Performance Studies: Seminar in English

1. Performance Studies: Seminar in English Week 3 Chapter 2 What is Performance? Iris Tuan

2. Richard Schechner’s Dionysus in 69 • Students’ show “My Fairy Lady” • Nudity • Sexuality • The relationship between God and human beings • Time: 1960s • Place: The Performance Garage in New York • The birth ritual • Show the clips

3. What is “To Perform”? • “To perform” relates to: • 1. Being • 2. Doing • 3. Showing doing • 4. Explaining showing doing • Guillermo Gómez-Peňa (p. 259) • Guillermo Gómez-Peňa and Coco Fusco’s Couple in the Cage (p. 261)

4. Performances • Performances can “mark identities, bend time, reshape and adorn the body, and tell stories”(22). • Performances—art, rituals, or ordinary life • Performances are made of “twice-behaved behaviors” • Restored behavior—not-for-the first time physical or verbal actions

5. Ideas of Performances • Erving Goffman defines a performance as “all the activity of a given participant on a given occasion which serves to influence in any way any of the other participants” (p. 23). • Allan Kaprow’s term “Happening” (p. 23) and notion “Artlike Art and Lifelike Art” (p. 32) • The advertisement “Bill Parcells Wants You to Perform” “conflates performing in sports, business, sex, the arts, and technology” (p. 24).

6. Eight Kinds of Performance • 1. in everyday life—cooking, socializing, “just living” • 2. in the arts • 3. in sports and other popular entertainments • 4. in business • 5. in technology • 6. in sex • 7. in ritual—sacred and secular • 8. in play (p. 25) • Marvin Carlon’s idea • E.g. Ice-skating • Show the clips

7. Restoration of Behavior • O.B. Hardison’s concept “The Medieval Mass was Drama” (p. 27) • Already behaved behaviors • Nakedness caused a stir in the 1960s • E.g. Richard Schechner’s “Dionysus in 69” • Restored behaviors—habits, rituals, and routines of life • “out there,” separate from “me”

8. Beware of Generalizations • “Every performance is specific and different from each other” (p. 29). • According to Clifford Geertz, “human behavior as symbolic action” (p. 29) • “Is” Performance • Difference between “is” performance and “as” performance? (p. 30) • what “is” a performance—should consider specific cultural circumstances • The 3 Greek playwrights--Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides and their famous plays (p. 31) • “as” performance—can be analyzed in terms of doing, behaving, and showing (p. 32) • E.g. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett’s indicates “food as performance” (p. 33)

9. Make Believe vs. Make Belief • Make-believe performances “maintain a clearly marked boundary b.t. the world of the performance and everyday reality” (p. 35) • However, make-belief performances “intentionally blur that boundary” (p. 35) • the kinds of activities are staged in detail • E.g. American Presidency • “experts” • “spin masters” • Build the “human interest” angle into every story • E.g. News

10. Blurry Boundaries • Werner Heisenberg proposes his “uncertainty principle” (p. 37) • John Cage’s music used indeterminacy as the basis (p. 37) • Listen to his music concert on 4/12 Thu. • The Functions of Performance • Several proposals: • Bharata Muni: a comprehensive repository of knowledge and a very powerful vehicle for the expression of emotions (p. 38) • Horace: theatre ought to entertain and educate • This idea is followed by Bertolt Brecht • 7 functions of performance (p. 38)

11. Spheres of performance • Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed—belongs to Political Theatre (p. 39) • Sheila Melvin and Jindong Cai: The Model Operas (p. 40)—serve for the Communist Party of China • Susanne K. Langer notion “Every good art work is beautiful” (p. 41) • Conclusion—many ways to understand performance • Performances in everyday life and identity constructions are relatively fluid (p. 42)

12. Homework • Things to Think About • Things to Do • Arrange the order of students’ presentation • Invite 1-2 outside speakers’ talks in class this semester for this course • Preview: see one of Peter Brook’s films