Women’s Leadership in Professional Ensembles of Folk Dances and Songs in Serbia

Mirjana Zakić; Sanja Ranković

doi:10.5937/newso23062109Z

Mirjana Zakić University of Art in Belgrade, Faculty of Music, Department of Ethnomusicology
Sanja Ranković University of Art in Belgrade, Faculty of Music, Department of Ethnomusicology

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5937/newso23062109Z

Keywords: women’s leadership, Olga Skovran, Snežana Jovanović, Ensemble “Kolo”, Ensemble “Venac”

Abstract

In this paper women’s leadership will be reviewed through the professional biographies of two women who, in the role of director, managed the stage presentation of folk dance and music in Serbia. One of them is Olga Skovran, who laid the foundation of folklore professionalism in Serbia and the region and established the Ensemble “Kolo”. She was the Ensemble’s general manager from 1948 to 1965. The other woman is Snežana Jovanović, who has been the head of the Folk Dance and Song Ensemble of Kosovo and Metohija “Venac” from Gračanica since 2013. This paper will reflect on the professional positions of these two female figures who worked in historically different times. In addition, special attention will be given to defining leadership within two temporal and spatial dimensions, as well as the competences required for leading a professional ensemble in specific political, economic, artistic, and other conditions.

Author Biographies

Mirjana Zakić, University of Art in Belgrade, Faculty of Music, Department of Ethnomusicology

Mirjana Zakić graduated at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade, Department of Ethnomusicology, and defended her M.A. thesis: “Instrumental and vocal-instrumental heritage of Zaplanje region in the light of traditional music opinion”, as well as her doctoral dissertation “Ceremonial songs of winter season- systems of music signs in the tradition of the southeastern Serbia”. Since 1990 she has been employed at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade. She was the Vicedean at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade (2012-2015). Since 2018 she has been the head of the Department of Ethnomusicology at the Faculty of Music. So far, she has published four books and a large number of papers in national and international publications. She is especially interested in ritual music, instrumental music, musical semiotics, relation between text and context. She is the chairman of the “Serbian Society of Ethnomusicology”.

Sanja Ranković, University of Art in Belgrade, Faculty of Music, Department of Ethnomusicology

Sanja Ranković is associate professor of traditional singing at the Department of Ethnomusicology at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade. The topics of her ethnomusicological interest are from the field of applied ethnomusicology, as well as the issues of vocal practices. She has delivered numerous lectures, seminars, concerts and workshops in the country, as well as abroad. For almost two decades, she collaborated with the Ensemble of Folk Dances and Songs of Serbia "Kolo" and created the vocal practice of this artistic institution. She is the author of three books and two full-length musical stage pеrformances, which were performed at the National Theatre in Belgrade.