 14A) (see Kendon 2004: 111). De Acutis maintained a composed demeanour with slow and calm movements. His signature style included rhythmic ‘explanatory’ gestures using the left forearm to punctuate his poetic improvisation—a beat gesture (McNeill 2005),²² a rhythmic regulator (Ekman and Friesen 1969) that comprised rhythmic non-meaningful hand movements emphasising the articulation of particular words, which in Clayton’s terms can be defined as markers, as they punctuate the pace of his versification—such as the upward and downward movement of the flat palm of the hand (Figure 14B). The hand gesture (hereinafter called the ring)—in which the tips of the index finger and thumb are brought into contact, forming a circle—is defined by Kendon as a ‘discourse unit marker gesture’ (1995: 248) serving to mark discourse units that are ‘focal’ (e.g. authoritative) regarding the theme or topic. This may be related to the use of the same hand shape in a gesture that Diadori (1990) referred to as mano ad anello (ring hand), which is widely recognised, both within Italy and elsewhere, as the ‘OK gesture’ (Figure 14C). De Acutis sometimes used circular or spiral hand gestures to accompany and ‘draw’ the melismatic ornamentations (Figure 14D). A legend of the poetic gestures associated with the geometric symbols is given in the text (Figure 15).

Figure 14. Frames showing different types of gestures of the two contenders: evocative (14A), beat (14B), ring (14C), and spiral (14D).

Figure 15. Legends of the poets’ gestures.

In the following videographic transcription, the same episode of the contrast ‘War and Peace’ considered above is shown, matching the musical transcription with the images to highlight the close relationship among singing, speech, and gesture in vocal performance. Performers communicate with each other not only through singing but also with several head, eye, and hand movements; gestures produced by performers seem to amplify or even explain the meaning of the sung words. These, in turn, evoke gestures of response from appreciative listeners. It is clear from the footage analysed here that, during the confrontation between the poets, two elements gradually become tighter in the final two couplets—called rima baciata, litt. ‘kissed rhyme’ referring to the last two couplets of the octave ABABABCC—in which an acceleration of time called martellata (hammer blow) is performed: the pulse (the timing of movements) and the dynamic quality (the force and direction of movements). Moreover, as the climax of the poetic duel approached, gestures were increasingly emphasised for audience effect (Figure 16).

Figure 16. Videographic transcription of the above excerpt of the contrasto ‘War and Peace’, including both textual and musical transcription as well as transcoding of performers’ gestures.

In my observational analysis of the poets’ physical gestures in the contrasto ‘War and Peace’, I followed the analytical model proposed by King and Ginsborg (2011) but added the images related to gesture in the taxonomic grid. The types of non-verbal communication occurring most frequently were noted and categorised as either states (actions with a duration, e.g. gazing at the co-performer during the poetic duel) or points (actions with no specified duration, e.g. a quick look at the audience). As a theoretical framework of categories, I used the five classifications of body movement that have communication functions as defined by Ekman and Friesen (1969): emblems (those with direct verbal translations, such as thumbs up for ‘yes’), illustrators (those used to describe or reinforce points), adaptors (those that satisfy personal needs, such as twiddling the fingers), affect displays (those revealing our affective or emotional state), and regulators (those that regulate interaction) (Table 2).

Table 2. The diagram below shows poets' gestures according to five classifications of body movement that have communicative functions as defined by Ekman and Friesen (1969).

Picture	Category/Type	Example from data	Function (EKFR)
	States
	Waving/shaping/raising hand	Raise the left arm upwards toward the audience	Illustrator
	Waving/shaping/raising hand	Signalling the ‘stop’ sign by extending the arm forward with the palm facing outward	Illustrator
	Pulsing with hand	‘Ring’ hand gesture moving up and down	Regulator
	Gazing at each other	Look at the co-performer (eye contact)	Adaptor
	Gazing elsewhere	Look out towards the audience	Affect
	Points
	Glance at each other	Quick look at the partner	Regulator
	Glance elsewhere	Quick look at the audience	Affect
	Gestures	Fingers resting on the lip (pensive posture)	Affect

From the viewpoint of musical performance, the ottava rima is characterised by a strophic form, in which each poet has their own stereotypical melodic formula—the vocal extension is within an octave of the diatonic scale but usually does not exceed a melodic ambitus of five notes—but with common characteristics: the melodic style is syllabic, in free rhythm, and the end of each verse is suspended in a melismatic dilatation that ends in a sustained sound on the final syllable. Improvisation occurs mainly at the level of the verbal text and only to a lesser extent in the melodic line, which is based on stereotyped formulas.

Each poet possesses a distinct vocal style and rhyme repertoire developed through experience, as well as an accompanying repertoire of gestures that define their unique stylistic identity. De Acutis employed a melismatic ‘cantabile’ vocal technique, characterised by vibrant ornamentation and pronounced vibrato. By contrast, Rustici adopted a ‘recitativo’ vocal style marked by syllabic expression and extended pauses at sentence ends. Each octave is sung in less than a minute; however, as it climaxes, we observe the tendency to increase the tempo and rhythmic definition. As the speed of their singing increases, the overall frequency of their gestures also increases. Nevertheless, the two poets adopted different strategies to attract and keep the audience’s attention. De Acutis, renowned by connoisseurs for his singing skills, used vocal virtuosity, such as the vibrato and long melismatic ornamentation of the melodic profile, as markers of bravura, while Rustici relied on the vehemence of the ‘declamatory’ gesture in his intention to launch invective towards the audience and on the gradual raising of the tone of his voice, in addition to the shrewd dialect joke.

The analysis of the transcriptions reveals that the improvisation technique of the two contending poets is very similar: The singing of the couplets in alternating rhyme occurs rather slowly, and, at the end of the verse, the last syllables are prolonged in a descendent glissando to end on the finalis. The melismatic part focuses on the last two syllables of the hendecasyllable; the melismatic melodic profile at the end of each couplet and the dilation of the durations of the finalis seem to be a ploy to stall for time, to search for the subsequent rhymes and contents, and concoct a plan to apply them to the poetic invention.²³ There is an increasing pace in the last two couplets (the martellata), aimed at winning the audience’s applause. Rustici used a strong ‘declamatory’ style, addressing the audience using a sharp upward motion of the raised left hand and marking the end of a particularly vivid martellata with crescendo and accelerando techniques in the last two couplets of the octave (Figures 17 and 18).

Figure 17. Musical transcription of an excerpt of the contrasto ‘War and Peace’. Singer-poet: Pietro De Acutis.

Figure 18. Musical transcription of an excerpt of the contrasto ‘War and Peace’. Singer-poet: Enrico Rustici.

The musical transcription highlighted that the musical form differs from the textual form. If the rhymes of the octaves follow the scheme ABABABCC, the musical form shows the bipartite structure of the melodic formula. It corresponds to four verses and is repeated, with some variations, in the second quatrain of the octave according to the scheme ABCD A’B’C’D’ (Figure 19).

Figure 19. A comparison of the poetic form and the musical form in the contrasto. Note: QR n.1 (Fig.1). Contrasto between poets Niccolino Grassi and Dante Valentini (Ghirlanda 2015). QR n.2 (Fig.2). Contrasto between poets Niccolino Grassi and Donato De Acutis (Pomonte 2016). QR n.3 (Fig.3). Sequence in which poet Niccolino Grassi ‘lets the rhyme fall’, failing to find an appropriate response within the octave form during a contrasto with poet Emilio Meliani (Ribolla 2017). QR n.4 (Fig.10–11). Ottave di saluto sung by Emilio Meliani (Ribolla 2016). QR n.5 (Table 1). Description of the performers' gestures and their interaction with the audience through a partial videographic transcription of the contrasto ‘War and Peace’ (poets: Enrico Rustici and Pietro De Acutis).

The audience is increasingly engaged in the physical manifestation of its participation through active interaction with the performers. The poet harangues the audience, who react with warm expressions of consent: applauding, laughing, commenting to the spectator sitting next to them, nodding their heads, smiling in appreciation of a poet’s skill, and so on. Connoisseurs display their appreciation of the performers through gestures, verbal interjections, or loud exclamations praising the poets (‘bravo!’). It may happen, as in the case here analysed, that the audience breaks in with applause at the end of the first quatrain, effectively ‘breaking’ the octave in two, an act that corresponds with making a comparison with the theatrical performances to open scene applause. The relative duration and intensity of the applause reflect the audience’s appreciation for the respective contenders.

It befalls the audience to decide who the winner is; their name is announced, but it is made clear by the audience’s reactions (applause, laughter, comments, shouts, etc.). Betti offered his interpretation of this phenomenon, giving the following explanation:

First, because the contrasti do not last long and no approach exists to dissect them. Second, the octave rhyme is a form of ethical communication, in the sense that one is also obliged to listen (today the idea of listening has been lost). Third, because ultimately whoever wins is of little importance. The beautiful performance is when both poets manage to get in tune with the audience, and then the applause comes out.²⁴

The applause and approval of the audience are the real prize of the poetic contest, representing the ultimate goal of singing performance and poetic improvisation. As evident from the visuals presented in the videographic transcription, the two opponents, while reciting the verses, exchange challenging glances and intermittently turn towards the audience—the ‘multi-directional mode of orientation’ (Tiezzi 2009)—for a captatio benevolentiae. In cases such as this, poet-singers rely on feelings and resentments shared by the audience. Critiquing capitalism, anticlericalism, anti-fascism, and the partisan struggle are some examples of the recurring topoi in the narratives of Tuscan poets in ottava rima.

The contrasto enables the poet-singers to dispute behaviours, compare, and negotiate worldviews and political perspectives, all while veiling their opinions through the formal structure of the genre (Pagliai 2002, 2021). The poeti are aware that the political topics related to recent Italian history are sensitive issues that require the consent of ‘their’ audience. In Tuscan Maremma, the audience is primarily composed of people with a strong social connotation (mostly belonging to the proletariat), united by the same political orientation (communist or social democratic)—often older adults who experienced first-hand the deprivations, battles, and resistance struggle against fascism during the Second World War. As Giovanni Kezich stated, ‘the oral improvisation of the individual poet is nothing but the focal point in which contents of memory and collective travails emerge’ (Kezich 1986: 24, translation by the present author).

Conclusions

This study integrates perspectives and methods from performance ethnography and ethnomusicology. This fusion is vital because of the essence of evaluative communication within contrasto performance, particularly in vocal and gestural interactions. A purely word-centric study of ‘verbal art as a performance’ (Bauman 1977: 3) may result in an incomplete interpretation, overlooking the significance of the contrasto’s vocal-gestural performance in constructing the contrasto itself. Embracing a performance-centred view of verbal art reveals the contrasto’s transformation into a vocal and gestural theatrical performance in public spaces. This perspective enables us to observe and analyse the dynamic interactions among participants within this context.

This study observed gestures, interaction, musical structure, metric form, and poetic content in contrasto performances, encompassing poet-singers and the audience. Audiovisual recordings facilitated comprehensive ethnographic analysis, revealing the dynamics within the poets’ interactions with the audience. This suggests the significance of bodily communication in musical performance.

Furthermore, the examination of body language and verbal language indicated a notable divergence in the poets’ gestures, which were accentuated or even exaggerated, particularly in the theatricality of contrasto sul palco and the more subdued contrasto a tavolino. This captivates the audience, implicitly determining the winner of the poetry contest. The defining factor separating these two performative contexts resided primarily in the dramatic, performative aspect of poetic improvisation. The staged performance assumed a theatrical quality, with extemporaneous poets and the audience emerging as active participants or ‘stakeholders’. In this dynamic, the audience contributed to creating an ideal performing environment for the poets, thereby influencing the overall event’s success.

Nonetheless, the enduring essence of poetic improvisation in octave rhyme persists within the two contest settings of spontaneous contrast, whether ‘onstage’ or ‘at a table’. Poet Betti characterised ottava rhyme as a language of virtuosic expression, aggregation, comparison with other poets, a poetic duel, and conviviality. This ‘conviviality’, rooted in the Latin term ‘cum vivere’, meaning ‘to live together’, forms an enduring bond among people and defines ottava rima poetry performed by the ‘estempore cantore’.

Data availability/deposition statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Acknowledgements

I am immensely grateful to all the participants of this research for accepting me in their spaces and scenes and for their invaluable insights into the matters discussed herein. Additionally, I express my profound gratitude to the editors and the two anonymous reviewers for allowing me to revise multiple drafts of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Leonardo D’Amico

Leonardo D’Amico is a postdoctoral researcher at the University College Cork (Ireland). His research fields are Afro-Colombian music, Sub-Saharan Africa music, music of ethnic minorities in China and audiovisual ethnomusicology. He holds a PhD degree with honours in Musicology (2012) from the University of Valladolid. He taught Ethnomusicology at the University of Siena, University of Siena in Arezzo, University of Ferrara, Conservatory of Brescia, Conservatory of Mantua (Italy), and Yunnan University in Kunming (China). He held the position of chair of the Italian Committee of ICTM (2002–2012) and was co-founder of the ICTM Study Group on Audiovisual Ethnomusicology. He has published the following books: Folk Music Atlas: Africa (1998), Cumbia. La musica afrocolombiana (2002), Filmare la musica (2012), Griot. Il maestro della parola (2014), Musica dell’Africa Nera (2004) with A. Kaye, and Audiovisual Ethnomusicology. Filming Musical Cultures (2020). He is the founder and director of the Ethnomusicological Film Festival ‘Immagini & Suoni del Mondo’ in Florence, Italy.

Notes

1 The Tuscan poets are also called poeti a braccio (‘by armlength’) or poeti bernescanti (‘bernesque’), as they harken back to the tradition created by Renaissance Florentine poet Francesco Berni's Rifacimento dell'Orlando innamorato, which in the 1500s gave Boiardo’s poem a Tuscan and playful guise.

2 The octave poetry has been persisted, basically unchanged for seven centuries, from the Middle Ages to the present day: the ottava popolare (folk octave) preserves, intact, the metric structure of the cantari of the itinerant cantambanchi (charlatans) of the fourteenth century and the epic chivalric of the sixteenth century, such as the Orlando Furioso (1532) by Ludovico Ariosto and the Gerusalemme Liberata (1581) by Torquato Tasso (Agamennone 2002, 2017; Kezich 1986, 1996, 2013).

3 The term ‘octave’ here does not refer to the ‘octave’ in musical terms (the interval between one musical pitch and another with double its frequency) but only to the literary form of eight-line stanza.

4 In the Italian oral tradition, poets in octave rhyme were normally men. However, things have recently started to change, and some women have begun improvising in public performances. Today, female poets who participate in gatherings of poets in ottava rima, such as the one in Ribolla and Pomonte, are increasing year by year. In the past, however, female poets were rare, although their presence has been documented since the eighteenth century. According to Emilio Meliani, this was owing to the environments where ottava rima was practiced (the tavern, a place frequented only by men) and the journeys they would have to make (alone or in the company of other men) to travel to distant places where gatherings were held. The activity of the extemporary poet was thus ill-suited to the female figure in the society of the past (interview conducted in Ribolla on 10 April 2016).

5 From a methodological viewpoint, I attempted to integrate written sources taken from the conspicuous existing literature on ottava rima poetry in central Italy with first-hand oral sources: formal interviews and informal conversations with some of the most representative poets of this cultural tradition, and audiovisual recordings of poetic improvisations that I personally made during the gatherings of poets on the occasion of the Ribolla’s extemporaneous poetry meetings in 2011 and 2016. The films made in this time span also include the improvisations made during the celebration of the festival of cantamaggio or maggio (‘May’) by a team of Maremma maggerini (Squadra dei Torelli di Maremma) that I had the opportunity to film in Braccagni (Grosseto) in 2015; an annual meeting of poets in ottava rima in memory of the poet Lio Banchi which was held in Podere Pianizzoli in a farmhouse in Ghirlanda, a hamlet of Massa Marittima (Grosseto) in 2015; the 19th International Meeting of Poetic Improvisation in Pomonte (Scansano, Grosseto) in 2016; the gathering of extemporary poets that was held on the occasion of the Festa di Arci Caccia at the ‘Mario Grandi’ Social Center in Valpiana di Massa Marittima (Grosseto) in 2016.

6 All video recordings analysed in this article were made by the author, and all still images are excerpted from both the research footage and the author’s documentary Cantar l’Ottava (2016) available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VyI-yY6QF4.

7 The poet-singers who participated in my fieldwork are as follows: Pietro and Donato De Acutis from Bacugno (Rieti), Enrico Rustici from Braccagni (Grosseto), Giampiero Giamogante from Sacco (Rieti), Irene Marconi from Massa Marittima (Grosseto), Emilio Meliani from Santa Maria a Monte (Pisa), Marco Betti from Figline Valdarno (Florence), Niccolino Grassi from Massa Marittima (Grosseto), Benito Mastacchini from Orbetello (Grosseto) but resident in Suvereto (Livorno) and Marco Calabrese from Bacugno (Rieti).

8 McNeill proposes language is inseparable from imagery: ‘Imagery is embodied in the gestures that universally and automatically occur with speech’ (2005: 15).

9 The core concept of embodied music cognition is the idea that the body is at the centre of musical meaning-making (Godøy and Leman 2010).

10 Interview conducted in Ribolla on 10 April 2016.

11 Interview conducted in Ribolla on 10 April 2016.

12 In the 1960s and 1970s, the process of ‘depeasantisation’ that occurred in Italy during and after the economic boom led to profound economic and social transformations. The waning of the collective gathering places and occasions of rural life, such as taverns, vigils, village fairs, and country weddings—as well as the spread of television—has led to the progressive decay of traditional vocal practices.

13 Among the most renowned meetings of poets in octave rhyme, we can mention those held at Ribolla (Grosseto), Pomonte (Grosseto), Terranuova Bracciolini (Arezzo), Borbona (Rieti), and Bacugno (Rieti).

14 The casa del popolo was a social centre created at the end of the nineteenth century by the socialist party, widespread in almost all the Tuscan urban settlements. Culturally, the casa del popolo represented the visibility of the socialist movement, its stability, unity, and popular solidarity, as well as the sense of deep local roots and the preservation of memory. It also represented the secular counterpart of the Catholic oratory conducted in the churches.

15 Similar to the Tuscan contrasto, other forms of improvised sung poetry widespread in the Mediterranean, such as the chjam’è rispondi in Corsica (Ragni 2018) and the spirtu pront in Malta (Ciantar 2000), have also undergone a progressive spectacularisation and increasing staginess of the dialogic singing.

16 Interview conducted in Ribolla on 10 April 2016.

17 Interview conducted in Ribolla on 10 April 2016 and reported in the documentary Cantar l’Ottava.

18 This is a private place that can be accessed by only poets and a few fans of this traditional practice for the occasion.

19 ‘Il poeta cantando cerca di far sì che chi l’ascolta vibri con lui’ (interview conducted in Ribolla on 10 April 2016, reported in the documentary Cantar l’Ottava).

20 Domenico Gamberi, the organiser of the meeting ‘Incontri di poesia estemporanea’, refers to the case of a poet in octave rhyme who broke this rule and who was no longer invited to participate in the gathering of poets (personal informal communication, Ribolla 2011).

21 Gerhard Kubik (1972) adopted the frame-by-frame technique while studying the xylophone music of Mozambique and Malawi. The purpose of filming was to see the gestures of percussionists and achieve a detailed analysis of the relationship between sound and movement.

22 McNeill (2005) distinguished between four types of gestures: iconic, metaphoric, deictic, and beat.

23 Poet Marco Betti disagreed with this interpretation of time dilation to gain time in poetic invention. According to the poet, this is only an aesthetic motivation aimed at embellishing the melodic line with some vocal melisma (interview conducted in Ribolla on 10 April 2016).

24 Interview conducted in Ribolla on 10 April 2016.

25 My heart aches and closes / my feeling in front of your arsenal / you who are a lover of war / you bring the war in the international boundaries. But my intuition, you see, is not wrong / when I say he is a slave of the capital / The war makes sad the people / and is a bonanza for the capitalists.

26 The Vendée Wars were a series of civil conflicts that broke out at the time of the French Revolution, which saw the people of the Vendée, very Catholic and strongly loyal to the king, rise up against the revolutionary government, to re-establish the absolute monarchy of the Bourbons and oppose the restrictive measures imposed on Catholic worship.

27 History has seen the outcomes / Sometimes, war is the panacea / France, which has experienced sad days / when it had the enemy at home / Reactionaries with the priests, those mixed ones / They have sparked the war of Vendee. / If they had won by their action / we would still have the Pope as the ruler.

28 But the result of that equation / Other ones won, but the wind did not change / Look at Italy! its flag in action / but the Pope still reigns inside Parliament. / This, for us, it is a constriction / I instead will seek peace / Peace in Italy, priests far away! / Let they break the balls inside the Vatican!

29 You put the branch in the hand of an atheist / but that Italy was once insane / also (the sacrifice of) the believer was not in vain / who in a moment came out of the den. / He also had that gun in his hand / I speak of the partisan war / even if it is passed, even if it is antiquated / I still think it was a right war.