Vocal parody in performance arts (on the example of an actor’s creativity)
Authors: Khutorska Anna 
Published: February 2025

Statement of the problem. Significant public demand for parody songs and the increase of amateur and professional content in the media space, which subconsciously form the aesthetic canons of the modern collective consciousness, draw the attention of scientists to the problems caused by the interdisciplinary connections of the phenomenon of vocal parody in acting. Objectives, methods and novelty of the research. The article is devoted to researching the issues of vocal parody, the genre, in which the performer maximally reveals his own creative possibilities. The purpose of the article is to outline scientific approaches to the study of vocal parody from various fields and areas of humanitarian sciences, to highlight the specifics of this phenomenon in the aspect of performing art. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the actualization of the problematic range of vocal parody issues in Ukrainian musicology. The typology of vocal parody in acting is presented based on the analysis of the objects of parody and the performer’s attitude to their transformation, the concept of “alternative text” is proposed to denote the newly created text of vocal parody . Research results and conclusion. Taking into account the modern theory of parody, the specificity of vocal parody has been revealed, which is related to the problem of authorship of the performer and is caused by the presence of several structural levels at which the parody of the original source takes place. The level of a vocal work, the synthetic nature of which includes musical and poetic components that can transform unevenly into parodies. The subjective level is represented by imitation of the singer’s vocal performance style, or a parody transformation of the image and ideas of a real or fictional person. The visual level, which is extremely important for an actor’s performance of a vocal parody and is turned on when objectifying works of screen art. Vocal parody is differentiated as direct and indirect. Direct parody is mostly aimed at parodying performers-singers, characterized by the presence of imitation of their vocal and performing style. The parodist imitates and hyperbolizes the vocal technique, techniques, timber qualities, diction features of the original. He tries to reproduce the singer’s manner of behavior on stage or in the frame, notes characteristic movements, facial expressions, image features that create a generalized image that the audience can recognize. Such a parody requires the actor to accurately get into the image, to find his character or musical material close to him in terms of vocal or visual data. Indirect parody has a wider scope, its object can be not only singers, but also any recognizable images of real, historical figures (cultural, political, social, etc.) or fictional characters. Such a parody requires more creativity from the authorperformer, it must contain a unique idea, a creative concept that does not so much imitate some vocal artifact directly, but uses it indirectly, as material for demonstrations of commentary or criticism. Such a parody does not require the actor to vocally resemble the original source and is closer to the original work with a high level of improvisation. To denote a newly created poetic or prose text of a vocal parody, the phrase “alternative texts” is proposed.