Border-Crossing Female Artists Between Experimental and Popular Music From 1970 to the Present Day in Serbia and Bosnia & Herzegovina

The goal of my paper for EVA London 2020 (Electronic Visualisation and the Arts) is to provide insights about female Serbians and Bosnia & Herzegovina artists who have crossed stylistic boundaries between popular, experimental and electronic music coming from different backgrounds. In this paper, focusing on several specific artists, I will analyse their significant contributions to different music genres and artistic developments throughout the decades. This paper aims to focus on collecting significant data about the diverse Serbian and Bosnia & Herzegovina artists who were both influenced by different genres, and also influenced others themselves.


INTRODUCTION
This paper represents my plan of ongoing research in the field of experimental and popular music, including a list of Serbians and originated Yugoslav female artists who are also well known internationally. The main focus is on the female artists such as Milica Paranosic, Svjetlana Bukvich, Alexandra Sladjana Milosevic, Ana Milosavljevic, Lene Lovich as musicians, and Marina Abramovic as a role model in performance art. International influences will also be considered.
Diaspora and migration terminology are of a huge importance to this research, as discussed in a key reference for this study by Alenka-Barber Kersovan in her article Rock den Balkan! (2006). Here, she describes Balkan as an emotional territory. Her theories of diaspora, migration and mixing culture will also be discussed.
The methods of this research are based on historical research, social network analysis, musicological analysis, which includes storytelling and performance, and interviews. The main questions are: Which aspect of the pre-and post-war history of former Yugoslavia influenced the Serbians and Bosnia & Herzegovina art scene (diaspora terminology, migration, as well as Western -Balkan mixing style)? (ii) What is the importance of female Serbians and Bosnia & Herzegovina artists in the field of diverse crossover, and how do they use their music, literature and performance to tell their stories?
One of the methodological aspects will also be focusing on social network analysis, as well as storytelling as an approach in performance.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
I will focus on several female Serbian and Bosnia & Herzegovina artists, who have marked a period in a music history of former Yugoslavia.

Marina Abramovic
First, it is interesting to see that today the wellknown pop icon Lady Gaga was influenced by

Alexandra Sladjana Milosevic
Alexandra Sladjana Milosevic is Serbian pop-punk icon and in her music could be heard influences of German singer Nina Hagen. The influence of Diamanda Galas and Lydia Lunch will be a future topic of investigation.

Lene Lovich
Lene Lovich collaborated with Nina Hagen on a song called Don't Kill the Animals. In the Figure 1 we can see the influences of these artists. Storytelling is one of the approaches that we can use for analysing music performance, and through this we may consider that many of these five female artists use ex-Yugoslavian literature or some of the old traditional Balkan songs, combing them with electronics. A key work of literature is the book The Death and the Dervish by Bosnian writer Mesa Selimovic. This book was an inspiration for a composition of Svjetlana Bukvich Before and After the Tekke, which brought her a lot of success. Today, Svjetlana Bukvich is one of the twenty most successful female composers in the USA.

DIASPORA AND MIGRATION
During the war in ex-Yugoslavia in the 1990s, lots of artists migrated into different countries. According to my collected data, the musicians Milica Paranosic, Svjetlana Bukvich, and Ana Milosavljevic left mostly at the same period as they got scholarships for further study in New York. As we can see in Table 1

Confessions
Analysing works from the chosen artists allows us see how storytelling can lead to different approaches. Here I shall discuss the performance Confessions by Milica Paranosic. This is a unique one-woman multimedia show, where the composer is also as a performer, combining Balkan music with electronic music using her own samples made in the music program Logic. She is also using live electronics in this performance. The story is autobiographical, and it tells us a story spanning from when she was a child, to her present day, which can be seen on the screen behind her. This is a wonderful journey through different periods of her life. The very first bars come from a traditional Macedonian song Kales bre, Andjo, which she interprets in a modern style: I have chosen this song, because it was one of the favourites of my dad, who passed away.
This song comes from a time of Ottoman Empire and the story is about a young woman who was proposed to by a Turkish man. He offers her gold and a rich life, but she denies the offer, telling him that she doesn't want to take his religion and to change herself. This narrative story seems to reflect true social events in the Balkan.
It seems that all the Balkan happenings, not only during the 1990s, but also earlier, have inspired composers to add some musical elements from their hometowns. This is also the case with the performance by Marina Abramovic, Balkan Baroque. There, we have a real story too, but this time it is about a particular time during the war in 1993, where she speaks about the rats that she saw in her building in Belgrade. As she wasn't in Belgrade at that time, she made this performance. It consists of bones. Behind the artist we can see images of her parents, and we see Marina Abramovic washing the bones. Balkan happenings have affected not only the Balkan artists, but international ones as well, as we see in the collaboration between Lady Gaga and Marina Abramovic.

Before and After the Tekke
We can now turn to consider Svjetlana Bukvich's Before And After The Tekke. The composition includes lyrics from the book The Death and the Dervish by Mesa Selimovic, which was an inspiration to this remarkable work: Without you, the foreign, distant lands hurt more and the empty roads and the strange dreams that I have even when I am awake that I can't chase away without you.
The connection between electronics and violin is organic in the piece. Where one begins, the other ends, and it is very important to look at the violin as an integral part of the Moog vice versa! Violin clenching is also present in electronics, and G is tempered everywhere, as a constant -something a listener can get hold of. In these aspects of her creation, she always draws the audience into the new, but also takes care of it, giving them something familiar and compelling, so that they feel comfortable when confronted with the new and unknown.
This work is constructed in three parts. The first part represents New York and space, and the third part reflects metaphysics, and the sublimation sounds of New York, old Europe, and ethno-magic realism. This part also reflects a willingness to fight and research the universe, and one's own, unimposed, spirituality.
Between these parts, the middle section is peace, creating a timeless space. Breathing is the entry into synchrony with nature and multidimensionality of time. Herzegovina has a great deal to do with this piece. The violin and the analog Moog synthesizer can play microtonally. In unison, they create the sound of the present and the past united.

CONCLUDING REMARKS
Digital technology over the past 50 years has definitely influenced the output of the chosen artists, who I have examined in this paper. In the domain of experimental music, these female artists use their laptops and samples in their compositions. Technology is a part of their art, especially today, since it allows for the recording of music, and makes promoting it possible through social media. The huge development in technology over the last 50 years has had a considerable effect and impact of the compositional process, including my own experience as a composer and performer.