About
PERFORMANCE PROCESSES
Performance processes are dynamic ways of generating, playing, evaluating, repeating, and remembering. Performance processes can be theorized as a sequence of proto-performance, performance, and aftermath. In theory, the performance processes sequence is a diachronic progression, proceeding from one part to the next. In practice, things aren’t so neat. Not all the parts are present in every performance; not all are equally emphasized in any given event. Noting what is emphasized or omitted can be a powerful analytic tool in understanding specific performances.
This sequence is performed by four categories of people: sourcers, producers, performers, and partakers. Sourcers write, research, or in other ways make or find the actions to be performed. Producers guide the shaping of the actions into something suitable for a performance. Performers enact the actions. Partakers receive and/or interact with the actions. A single person may belong to more than one of these categories; a group may do the sourcing, performing, producing, and partaking collectively. The possibilities are without end.
Classroom Activities
PERFORM
- Begin to stage a scene from a drama or a performance from everyday life such as getting ready for a date, a supper party, or going to a doctor. Invite your audience to one or two rehearsals. Discuss the “workshop phase” and/or the “rehearsal process.” How does it differ from a “finished performance”?
- Using only “aftermath information” – newspaper accounts, scholarly articles, reviews, opinions of people who have attended the event, photos, videotapes, etc. – reconstruct and perform a scene. Do you think such a reconstructed scene is an accurate rendition of the “original”? If so, why? If not, why not?
- Create your own warm-up exercise. Teach it to the rest of the class.
- Choose a scene to perform with a group. Attempt to apply the different variations of the performance quadrilogue as your group rehearses the scene. Perform the version your group deems the “best” for an audience.
WRITE ABOUT
- Irish seisiuns are a unique type of performance that combines proto-performance, performance and aftermath. You can watch clips of seisiuns at http://sessionobsession.org/videos/. Better yet, try to find an Irish seisiun in your area and attend. Write about your experience – how would you describe the performance process of the event? Was there a frame to mark the beginning and end of the performance? If not, explain why you think such a frame might be absent. Who was watching and who was performing? Did that boundary remain fixed or was it fluid? Explain.
- Research a public performance that surprised or “failed” its audience, such as Ron Athey’s Four Scenes from a Harsh Life (1994). Write about your findings.
- If you are involved in a performance, keep a journal of the process. How well does your experience of the performance process you document conform to the performance process outlined in Chapter 3?
- Research the aftermath of a famous performance. Write about your findings. How much of the performance can you reconstruct from the archive? What sort of new life does the performance take on as you investigate?
- Choose a public performance that you have seen and consider its context. How was the performance influenced by the network of technical, economic, and social activities? What was your context in seeing the performance? Did your own context influence how you received the work?
Weblinks
- Take a look at the virtual performance environments of the Builders Association
- Learn more about Immersive Virtual Reality
- Learn more about the work of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards
- Watch/listen to John Cage talk about silence
- Kathakali Training
- Visit Odin Teatret’s website (where ISTA is based)
- Find out more about Rasaboxes training
- At theatre director Richard Foreman’s website, you can browse through text, photo, and video of proto-performance, rehearsal, and aftermath
- Experience the aftermath of the Titanic
- Visit The Wooster Group’s website to watch “dailies” – clips of rehearsal, archival footage, and more.
Sample Discussion Questions
TALK ABOUT
- Recall a performance in which you were a producer or performer. Explain what you did or saw in terms of proto-performance, performance, and aftermath. If you have enough information, discuss the performance process in terms of training, workshop, rehearsal, warm-up, public performance, context, cooldown, critical response, archiving, and memories.
- How might expanding the idea of the performance process to include the whole sequence discussed in this chapter enhance your understanding of social and political events? Discuss this in relation to a campaign for political office, a courtroom trial, and a medical procedure.
- What kinds of training have you participated in? Discuss your experiences with a group. Can training for very different performances (i.e., ice skating vs. karate) still share similarities?
- Discuss the benefits and drawbacks of internet performance. How does the experience change for performer and spectator? How does the relationship between performer and spectator change?
- Which version of the performance quadrilogue do you think works the most effectively? Why?