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Tobias Matthay was a leading British piano technique theorist, pianist, and piano teacher in the early 20th century. He systematized the modern piano technique used by Chopin and other virtuosos （Oochi 2002:20） and established a new method of describing the muscular conditions of piano playing. This paper focuses on his main work The Act of Touch and attempts to clarify their contents and how he arrived at his method of describing the muscular conditions. As a result, it becomes clear that Matthay tried to demonstrate that touch can realized a variety of tones by classifying the states of activity and relaxation of muscles functionally and presenting the tones as a combination of them. Previous studies regarded his theory as systematizing a new method of playing that utilized the weight of the upper limb by means of relaxation, as opposed to the finger technique that prevailed in the previous century（ Boardman 1954:118）. However, this study reveals that his theory had at its core the use of muscle activity and relaxation.

International audience; The interpretation of acousmatic music has been the subject of only a very few studies (Planel 1996, Féron et al. 2015, Boutard et al. 2019). This short article does not aim to produce a review of these researches or to produce a state of the art on the question of the interpretation of acousmatic music or, more broadly, of electroacoustic music and contemporary creation, but to present the results and contributions of a research in digital musicology conducted since 2015 (Couprie et al. 2017) which allowed to demonstrate the reliability of the device of recording interpretations. In this research, we postulate the double premise of acousmatics as a musical genre and acousmatic performance in concert as interpretation on an instrument, the acousmonium. Therefore, our goal is to define this interpretation as a moment of a larger process including the musician's work on the table or with headphones, the creation of an interpretation score, the rehearsals and the moment of the performance in public. Moreover, we are also part of a "general musicology" (Nattiez 2007: 1205-1206) or "interdisciplinary" (Cook 2005: 2, Couprie 2020: 25-44) aggregating around a broad musicological approach - in the sense of a "focused interdisciplinarity" (Charaudeau 2010: 195-200) - a set of practices such as the study of works through musical analysis, anthropological research on the musician's practice, or the analysis of the links between the instrument, the musician and the work. This approach is grounded both in the vast scientific current of the study of the creative process and in a new scientific discipline on which we have been working since 2006, "digital musicology" (Couprie 2020: 25-44).; L’interprétation de la musique acousmatique n’a fait l’objet que de très rares études (Planel 1996, Féron et al. 2015, Boutard et al. 2019). Ce court article n’a pas pour objectif de réaliser un bilan de ces recherches ou de produire un état de l’art sur la question de l’interprétation de la musique acousmatique ou, plus largement, de la musique électroacoustique et de la création contemporaine, mais de présenter les résultats et les apports d’une recherche en musicologie numérique menée depuis 2015 (Couprie et al. 2017) qui a permis de démontrer la fiabilité du dispositif d’enregistrement des interprétations. Dans cette recherche, nous posons le double postulat de l’acousmatique comme genre musical et de la performance acousmatique en concert comme interprétation sur un instrument, l’acousmonium. Dès lors, notre objectif est de définir cette interprétation comme un moment d’un processus plus large englobant le travail sur table ou au casque du musicien, la création d’une partition d’interprétation, les répétitions et le moment même de la performance en public. De plus, nous nous inscrivons aussi dans une « musicologie générale » (Nattiez 2007: 1205-1206) ou « interdisciplinaire » (Cook 2005: 2, Couprie 2020: 25-44) agrégeant autour d’une approche musicologique élargie – au sens d’une « interdisciplinarité focalisée » (Charaudeau 2010: 195-200) – un ensemble de pratiques comme l’étude minutieuse des œuvres grâce à l'analyse musicale, la recherche anthropologique sur la pratique du musicien ou l’analyse des liens entre l’instrument, le musicien et l’œuvre. Cette approche s’ancre aussi bien dans le vaste courant scientifique de l’étude du processus créatif que dans une nouvelle discipline scientifique sur laquelle nous travaillons depuis 2006, la « musicologie numérique » (Couprie 2020: 25-44).

Gender performativity is the most famous and influential theory in Judith Butler. It questioned the sex/ gender distinction which some feminists took for granted at that time when Gender Trouble (1990) was published. This distinction regarded sex as the natural category on the one hand, gender as the cultural expression of sex on the other hand. It means naturalizing the dualistic representation of gender. On the contrary, Butler's performative theory suggested that sex is not a natural category, but is a fiction which is constructed by repeating gender performances. Through denaturalizing gender, her theory criticizes the representation of gender/ sexual minorities as "unnatural" and "abnormal," and seeks to theorize the way to make their survival possible. This paper examines how gender performativity was theorized from the 1980s to Gender Trouble. Interestingly, her performative theory cannot be reduced to speech act theory, but it was also formed in relation to other theories; feminist/ queer theory and performance theory. Indeed, in her article "Performative Act and Gender Constitution" (1988) in which she referred to "performative" at first, Butler started from Simone de Beauvoir's text, The Second Sex, and then reread Beauvoir's idea of "gender as act" as "social performance" in performance theory. Moreover, she extended Beauvoir's argument of denaturalizing sex, referring to Gayle Rubin's study of kinship, Monique Wittig's theory of sex, and Esther Newton's analysis of Drag Queen. Thus, her performative theory is found not only in the context of speech act theory, but also in contexts of feminist/ queer theory and performance theory. From this genealogical perspective, this article seeks to rethink gender performativity.

This study examines how a PBL class in a Japanese college will be improved by introducing the framework of debate. In this class, the students work on a project of making a short motion picture. Initially, they are divided into several small groups and make a plan for their motion picture. After the first plan is finished, each group shows it to one another and opinions are exchanged.Although the discussion is conducted in a favorable relaxed atmosphere, the exchange does not necessarily lead to a deeper level of discourse. To improve the present situation, the introduction of the framework of debate into the class is suggested. In this way, students do not have a typical debate but talk in the debate framework. Two groups are combined, and, at first, state to each otherthat the other group’s plan is superior to their own. After that, they switch theirstandpoint and state their own plan’s superiority. This suggestion ofimprovement is based on the theory of performance studies. The expected effectof this improvement idea is considered in detail.

The meaning of “widows” and the social norms are continuouslyproduced and consumed in particular social and historical circumstancesalthough they seem clearly defined, fixed, and stable. Based onperformance studies which assume all of social reality is constructed byactions, behaviors and events, this study reveals the dynamism ofwidowhood in Tamil Nadu, the southern part of India. Specifically thefocus is on widows in a scheduled caste village in rural area. The studyshows that Hinduism, Dravidian culture, the state government's policies,attitudes toward widows in communities and the caste system affect onshaping widowhood. Certain behaviors and rituals which are learned,rehearsed and presented over time form widow’s identity as a “shadow.”However, it does not mean that widows cannot do anything butreproducing the identity. The study presents a possibility of changingwidowhood by focusing on a widow and demonstrating that herperformative acts function as making the dominant discourse of widowsunstable.