Rewriting Identity, One Letter at a Time: Musical Negotiation of Dutchness in P.S.
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2025-06-24
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en
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Amidst a global loss of belonging (Duyvendak 84), musician Ruben Hein and the Matangi Quartet created the performance P.S. (2024), in which contemporary ideas of Dutch national identity are negotiated. Presenting the performance as an “ode to the letter”, the nostalgic epistolary medium is used to mediate existing ideas about Dutch identity. Instead of merely reiterating or critiquing Dutch identity, P.S. destabilizes and reflects on (historical) Dutch narratives. Building on theories of national narratives and nostalgia, I will analyse the way form and content interplay to provide a musical space, which allows for reflecting on a liminal temporality present in retellings of the past. In this thesis, I argue that P.S. uses the nostalgic medium of the letter as a framework to elicit a tension between national narratives and personal memories, thereby uncovering the processes that underlie the formation of national identity.
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Faculteit der Letteren