There are some who believe that performance is only present at an artistic experience much like the plays that we have attended throughout the semester.  However, there are others who conjecture that performance can be an everyday occurrence in our lives.

Remember that originally theater evolved from a combination of ritual and storytelling.  Many of us have rituals that we perform every day.  An example could be the order in which you execute your wake-up routine. But this is an example of a personal ritual. There are also rituals (spiritual and otherwise) that, by their nature, have audience.  And once audience is introduced we have performance.

One clear example is a wedding.  When we go to a wedding, we don’t usually refer to it as a show, but it is one none-the-less.  The key factors in making it a performance are that there is a clear audience and people who are participating have defined roles.  There is also design involved with weddings; costume, set, sound design etc.  As is the case of a wedding and most other rituals, even though it is performance, it is not theater because the ritual is ultimately more important than the performance.

There are also more subtle performances; a classroom, your friend who always has a dramatic moment at the bell tower, or a family meal or fight that happens over and over again.

I want you to identify one of these types of everyday performances in your lives.

• Describe the event

• Explain how it was a performance. Use the traits shared by performances as outlined in chapter one in your textbook as a guide to your description.  Give special attention to the many people involved and their different roles, making sure that you specifically identify the audience.  Please note, that you can’t be a participant and an audience member.

• Explain in more detail your role and your experience at the event.

• Does this performance happen often? If so, what are the recurring elements? Time of day, occasion, characters?

• Was there a design element? Describe it.

• Speculate what would happen if you changed one element of the performance.  How would that affect the rest of the performance?

You can do the blog in the same form you have done all of the other blogs. Or you could be more creative in your execution by creating a script.

I do not want you to write about going to or working on an actual artistic performance; theater, dance show, music event, a film. I also don’t want you to comment on a class; unless something unusual happened within the traditional structure. Write about something that would not traditionally be considered a performance.

And as a reminder, a ritual is not a performance unless there is an audience member.

Read the syllabus to make sure that you know all of the parameters.

So – if art is a reflection of our society – what are these plays saying about our society? Why do you think the artists and producers chose to produce them now? Do you see a connection among the themes? Or are the disparate themes significant in their own right?
Keep in mind, even if art is a mirror of society, that mirror doesn’t always give a clear reflection.

Please post your replies below.

Just this past fall someone “vandalized” a Mark Rothko painting in the Tate Modern in London.  The vandal does not consider himself a vandal, but rather someone who is expanding the conversation around art.  Read the attached articles and points of view.  Do you agree with the perpetrator?  Is there any situation where altering one person’s piece of art is acceptable?

ArtAttack_BBC

DestroyingArt_BBC

NoVandal_LSE

RothkoVandal_BBC

 

Who are our Gatekeepers?

It’s hard to imagine, in the world of the Internet, that anyone can stand in the way of any individual creating or enjoying a piece of art. However, there are many who behave as filters, facilitators or obstacles. Our textbook refers to those people in terms of being Gatekeepers and Mediators. The textbook also refers to Theorists, Critics, Reviewers, Dramaturgs, Agents and Marketing and PR people.

In our own time it’s hard to image how one group’s opinion can affect the art that we see. But, in truth these human filters have had great influence; historically and today. In more extreme times, the critics were not descriptive but rather prescriptive. Meaning, critics didn’t just write about what they saw and gave their opinions about it, they told the artists how you could create their art. In the time of Cardinal Richelieu, you could be arrested if you created art that veered from the Neoclassical Ideal.  And today it’s easy to see if a group is giving out money, such as the NEA (a government agency created to support the arts), and they do not approve of how you do art, you may not get the financial support to produce it.

Just a few years ago, a Yale art student caused an uprising for telling people that she continually inseminated herself and aborted the fetuses in order to use the blood in her senior project as part of an artistic statement about women’s bodies. Should she have been expelled for such an action as was suggested? (Read the attached articles below for a fuller understanding of this situation).

What do you think it says about that society that holds to strict rules of how art should be expressed?  Do you think the government should help support the arts?   Should there be some filters in place? What are the roles of the above mentioned gatekeepers? Whether you are addressing the content, form or how the theatre was financially supported, can you look at the theater that you have seen this semester and say what we value or who we are as a society?

Deborah Block

Articles on Yale Art Student