6/17/02

- being between: performance studies marked itself between theater and anthropology. Produced interesting theoretical and practical work. Theater has been a lens to look at other phenomena. (political interactions)

- theater=life has always been around

- choreography of social interactions—soundscape or musical composition of everyday life. Not just theater as lens. Social choreography in Northern Ireland—political parades, funerals, in connection with Irish dance. Bodies moved through public spaces…what it has to do with political situations.

- Music that helps us understand political theories. Percussion music used in relation to religious practices. Musical structures theorized as significant in political practices.

- Anthropology was one of the initial theories evokes to describe performance—psychoanalysis, queer theory, etc…

- How can performances help us unpack the theories above?

- 1980’s: Schechner and Turner collaborated. Turner had students perform theater games and anthropological information. Nonwestern ritual practices—transformative possibilities. Re-animate theatrical practices with non-western stuff. Recomplicate the anthropological with theater practices. Brook, Grotowski, etc. incorporating eastern ritual practices. Turner and Schechner really collaborated on projects that moved in both directions. Performance as between is not a happy crux… it has become particularly vexed (Coco Fusco).

- 1985 (Between Theater and Anthropology), James Clifford, 1986 (Writing Culture), 1989 (The Predicament of Culture) –Writing Culture was the first to argue a critique of the notion of pure cultural others… anthropology was at a moment of crisis in which we need to look at the objective eye. Pureness and authenticity get mixed up. Identity and Mash Pea---tribe in Cape Cod, trial to figure out whether there was a verifiable tribal nation (land ownership trial). The trial was interesting because the community was complicated, mixed. The jury makes this impossible verdict, where tribe emerged and dissolved. The people on the stand were asked to perform their ethnicity.

- Determinations of ethnicity and cultural identity are highly performative and theatrical constructions. Authentic other.

- Specifity of live performance… the notion that ther eis a sharp and unblurred distinction.

- modality… hmmmm

- Coco Fusco’s video—the spectators within the video become part of the performance.

- Coco Fusco (working with a collaborative piece with Ricardo Domingo this semester) and Gomez Penqua.

- Performance art became established as performance studies established itself (1980’s).

- How does performance draw attention to our constructed identities.

- Performance art and performance studies emerged together—artists and theorists were doing the same things. What is performance? Where does begin and end?

- The Couple in the Cage: conceived as a historical satire… but it continued to have very powerful resonances. Authenticity of racial Otherness.

- The video and essay shows varied reactions.

- Performance art demands self-consciousness. It does not demand virtuosity. It not about skill or virtuosity. The emphasis is not on the technical training of the performer. It can take very quotidian actions and heighten our sensibilities to those movements/actions. Contemporary practices and historical practices (choreography, music, etc.) include large amounts of quotidian action.

- Dada: incorporated non-artistic practices into artistic scenarios.

- Fusco pushes the birth of performance art way back to colonial moment in which aboriginal peoples performing their ethnicity is an inauguration of performance art. (page 41)… “aboriginal samples”—ethnological origins are the origins of performance art.

- Frank Rich: theater critic became political critic. Culturally, the notion that a theater critic can be a political analyst. Theatricality of political life. How is political identity performed? That’s behind the performance we’re going to look at.
Categories of Performance: blah blah blah
- performance art
- theater
- social spectacle
- ritual
- dance

Feel free to engage to the writings. Try different ways of analyzing the kinds of performance. TA emails:
Ricardo: rm332@nyu.edu Jennifer: jc609@nyu.edu

Video
- slow motion intro of new reels
- 500 year exhibit
- video cuts in with onld mocie cuts, Gilligan’s island, b&w movies
- cuts in with lots of docents.
- viewer comments
- fascinated faces closeup
- the film mixes the Gug. opening wit the other film showing cannibals in the moving picture opening
- the photos change into people that have been side shows historically.
- spectator commentary during the dance
- storytelling, rubber snakes, she gets very solemn.
- primitive people… clip… sexualized bodies… Artform quote about only looking at the woman’s body.
- They eat bananas like monkeys
- Buffulo Bill and Sitting Bull
- afro pictures
- Pinheads from the Yucatan
- “like they were animals” girl was about to cry
- shows guy read and moment “I can see my own grandchildren in that cage” I don’t know if we’re any better off today.
- people thought that the two guards were the artists
- commentary on the American family
- they leave the cage by taking th edocents by the leash
- simply to show them as they are… final lines of the movie.
What is this dumb guy talking about?
Video placed authentic and inauthentic exploited ethnic performances. The exploitation is authentic. The ethnicity is constructed, but was always constructed. When are you ever out of the cage? Where does the frame of the performance end. What kind of objectification are we talking about? Montanya observed performances in which Europeans were savage.
Reproducing circumstances without a knowing wink. Satire—the taking away.
Museum
Tina Howe
Connelly Theater
220 East 4th street
212 560 7284