Reading week 7

Reading – Week 7

Jeffries, S. (2009) ‘Sophie Calle: stalker, stripper, sleeper, spy.’ Guardian. 23/09/09.

Stuart Jeffries

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·         This piece discusses Jeffries’ interview with Sophie Calle, a French conceptual artist. The interview began with her revealing her date of birth, then talking about her life for ten hours which was ‘unspeakably dull’. However, Jeffries highlights some of the most interesting points of the conversation, such as the roles and projects she took upon herself. Calle says she wanted to impress her father, who she did not know because she had been living with her mother and grandparents. Calle reveals controversial stories about Baudrillard, who faked her diploma so that she passed. This brings into question the morals of performance, and what to reveal in performance art.

·         The first project discussed results in The Sleepers, a photographic and textual form of documentary art. It began with Calle stalking people and following them during their day, which then moved on to Calle documenting visitors to her bed, the conversations and photos documenting friends and strangers who shared her bed. Calle didn’t think this was conceptual art until somebody asked her ‘Is this art? It could be.’

·         The second project has Calle follow a man to Venice and document his coming and going from a house. This resulted in a book called Suite Venitienne. These works were not intended as art, but it electrified the French art world.

·         Calle published a book called The Striptease, which included pictures and anecdotes of her stripper career. She admits to being a feminist who feared ‘being psychologically destroyed by the look of others.’ She stripped to make money, but refused to go into prostitution.

·         Her most controversial work Address Book had Calle photocopy a lost address book and return it to its owner, but to follow up the contacts to get an image of the owner. The project was published by a newspaper but the owner of the address book threatened to sue over invasion of privacy.

·         Calle plays with opposites, like control and freedom, choice and compulsion, intimacy and distance.

·         A piece of art was constructed around Calle’s trip to the North Pole where she buried her deceased mother’s photograph, diamond ring and Chanel necklace.

·         Calle wrote a book called Exquisite Pain which was catalysed by a series of painful breakups. It also included other people’s worst memories so that her pain seemed more bearable. Take Care Of Yourself was prompted too by a breakup of a relationship, which ended through an email ending ‘take care of yourself’. She invited 107 women to analyse this email and an art instillation concluded.

Calle brings into question ethics and morals in performance. Her art work is based on and around autobiographical experiences, but she reveals controversial stories, like Baudrillard helping her with her fraudulent diploma. She believes this is acceptable because he has now passed away, but it belittles any other diploma received from him. Also, stalking and stripping are controversial issues that she plays with, but with seemingly little regard for the victims of stalking. She names individuals in her work, and though it may be her personal experience that she is sharing with the world, she is also leaving these people vulnerable and exposed, such as the man she stalked and photographed who threatened to sue. Though her work might not be offensive or controversial, she names people involved in her life. There is a faint line in performance with regards to ethics and morals, and though Calle does not cross it, she toes the line repeatedly. This makes me question what and who to name or include in my own performance, and the ethical and moral implications of naming and portraying them.

Reading week 6

Reading – Week 6

Bonney, J. (2000). Extreme Exposure: An Anthology of Solo Performance Texts from the Twentieth Century. New York: Theatre Communications Group.

TIM MILLER

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Miller has a history of political activism, but his performance is about gay rights and autobiographical social struggle for identity as a gay man, and how society sees him, how he conforms to or denies this social identity he has been given. His work is aimed at marginalized people, students, gay men etc. His work is highly interactive and uncovers the violence that is inflicted upon gay men, and the violence which gay men inflict upon themselves. He looks at the conflict between how he portrays himself and how society says he should be portrayed. He connects to his audience through his body.

Spilt Milk

This piece is about Miller looking back at the time when he was 19, and decided to travel to San Francisco to explore his independence as a gay man in society. The piece is funny, sad, shocking and very descriptive. He sets up the autobiographical story with dates, times, places etc and continues with amusing sidelines and political statements. He discusses the vulnerability of hitch-hiking, the pressure he felt as a child of parents who fought in the hippie/antiwar/cultural revolution ten years ago. He discusses his self doubt and the potential for homosexual change, and the sense of a potential utopia around the corner. He tells us of a utopian farm he attended, which turned out to be a sect/cult that he did not belong to. Broccoli is used as a comic theme that crops up as his life in San Francisco develops. He compares the utopian farm to a Nazi death camp, and it is both humorous and terrifying. He discusses his choice to go to the farm as a bad one. He piece is sexually explicit, it mocks society, law, religion and the people he hitch-hikes with. He knows, as a gay man, he is on the margins of society, and feels good being at the literal edge, on a beach, where he meets Michael. The piece ends in a dark and twisted manner, his dreams are dashed when he finds out the gay politician whom he had rested his hopes on had been murdered. His utopian society has been crushed and put back a few years.

Reading week 6

Reading – Week 6

Kuhnheim, J. (1998). ‘The Economy of performance: Gomez-Pena’s New World Order’ Modern Fiction Studies 44:1 pp. 24-35

Jill Kuhnheim

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·         This piece discusses Guillermo Gomez-Pena’s work on border cultural life, which includes performance art, videos, CDs, books, sites on the Internet, interviews and theory essays.

·         By boundary crossing he reaches larger audiences and is recognised in different fields.

·         His performing of the marginalised raises questions about the line between performance and text, self and community and subversive/commercial uses of art.

·         As a border artist Gomez-Pena avoids definition and categorization. Phelan writes ‘identity is perceptible only through relation to the other, it is a form of resisting and claiming the other

·         Gomez-Pena shows the need for exchange as it is a channel for communication. The hybrid ‘denounces the faults, prejudices and fears manufactured by the self-proclaimed centre.’ We are not products of only one culture but have identities that are multiple and transitional.

·         Border identity is based on hybrid & contradiction. Gomez-Pena has ‘reworked the concept of border identity in different form since the early 1980’s.’ He makes the marginal visible.

·         Gomez-Pena develops his performance process, from reading a poem in a public toilet, to making a video, to being a live exhibition and documenting public reaction into a ‘techno-drama’, to an internet page where people confess their sins, it mutates into other forms.

·         ‘One of the effects of putting the chronology in the centre is to frame the narrative of performances with pieces that ‘perform’ in other ways. The accounts of the performances are, in effect, ‘bordered’ by other documents.’ Gomez-Pena takes a unified speaking position that reinforces his authority as an artist.

·         Much of his work is English/Spanish, which favours a bilingual audience member, but the written script contains clearer meaning than the visual/aural performance. The performance is dependant on the language skills of the audience/reader, which itself creates borders.

·         Gomes-Pena deliberately plays upon this inclusion/exclusion binary in order to create the other and the self, as well as demonstrating dependence and antagonism between the roles.

·         The New World Border has scripted audience involvement and writing this into the script makes the piece static and more like a scripted performance than a genuine reaction.

·         ‘There is a deceptive hybridity in this text...the speakers identity depends upon an opposition between multiculturalism and a monoculture.’

·         One section of New World Order is an autobiographical piece in which Gomez-Pena ‘closes the distance between his historical self and his speaker when recounting an incident of racial paranoia and cultural misunderstanding.’ He is picking up his child, but he is accused of kidnapping because the boy is white and blond, whereas he is Mexican. ‘The text is a representation of these women’s misperception elaborated by the author’s anger and speculations about the possible outcome for a more Vulnerable target.’

·         Another section is entitled ‘The Psycho in the Lobby of the Theatre’ in which Gomez-Pena challenges assumptions about identity. The presumption is that the man who is questioned is the ‘psycho’ but it is Gomez-Pena’s character that turns out to be the ‘psycho’ because of his aggressive assertion of self-identity. This makes Gomez-Pena and the audience question their own assumptions of identity and race. ‘While Gomez-Pena reveals how his identity is ensnared by others’ prejudices and misconceptions, he is also trapped in his own set of cultural terms and preconceptions.’

·         However, calling attention to border identity does not change it. By moving the border to centre may enforce binaries of centre/margin, speaker/listener, male/female instead of undoing them. Therefore Gomez-Pena fixes himself and the audience in predetermined places that limit the chance for transformation.

·         Gomez-Pena reinforces gendered identities instead of challenging them by poking fun at feminist critics, so instead of challenging, he enforces traditional oppressive power hierarchy

·         He creates a binary in himself and his audience, we are either with or against him, we agree or disagree, in or out, and trapped within a binary with no middle ground or chance to cross identities. He does not explore the ‘multiplicity of both real and imagined identities.’

Reading week 6

Reading – Week 6

Kuhnheim, J. (1998). ‘The Economy of performance: Gomez-Pena’s New World Order’ Modern Fiction Studies 44:1 pp. 24-35

Jill Kuhnheim

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·         This piece discusses Guillermo Gomez-Pena’s work on border cultural life, which includes performance art, videos, CDs, books, sites on the Internet, interviews and theory essays.

·         By boundary crossing he reaches larger audiences and is recognised in different fields.

·         His performing of the marginalised raises questions about the line between performance and text, self and community and subversive/commercial uses of art.

·         As a border artist Gomez-Pena avoids definition and categorization. Phelan writes ‘identity is perceptible only through relation to the other, it is a form of resisting and claiming the other

·         Gomez-Pena shows the need for exchange as it is a channel for communication. The hybrid ‘denounces the faults, prejudices and fears manufactured by the self-proclaimed centre.’ We are not products of only one culture but have identities that are multiple and transitional.

·         Border identity is based on hybrid & contradiction. Gomez-Pena has ‘reworked the concept of border identity in different form since the early 1980’s.’ He makes the marginal visible.

·         Gomez-Pena develops his performance process, from reading a poem in a public toilet, to making a video, to being a live exhibition and documenting public reaction into a ‘techno-drama’, to an internet page where people confess their sins, it mutates into other forms.

·         ‘One of the effects of putting the chronology in the centre is to frame the narrative of performances with pieces that ‘perform’ in other ways. The accounts of the performances are, in effect, ‘bordered’ by other documents.’ Gomez-Pena takes a unified speaking position that reinforces his authority as an artist.

·         Much of his work is English/Spanish, which favours a bilingual audience member, but the written script contains clearer meaning than the visual/aural performance. The performance is dependant on the language skills of the audience/reader, which itself creates borders.

·         Gomes-Pena deliberately plays upon this inclusion/exclusion binary in order to create the other and the self, as well as demonstrating dependence and antagonism between the roles.

·         The New World Border has scripted audience involvement and writing this into the script makes the piece static and more like a scripted performance than a genuine reaction.

·         ‘There is a deceptive hybridity in this text...the speakers identity depends upon an opposition between multiculturalism and a monoculture.’

·         One section of New World Order is an autobiographical piece in which Gomez-Pena ‘closes the distance between his historical self and his speaker when recounting an incident of racial paranoia and cultural misunderstanding.’ He is picking up his child, but he is accused of kidnapping because the boy is white and blond, whereas he is Mexican. ‘The text is a representation of these women’s misperception elaborated by the author’s anger and speculations about the possible outcome for a more Vulnerable target.’

·         Another section is entitled ‘The Psycho in the Lobby of the Theatre’ in which Gomez-Pena challenges assumptions about identity. The presumption is that the man who is questioned is the ‘psycho’ but it is Gomez-Pena’s character that turns out to be the ‘psycho’ because of his aggressive assertion of self-identity. This makes Gomez-Pena and the audience question their own assumptions of identity and race. ‘While Gomez-Pena reveals how his identity is ensnared by others’ prejudices and misconceptions, he is also trapped in his own set of cultural terms and preconceptions.’

·         However, calling attention to border identity does not change it. By moving the border to centre may enforce binaries of centre/margin, speaker/listener, male/female instead of undoing them. Therefore Gomez-Pena fixes himself and the audience in predetermined places that limit the chance for transformation.

·         Gomez-Pena reinforces gendered identities instead of challenging them by poking fun at feminist critics, so instead of challenging, he enforces traditional oppressive power hierarchy

·         He creates a binary in himself and his audience, we are either with or against him, we agree or disagree, in or out, and trapped within a binary with no middle ground or chance to cross identities. He does not explore the ‘multiplicity of both real and imagined identities.’

Reading week 6

Reading – Week 6

Bonney, J. (2000). Extreme Exposure: An Anthology of Solo Performance Texts from the Twentieth Century. New York: Theatre Communications Group.

GUILLERMO GOMEZ-PENA

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Gomez-Pena is a visionary artist and cultural critic who refuses to let his work be circumscribed within pre-existing categories who performs in theatres as well as art venues, halls, and galleries. He critiques the xenophobia present in society, as well as U.S. imperialism. His audience is metaphorically stabbed in the back because he plays on their ideas and preconceptions, but they might not realise this until after the performance. Most of his work is site specific, and he uses poems and performance texts in his work too. ‘He uses performance as a tool to initiate dialogue on a range of complex issues, including censorship, immigration and Anglo-American attitudes toward Latinos and indigenous people’ in a process he calls ‘reverse anthropology.’ His work ‘explores situations of radical, historical, political and cultural contingency, strategically occupying a mythical centre from which he is able to explain the dominant culture to itself.’ His work looks at what might be achieved, a world without borders and cultures are hybrid, and identities dissolve. His work generally centres on the fears, hopes, desires, and tensions around U.S./Mexican relations at the end of the twentieth century.

Borderstasis

Gomez-Pena acknowledges his performance status as narrator/performer. He infuses humour and multiple languages. He looks at what might be a utopian society and critiques the government and says that citizens hold more responsibility. The piece is split into sections, and one of them looks at U.S. attitudes to Latino workers, and what will happen to the country if a law is passed regarding immigration. Is not a utopian society, it is one where no ‘American’ wants to do the minimum wage jobs of the Latinos because health care is not included. It is a society that fails, and becomes bankrupt and corrupt within days because of an epic self-deportation programme by the Latino population. ‘Are you guys truly, truly aware of the logical consequences of your anti-immigrant politics?’. The following section discusses the scapegoat of society’s problems and completely ridicules it. El Nino sounds Latino, therefore he is to blame, but this is not the case, and is made to seem ludicrous. He calls it ‘Mexi-fobia.’ The following section discusses a real life situation that occurred to him, he was detained for answering back to a border patrol guard simply because of the phobia around immigration. He has a ‘suspicious’ look. He reveals that he lives in a society of irrational fear that demonizes Mexicans. The next section discusses the fear around stereotypical character, but looks at the other side of the story and shows the fear of the oppressive American character. The penultimate section mocks the immigration laws and shows a society that is twinned with other cities across the world that are nothing like each other. The final section looks at what the world would be like if there were no identity borders separating society, and talks about the Americas as one land mass that could be travelled without crossing a border, and is humanized into a living being which one can travel from head to toe.  Gomez-Pena is interested in the borders and what separates people and societies. His work is political, but not controversial, and he discusses the utopian potential of a new society.

Reading week 6

Reading – Week 6

Bonney, J. (2000). Extreme Exposure: An Anthology of Solo Performance Texts from the Twentieth Century. New York: Theatre Communications Group.

DAWN AKEMI SAITO

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Saito works with material deeply personal to her, but this material is shaped by her culture and background. Saito has Japanese and American routes, and her father’s role in the Second World War in the Japanese Imperial Army impacts on her work. ‘She takes the stuff of her life, often chaotic stuff, often unbearable stuff of pain and ugliness and despair and casts it in an aesthetic form.’ She presents nightmare-like text and juxtaposes it with beauty and elegance in her physical embodiment. She is greatly influenced by Butoh. Saito performs on a bare stage and wear a long flesh coloured latex dress. She plays all of the characters within the performance, young man, old woman, animal etc. ‘The real world is rendered as hallucination.’

Ha

This piece is centred on the relationship Saito had with her grandfather. After she saw him for the first time she was so horrified by the sight of his mutilated face that she stopped speaking. The piece is very personal and is highly descriptive, it sets up the story with visual clues as to the location of the story. She discussed eating white food when she was young so that she could change the colour of her skin, which points to race as an issue. There is discussion around drugs and the use of them when she discusses her sister, who only eats white powder and smokes. This is shrouded in metaphor and symbols because it is still a child discussing her sister. The story moves on to discuss Saito as an adult who moves in next to a stripper and a man who is seemingly unstable. She discusses her reactions when she hears of this man’s repulsive actions, but she takes the middle ground. The reaction to the sickening actions of this man avoids confrontation. The piece has several characters in, including her grandfather, grandmother, mother, father, a monkey and herself. The final part of the story gets dark, Saito finds out that her grandfathers facial disfigurement occurred because he took part in torture and experimental biological weapons testing in Japan during the war, and it is a very dark and descriptive explanation. This changes Saito’s opinion of her grandfather and she goes from a regretful person who wishes she could have spoken to him, to dreaming about him, being horrified about his position during the war, and she now hates him. He is blamed for everything that goes wrong. There is a suggestion that some of the scenes are hallucinations. Saito’s performance is very dark and very personal, but she embodies the characters within the play.

Reading week 6

Reading – Week 6

Bonney, J. (2000). Extreme Exposure: An Anthology of Solo Performance Texts from the Twentieth Century. New York: Theatre Communications Group.

BRENDA WONG AOKI

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Aoki is a storyteller, actor, narrator, dancer, monologist, and uses tradition in her work. She draws on ancient Japanese folklore, but her performances are contemporary multiethnic and American as she is. She has trained across a broad sweep of theatre and performance, from Commedia dell’Arte, and Noh, to jazz and piano. Her work is minimalist, but the attention to detail is not. It contributes a sense of depth to each moment. ‘At times, she seems to be acting as much with her thighs as with her voice.’ Her work started by looking at dramatizing traditional Japanese folktales, but she has increasingly moved towards auto-biographical. She looks at aspects of her own family history too.

Random Acts – To Fa, Lia.

This piece is about the death, and funeral, of her nephew Lia, and the reactions to his death. The piece is charged with passion, hate, anger and mourning. Lia was shot by an unknown person the day before attending college. The piece discusses the mourning process, but also highlights the multitude in languages, cultures and religions present at the funeral, and how each culture deals with the death of someone that crossed and spanned so many cultures. There is humour and grief within this highly personal account. There are touching moments when members of his football team place their jerseys around his coffin, and when his brothers break down in front of the coffin. Sounds are used and expressed in the piece, like ‘clomp clomp’ and ‘haaaa.’ Reading the script is probably not as influential as seeing the performance itself, but just from the script it is clear that the piece is very physical and emotionally charged. There is a moment when Aoki herself breaks down and becomes violent towards her nephews unknown murderer.

Mermaid Meat

This is a Japanese folktale that has been dramatised. It is hard to know how this piece is performed visually as the script does not give much away. The story is about a fisherman who has a relationship with a mermaid, and she brings up his daughter as her own, but the daughter grows up to finally eat part of the mermaid which makes her immortal. The mermaid goes back to the sea and the story moves on by 100 generations, until the daughter reveals she has loved and lost many husbands and children because she is immortal, and asks for the mermaid to end her torment. Her life is taken from her and in place, there is a huge scarred tree that grows. This is obviously a moral tale, but there are no stage directions to say how it is performed, or what with, whether Aoki plays all the characters or just reads the story.

Reading week 5

Reading – Week 5

Heddon, D. (2006). ‘Beyond the Self: Autobiography as Dialogue,’ in Wallace, C. Monologues: Theatre, Performance, Subjectivity. Prague: Litteria Pragensia.

Dee Heddon

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·         Explicit use of personal experience within performance is traced to the first wave of the feminist movement where ‘personal’ as also seen as ‘political’.

·         From the outset autobiographical performance has aimed at political aspiration and change through personal and own life experiences. The vast majority of autobiographical performances draw on personal stories to bring the political into sharper focus.

·         Autobiographical performance has been criticized for being too self reflective, to be shown to an audience of one, the self, it is accused of being an ego trip of the ‘I-did-it-my-way’ with amateur staging and mini personalities, and as being self indulgent and encouraging egos for actors to ‘jumps start their me-machines’.

·         However, this is just a stereotype that will remain until there is a shift in understanding.

·         Gammel notes that when personal experiences are expressed via the female voice it is perceived as informal and without authority. Live performance is considered a ‘less socially elevated form’, and autobiography presented in this less socially elevated form has traditionally been seen as a female genre.

·         Autobiographical performances are rarely about the (singular) self.

·         In solo autobiographical performance the performing subject and the subject of performance are one and the same, the self is in dialogue with itself.

·         In autobiographical solo performance there are 3 types of self; 1- the self who is performing, 2- the self who performed, and 3- the self who lives beyond the performance. These selves might then be split into more selves, E.g. husband, father, son, teacher, lover, driver etc.

·         It is near impossible to tell an autobiographical story without describing other people’s roles. Eakin – ‘our own lives never stand free of the lives of others’. Solo autobiography should be called auto/biography as there is the self and others.

·         Ethical questions surrounding the act of appropriation; how to understand the experiences of another and how to practice empathy. In Kron’s Well most of the words come from her mother, who read and advised on drafts so that the representation of her was not negative.

·         The experience performed is only an interpretation of what happened, not necessarily true. The performer can interpret many cultural locations and readings, it is therefore biased.

·         Holquist summarises that dialogue is split into 3, 1- an utterance, 2- a reply, 3- the relation between the two. It is in this relation that change happens.

·         There is a utopian aspect of solo autobiography that Uyehara recognises, ‘performance is transformative...it challenges us to imagine a new world in which to live.’

·         Kron – ‘the goal of autobiographical performance should be not to tell stories about yourself, but instead, to use the details of your own life to illuminate or explore something more universal.’ This is a good mantra to work by, and one which I intend to follow.

·         Most performers create a mode of address that acknowledges the presence of the audience.

·         A mode of autobiographical is to offer no closure, in that it is up to the audience to make the ending because it has not yet happened or not written. For example, a change in law.

·         Autobiographical solo performance can confront cultural and historical taboos, such as McCauley’s Sally’s Rape that addresses slave labour, rape and racism in history. ‘Choosing to confront the racial tensions in wider culture, and most particularly the existence of racism, McCauley conducts that exploration within the making and performing the piece itself.’ The audience is welcome to contribute to the performance at key moments. The piece resists closure.

·         A different type of autobiographical performance is made with the audience’s participation as crucial so that they are physically and verbally active in the process of shaping the piece. Pearson’s Bubbling Tom was made in this style so that the audience would wander around the streets listening to the stories, but to Pearson’s surprise, other stories were exchanged, the audience changed the performance. It unwittingly became a model for participatory theatre. The ending was also different every time because nobody could agree on where the brook that the title of the performance is named, was located.

·         Howells performance of Salon Adrienne was set in a salon and he gave every member of his ‘audience’ a haircut, but whilst he prompted, they discussed similar autobiographical stories. The piece is entirely improvised and is as much to do with your own self reflection as his.

·         There is a fine line between me and we in performance, and it has the potential to tell the past as well as the future. Autobiographical performance acts as a bridge between performance and the world.

Reading week 4

Reading – Week 4

Auslander, P. (1989). ‘Going With the Flow: Performance Art and Mass Culture’ TDR 33:2 pp.119-136

Going With the Flow, by Philip Auslander

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·         This essay looks at the use of technology in performance, particularly video and projection.

·         This has been called “the media generation” by Goldberg. The previous performers were concerned with physical presence in performance, now the spoken word is more important.

·         Primarily, video and film was used to document a performance that was otherwise lost in time.  Video was used to record and preserve evidence of the performance.

·         Nowadays video and film is a commodity, like sound and photograph it is used to create a virtual performance. Technology used in performance has opened up new realms of possibility that was unthinkable 100 years ago.

·         Wegman’s video performance brings into question the demystified performance.’

·         The essay moves away from film and video as a technique to television and film as performance. Theatre and performance was no longer constrained to a theatre, but could now be seen in millions of living rooms worldwide, and not just on television, but through sound recordings and other media outlets like the radio.

·         Laurie Anderson uses ‘highly sophisticated state-of-the-art gadgetry’ to create something visually and aurally spectacular.

·         The essay discusses the relationship between art and mass culture and whether art can remain important or equally as powerful through mass media outlets. If something is not successful through television or other form of mass popular media/culture, then it is seen as a freak show. High art has moved culturally and is now more accessible for the majorities.

·         High art is no longer restricted to high culture or high classes thanks to mass/multi-media.

·         Burnham argues that ‘performance can retain its integrity only by only by choosing to remain in the margins.’ This opens the question, does performance lose something when turned into a mass-media product of television for example.

·         Forte believes that popular/mass cultural performance cannot be marginal because the television makes things mainstream and famous.

·         Is there a line between marginal and marketable? If so, where?

·         The essay goes on to argue that the above may not be true, that it is facile to believe that performance loses its subversive potential when introduced to mass culture. However, it is possible for mass cultural performance to challenge the mainstream, for example, the television performance may do this by denying closure and disrupting the narrative.

·         The essay highlights Raymond William’s view on Television, that it is made up of three levels; the overall impression of the day of entertainment including all breaks, adverts, etc; images that occur; and the flow of words.

·         Polan also discusses these flows and agrees that each image and word adds up to the overall impact of the ‘performance’.

·         However, live performance cannot (generally) be controlled by the audience, whereas performance through media, such as a television programme, can be turned off, down, over. Therefore, media has shifted power from the performer to the audience.

·         Live concerts have to be rehearsed and the recording is usually available beforehand, and this turns performance on its head, because an audience for a TV programme will not read the script beforehand.

·         Film, music, television and plays all have the same thing to offer the audience, the performer’s persona. This can only be a good thing for a practitioner/performer if they have a selection of media outlets.

·         Performance through mass culture (television, film) can be liberating.

·         Even though mass culture is based at a large audience demographic, it may only be viewed/witnessed by individuals. This means that the mass has turned into individual.

·         Owen’s point is expressed, ‘ postmodernist art does not position itself outside the practices it holds up for scrutiny. It problematizes, but does not reject, the representational means it shares with other cultural practices.’

Reading week 4

Reading – Week 4

Bonney, J. (2000). Extreme Exposure: An Anthology of Solo Performance Texts from the Twentieth Century. New York: Theatre Communications Group.

LENNY BRUCE

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Lenny Bruce improvises much of his work, and he was good at changing his material to adapt for the audience he was playing to. He used his work to attack the Yiddish phrase zug gornischt (say nothing).  Bruce was happy to challenge the unsaid and the lies present in society, whether that be politics, law, gender, police etc. Many saw Bruce as ‘not respectable’ in his time.

How to talk dirty and influence people: an autobiography of Lenny Bruce

Bruce uses stereotypes to create his comedy. He plays with the Yiddish word goyish which means gentile. He lists what he sees in society as Jewish and Goyish, but things can never be both. He lists the differences between the two terms with examples, but he doesn’t prefer one to the other or see either in a negative light. He uses Jewish stereotypes throughout the piece and says that they are not Goyish. He doesn’t mock things that are Jewish or Goyish, but makes it obvious that there are differences. He uses humour to make his examples.

Psychpathia Sexualis

Bruce mocks marriage and relationships in this short piece by subtly replacing the wife/girl character with animals. He uses animal related phrases in the poem which could be used as a love poem if it were not for the animal references.

The Tribunal

This piece is not overtly funny, it seems political because he comments on the poor treatment and salary of teachers. He is disgusted that people like teachers who are in charge of the education for the next world leaders are paid so little, and he emphasises this by having a mock court scene whereby people who earn ludicrous amounts are put in jail. This is Bruce being political and showing his personal beliefs about society and its mistreatment of certain individuals within it.

Off Broadway

Bruce looks here at language and the use of offensive words like nigger. He shows that we use the word sparingly, therefore when it is heard it becomes offensive. In the piece he suggests we use it all the time so that in 6 months or so it will lose all sense of negativity and no longer be offensive. This is a political rant by Bruce about the absurdity of the arrangement of a few letters, and the fact that society holds this as controversial when it is just a word, which does no physical harm, and that can be changed if we are willing to challenge it.

Religions, Inc.

This is quite a controversial piece whereby Bruce mocks religion and the leaders of it. He shows it like an exclusive club that has its perks. He also shows it as perverse and corrupt. He sees religion as a commodity and something to be capitalized on. Religion is made to look stupid because the self professed leaders of all these religions do favours for each other and openly admit to not knowing answers. It is seen as an exclusive and swanky club, but only for a select few.

Father Flotski’s Triumph

This performance mocks the judicial system and shows that the prison wardens and guards are willing to compromise and negotiate with inmates, but also shows that they are lazy, corrupt and willing to brutally kill masses of inmates to show some sense of order. This would no doubt have gotten Bruce into trouble because it is highly controversial, it is ironic, offensive towards religion, mental conditions, homosexuals, and promotes murder; ‘Killing 6 children doesn’t make anyone bad.’ Obviously this play is a mockery of the prison system and is not to be taken too seriously but it still holds political criticism.

Reading week 4

Reading – Week 4

Bonney, J. (2000). Extreme Exposure: An Anthology of Solo Performance Texts from the Twentieth Century. New York: Theatre Communications Group.

LAURIE ANDERSON

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Anderson plays with language and sound through technology like recorders and synthesisers, projectors and visual. She layers the visual and the audio in the performance. Anderson gained much of her following through a song that reached the charts, she moved from the obscure down-town artist to the world of mass media and popular avant-garde. Her stories are autobiographical but include universal subjects like love, religion and politics that she can make personal. She uses microphones and audio equipment on stage to create her own soundtracks and sound effects.

New York Social Life

This piece looks at how our lives are similar and how they repeat each other. Anderson looks at social interaction of city goers who are surrounded by people but made lonely in their own little worlds. The interactions that occur become repeated and stagnated, we all say the same things, how are you, we should meet up next week, how work, bye. Anderson is making a point about society, particularly New Yorkers, we say the same things to each other so much that they become meaningless, automatic and unfelt.

After Science, Dinner: On the Road

This piece was created by Anderson during her travels around America. In this she seems to be concerned with accents and the voice because the few characters in it are all very different from each other. She shows different social types of people in America, including a couple who eat night food that they have shot, like possum. She shows them as potentially repulsive people who cook possum, cover it in coffee and maple syrup and call this a secret recipe. It is a very visual piece and Anderson describes her surroundings in detail.

United States: Difficult Listening Hour

Anderson shows this piece as a radio host presenting the ‘difficult music’ on his show. She plays with voice and rhythm throughout and shows that, even though it is discussed as difficult, it is actually quite poetic and thoughtful. She turns the preconceptions on their head.

Big Science

This is a piece that attacks society, it is a list of directions but all the reference points have not been built yet. Anderson attack what she calls ‘golden cities, golden towns’ for being an ever growing sprawl of the urban. The directions are pointless, even ludicrous because none of it makes sense unless you know what is to be built around the town.

Talk Normal

This is an autobiographical monologue from Anderson, as the rest of the readings are, but in this she talks about herself as I and discusses her relationship with Andy Kaufman. Nor does she embody any other character or sound effect.

False Documents

Anderson tells us of a time in which she went to see a palm reader and is made to believe that if what she is hearing is true, then she has been living a lie. The monologue is interesting as it looks at cultures and the differences and ignorance of separate cultures and societies rules. She worries that they read from right to left, and that maybe she has got the wrong hand, or that it is being read wrong. She also sees the potential of language barriers and problems in translation.

Wild White Horses

In this monologue Anderson tells her audience of a time when she has an identity crisis. She agrees to a vow that she thinks she cannot keep. She confides these concerns to a monk and he makes her realise the context of her life and that she should not worry about something as trivial as ‘being nice’ when her house could be burning down, or that she may have a long way to get home.

Reading week 4

Reading – Week 4

Bonney, J. (2000). Extreme Exposure: An Anthology of Solo Performance Texts from the Twentieth Century. New York: Theatre Communications Group.

ANDY KAUFMAN

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Andy Kaufman was known for his unpredictability, such as when he took his entire audience to a school canteen for after show milk and cookies. It was difficult to distinguish between Kaufman as a performer and Kaufman as a person. Even his death was seen as a stunt and it took a while for people to believe that he was dead. His work was extremely varied in content and style and he took the television industry by surprise because he was so unpredictable and would change something half way through, even if it was live.

Andy Kaufman plays Carnegie Hall

Kaufman plays his alter ego Tony Clifton and introduces the show through him. He plays the role of the compere who doesn’t want to leave the stage to much comical effect. Through Tony he mocks the conventional stand up, he comments on his wife, but in a romantic way and doesn’t make a joke about her or at her expense. Kaufman also plays another character who is not identified. He obviously enjoys impersonating people or making up people as alter egos. Part of the humour in this character comes from the fact he is just not funny, he forgets the punch lines, says the jokes wrong and is seen as generally quite stupid. Kaufman goes on to play himself and gets the audience to sing along with him. There are several characters he impersonates, all different and all with completely different styles and motives. This is done through simple changing of costume, accent and behaviour. The audience knows they are all the same person but he doesn’t acknowledge this in performance because he plays all of the characters straight.

Reading week 3

Reading – Week 3

Bonney, J. (2000). Extreme Exposure: An Anthology of Solo Performance Texts from the Twentieth Century. New York: Theatre Communications Group.

SPALDING GRAY

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Spalding Gray works in a unique style. He writes his thoughts, feelings, memories, imaginings, regrets, memoirs and experiences in a notebook. He then goes onto the stage, sits at a plain table and regurgitates these notes to the audience, sometimes expanding on them as he goes along. There is no traditional performative element in Gray’s work, though he is on the stage he does not act, he uses his voice and what he is saying to do the work of the actor. The work is very personal and revealing, but this is what makes it so captivating. Gray’s Commune is about his diaries and memories of a performance he was taking part in. He is brutally honest with his words, not in an insulting or shocking way, but he simply tells it as it is, or was. He freely admits to his concern at taking LSD, and he tells the audience of the effects. This, for many in the audience, will be the only experience they have with drugs, or towards the insight of the rehearsal process of a play. Gray seems not to insult anybody in the piece, but he doesn’t sugar any pills. He discusses his scepticism around religion and the differences between them. Gray is cleverly wording his piece in order not to insult or provoke, yet the delivery seems unforced and un-doctored. It is a highly personal insight to a part of his life that he would otherwise not have shared. It is worded in a way that the audience can easily picture what he is saying, therefore reducing the need for an elaborate set, props or costume. This is not a conventional play in any sense, but it works as a performance because he is opening up to an audience and therefore leaving himself vulnerable to them. Gray’s work seems like it is simply an autobiography, but with a book the author is hidden and protected by the pages, yet the performer here is not playing a character as a traditional actor would, but all the characters, and even more importantly, himself. What I find the most effective is how Gray is trusting his work, because he is in a position on stage where he is vulnerable because he is not hiding behind a character.

Reading week 3

Reading – Week 3

Dolan, J. (2001). ‘Performance, Utopia and the “Utopian Performative”’ Theatre Journal 53. Pp.  455-479

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·         This piece discusses how performance has the potential to provide us with the experience and sense of utopia.

·         Performance has the chance to change people’s style, trend, fashion and standards.

·         When audiences gather together, there is already a sense of community in that they are watching the same live performance with maybe a hope that what they see might change or enlighten them.

·         Performance and art can be used to change and make the world a better place, a utopia. Theatre has ‘a transformative impact on how we imagine ourselves in culture...a commitment to theatre and performance as transformational cultural practices might offer us consistent glimpses of utopia’ (456)

·         The utopia in question is not the idealised future world peace/harmony type of utopia, but can change attitudes towards poverty, famine, cancer, AIDs, health care, race and gender discrimination, homophobia, unfair global wealth distribution, religion, xenophobia etc.

·         However, Fascism and utopia can ‘skirt dangerously close together.’ (457)

·         Utopia is seen in more than performance, it can potentially be seen in the rehearsal process.

·         It is unlikely that a theatre performance will create an idealistic world-wide utopia, but it can have an impact on smaller aspects of life which leads eventually to a utopian society. The goal for a performance should not be to search for this ultimate utopia as this is unlikely. Instead, it should focus on a smaller slice of society, which is more likely to be achievable.

·         In a utopian society, theatre might not exist because it has to have a conflict to fight.

·         Theatre can ‘move us toward understanding the possibility of something better, can train our imaginations, inspire our dreams and fuel our desires in way that might lead to incremental cultural change.’ (460)

·         A non-mainstream theatre is more likely to produce revolutionary theatre. However there is a chance that the performers are ‘preaching to the converted’, or to people who already strive for the same utopian agenda.

·         The essay discusses Holly Hughes’s Preaching to the Perverted, Peggy Shaw’s Menopausal Gentleman and Deb Margolin’s Oh Holy Night, all solo performers who started their careers at the WOW Cafe in New York, a famous place for lesbian and feminist performers.

·         Hughes’s performance voices many people and representatives of society to show a world that is out of joint and discriminatory.

·         There are moments when audience participation can potentially open a window of utopian possibilities for the performer. Like when Shaw leaves the conventional performance space to walk and perform in the audience. She is making herself known to them, they are all on the same journey and are seen as being in the same group of people. This type of experience offers a ‘springboard to utopia.’ (473)

·         Margolin’s piece is about the search for the Messiah, but there are moments of utopia even in defeat. Moments of utter silence and stability show themselves as utopian, as well as moments of non-acting, like when Shaw drinks a bottle of water after a physical scene. ‘Perhaps in these moments of communal, almost loving rest, when the flesh stops and the soul pauses, we come together, at attention and relieved, to feel utopia.’ (477)

·         Utopian feelings are not restricted to the queer or feminist performances of Shaw, Margolin or Hughes. Nor will everyone in the audience feel this utopia.