Where is the performance in Joseph Roach's "Culture and Performance"?
I’d like to ask for some help, both in sorting out an essay, and in answering the question, “What is performance theory for?” I’ve been struggling with Joseph Roach’s essay in Performativity and Performance . At first reading, it seemed to be a clear tracing of three funeral performances as examples of social memory. Stepping back from it, though, I feel like it wanders over lots of territory, and I’m having difficulty finding the main point he is arguing. I believe one of his main theses is that literature and orature are interrelated, “that these modes of communication have produced one another interactively over time” (45). Another thesis is that performance allows culture to change. I don’t see how these arguments are supported with the analysis of different funeral performances, though. The literature he refers to is the libretto of an opera (an obvious aesthetic performance form) or a newspaper. How is performance related to what has traditionally been considered literatu...
Thank you everyone for sharing what’s in your bag! I think that how we carry ourselves (and what we carry, literally) informs our experiences as performers. While it might be ideal to leave personal baggage at the door, we’re all human and it informs our performance whether we like it or not. Thank you for sharing your bags; I can’t wait to see how our bags inform how we carry ourselves.
ReplyDelete-Kalli
Hi friends!
ReplyDeleteIt was lovely meeting you all and getting to know you through your bags. This course is one of my first at LSU and it is also my first seminar. While most of the concepts are not entirely new to me; studying them at the graduate level is. I am excited and relieved to have you all as classmates and colleagues during this stage. Thank you for sharing with us all an I look forward to your work and discussions!
-EHB
Hello hello, friends! I enjoyed meeting you all!
ReplyDeleteKalli, I appreciate your insight into how the things we carry, literally or otherwise, can shape us. This is my second time doing this exercise. Both times I have noticed that many of us began by introducing our bags/personifying our bags, but gradually shifted to speaking about/describing ourselves when discussing the contents within our bags. It's interesting how we seem to feel compelled to explain or justify the items we carry with us.
I particularly enjoyed the stories we shared with each other during this exercise that may not have come up otherwise, like the story of Indian Lake's camping trip sans sleeping bag.
-Gabi
Hello guys,
ReplyDeleteTuesday was my first time of doing that exercise. As Gabi and Kalli noted, I am intrigued by the way the exercise morphs from personifying the bags to how it speaks to and about our own identity. What I gleaned from that exercise is how much I can discover about myself and how I relate with the world around me from seemingly unimportant things - If I focus on them.
Hello Performance Theories bloggers,
ReplyDeleteIt was a spectacular first class, full of promise for a great semester. I agree, learning about each other was enhanced by talking about our unsuspecting objects. I only hope the bags were not put too much on the spot, or embarrassed from all the attention. You know that feeling when you prepare to be a passive member of the audience, and boom—show-time?! I know my little soiled, Chai-Town shopping bag was not ready to debut herself on stage. Never the less, I am proud of what she brought to the conversation, warm memories of perusing tea shops in San Fransisco, for me, anyways.
Like others, I enjoyed the ways objects revealed interesting aspects of peoples identities in our class exercise. Beyond that, I liked the element of surprise-intimacy that this exercise created—the performance of vulnerability. No one expected to trot out all their personal belongings and discuss them with strangers. This can be a terrifying, thrilling, or mildly sensational experience. My favorite part of live performance, is the aspect of risk/danger it brings. At any moment, a mistake, a new discover, or some improvisation can occur. I perform long-form improvisation theatre. That is where I feel most alive. I love how improv brings actors sharply into the present, wholly reliant on their ability to listen, relax, be creative, and often, surprised. I like watching people champion themselves —unscripted and unrehearsed—through surprise and intimacy.The bag exercise was a little bit like this.
The bag exercise is always something that intrigues me. I am intrigued because inside of each person's bag(s) contains a mystery. A mystery that not even the beholder can necessarily answer for themselves. For example, when a few classmates were asked the question, "what is the name of your bag," many of us froze because this mystery was not yet explored. I left the class session without a name for my bad and I spent the past couple of days trying to figure out whether or not "Kate" was an appropriate name for my backpack. I did not like it and today I am happy to say that I still do not have a name for my bag. Happy because I like the idea of keeping some mystery to my bag-- whether it be the contents inside or the name the bag is given, my backpack deserves the opportunity to explore the world a bit more. I believe that although this activity was ephemeral, I will keep reliving the conversation every time I look at my bag or the bag of others in the class!
ReplyDeleteHello, All!
ReplyDeleteI was not in our first meeting because I was still figuring out my schedule. Seems like it went well! I did the bag exercise in one of Dr. Erincin’s other classes and I also agree with many of the comments(Although I wish I could have experienced all of your bags and their performances).
Misty, I love your beautifully articulated comment:
“I love how improv brings actors sharply into the present, wholly reliant on their ability to listen, relax, be creative, and often, surprised. I like watching people champion themselves —unscripted and unrehearsed—through surprise and intimacy.”
I am drawn to this comment in particular because I have been thinking about the ways presence is imperative in performance. Particularly, I have been thinking about the mindfulness movement in the US and its relation to neoliberalism. Some think the mindfulness movement has grown in popularity as a response to neoliberalism and the demands of labor (people needing to decompress from jobs, people needing to be in touch with the sensory world in order to enjoy their jobs, busyness, etc.) Many scoff at mindfulness saying that it is a capitalist mechanism used to make people more content and distract from the flawed system. But others have also argued that the mindfulness/ self-care movement is being commodified for the use of CAPITALISM and is being taken out of context, and can in fact be an effective way to combat neoliberalism.
So I guess in relation to IMPROV I’m wondering if it is useful to look at our performance of everyday life as improv—when it comes to our consumption. How can we adopt or REJECT mindfulness as a mechanism for change in our habits of consumption (buying food, coffee, clothes, drugs, etc). If everyday life is improv, improve requires presence in order to be good performers?? Or maybe you feel you do need it to survive within the system ( self-care so we can be a better capitalist foot soldiers ). Perhaps mindfulness can be used –simultaneously as a capitalist mechanism and also a neomarxist mode of resistance.
Taylor: I love your analysis. Very interesting. Have you read Sara Sharma 'In the Meantime'? She is a Canadian Academic who writes about neoliberalism, labor and co-optation of mindfulness/eastern cultures. Including, an article on yoga in the workplace. I have a copy if you want it.
DeleteOH. and.... Her argument is that yoga/mindfulness practices in the workplace serve to make better/best capitalist workers.
DeleteWhat stuck with me from the class was not so much our bags as the disciplinary tendencies or territories that emerged. Dr. Erincin hinted at differences she sees between performance studies and interpersonal communication studies. She said that Dr. Honeycutt seems to make some unfair generalizations about how people behave...and it seemed to me she may be generalizing about how interpersonal people do research. We didn't get a chance for Ryan to answer her claims or for her to flesh out what she meant. I don't really regret not having that conversation. I'm eager to get into the work of looking at performance and unpacking it. For me, what's interesting about these disagreements is how we think about people. If you think you can do an objective, quantitative study across a population, how do you see individuals? If you say there is no canon or strict principles in performance studies, what does it mean when people build off each other?
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