CMST 2G03 Lecture 2: WEEK 2 -Doing Performance Studies
7 Nov 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
!1
CMST 2G03
WEEK 2: Doing Performance Studies
September 12th, 2018
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House Keeping:
A few clarifications:
•You must submit at least one journal response by Friday, October 5th
•If you have attended a performance/event/activity in the last week or so and !
want to wait until the end of Unit 1 in order to have more course content to draw on, email me
for permission
•If you are an actor, musician, or athlete, you may write about an event from !
the perspective of the performer—your response must demonstrate a !
self-consciousness about this perspective and role
•If you want to write about a “nontraditional” theatrical event (e.g. a rally or a !
wedding), you must justify your decision to categorize it as “theatrical” in your response
Today’s Three Takeaways
1. The “texts” of performance studies
-No fixed canon!
2. Roach’s interpretation of “three unities”
-From the safe confines of the fiction of spilling out onto the streets
3. How does one “perform one’s fieldwork”?
-Performance analysis, semiotics & phenomenology
Recap
Performance studies is:
•A “doing” rather than a “being”
•Self-conscious to “ideological neutrality” or objectivity
•Not without historical context
Schechner: “The challenge is to become as aware as possible of one’s own positions in relations
to the positions of others — and the to take steps to maintain or change positions” (xi).
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Today"s three takeaways: the texts of performance studies. No fixed canon: roach"s interpretation of three unities . Performance studies is: a doing rather than a being , self-conscious to ideological neutrality or objectivity, not without historical context. Schechner: the challenge is to become as aware as possible of one"s own positions in relations to the positions of others and the to take steps to maintain or change positions (xi). Roach: i hope to underscore the indebtedness of performance studies to theatre and drama as well as the boldness of its move beyond them (33). The primary fundamental of performance studies is that there is no fixed canon of works, ideas, practices, or anything else that defines or limits the field Performance studies is fundamentally relational, dynamic and processual (schechner x) Ironically emphasize [s] the material considerations of performance (roach 33) Talks about how performance studies was associated with theatre.
