Saturday, September 1, 2012
Performance/Theatre Response
While all of the topics discussed in the introductions to Jones's 'Body Art/ Performing the Subject' and Diamond's 'Performance and Cultural Politics' were incredibly interesting, I found Diamond's examination of the continually expanding use of the word 'performance' to describe a wide range of cultural activity very intriguing. According to Diamond, since the 1960s, a 'performance' has been used to describe things such as popular entertainments, speech acts, folklore, political demonstrations, conference behavior, rituals, medical and religious healing, as well as aspects of everyday life. Before reading this, I really only defined a 'permormance' as a form of entertainment often involving dancing, singing, acting, or all three! Diamond goes on to describe how the many definitions of a 'performance' greatly impacted the creation of postmodernism. At this time, I am unaware if any of the plays we will be reading or the films we will be viewing fall under the postmodernism label, but I am interested to see if the newfound 'performance' interest developed during the 1960s had any effect on them as well!
4 comments:
I also found Diamond's examination of the word "performance" to be very interesting. Before reading this article, I never would have considered the daily interactions we share with others as an aspect of performance, let alone the type of clothing we choose to wear.
I think the expansive definition of performance is interesting to think about as well. I thought the section contrasting theater (which seems to encompass what many traditionally view as a performance, at least according to Diamond's definition) to performance was particularly compelling. I was not completely convinced by the differentiation of these two concepts in the text, as many theatrical productions now include elements associated with performance art, like the act of "breaking the third wall."
I agree that it is very interesting to look at the expansive view of performance in a cultural context, but I also found it interesting to look at it in daily life. Diamond referenced how once the view of what performance is becomes expanded, the question of what is real and what is a performance becomes much more vague. It made me think about daily life, and what exactly a performance is and what is not a performance. Is everything in public a performance? Is the only time I'm not performing when I'm alone or is that a performance for myself?
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