Nina Treadwell

This chapter introduces readers to the practice of creating fan music videos, commonly referred to as vids or fanvids. Fans combine preexisting material from films or television with music in order to refocus the original source material for various purposes, ranging from critique to celebration. This chapter focuses on vidding as queer practice; it provides an overview of vidding from the mid-1970s to the present and incorporates close
readings of vids dedicated to Star Trek and the British drama series Bad Girls, originally broadcast on ITV from 1999 to 2006. The chapter argues for the importance of music as a central facet related to the meaning-making process of vids, a dimension that has been neglected in current scholarship on fannish vidding.

During March 1588, Maria d'Aragona, the Marchesa of Vasto, sponsored a set of four intermedi at her palazzo in Chiaia, Naples. The centrepiece of the entertainment was the intermedio entitled 'Queen Cleopatra on her Ship'. This article explores d'Aragona's role as sponsor of the entertainment, particularly in relation to her interest in the historical figure of Cleopatra. Drawing on sources that informed perceptions of the Egyptian queen during the early-to mid-Cinquecento, it will be shown that within a performance context governed by a strong-willed female patron, the often negatively depicted Cleopatra could be cast as a positive role model, particularly for d'Aragona-related noblewomen who themselves had experienced strong female mentorship and enjoyed the relative autonomy of widowhood. D'Aragona's decision to cast the Neapolitan virtuosa Eufemia Jozola as Cleopatra reinforced the female-orientated nature of the intermedio, and sheds new light on mid-Cinquecento Neapolitan performance practice.

Taking the opening solo song from the Florentine intermedi of 1589 as its focus, this article engages with questions regarding musical ownership, authorship, and the culture of print as it relates to musico-theatrical performance. The song, 'Dalle più alte sfere', was performed by the Florentine court's prima donna Vittoria Archilei and the version she ostensibly sang appeared two years later in a commemorative print. While calling into question rigid distinctions between performer and composer during this period, the article nonetheless suggests that Archilei likely 'composed' the song, for which there are conflicting attributions. Evidence for this assertion includes disjunctions between the song as it appeared in print, its likely mode of 'composition', and the song's realisation through the process-oriented act of live performance. These issues stand in stark relief to the likely incentives for publishing the Medici-commissioned music: harnessing the possibilities of print technology, the Florentines could effectively distill – and thus claim as their own – a primarily Roman/Neapolitan-associated performance practice, at the same time as attempting to rival the female-centred musical traditions of competing courts.