Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Performance as an academic discipline. A dialogue with Ashley Steed.

Below is an essay I wrote in response to a prompt for my Performance Research class. The class is unassessed (meaning it doesn't matter) and so this is how not to take an assignment seriously and write whatever you feel like (in 750 words). I decided to write a dialogue based on conversations I've had with people about my MA programme.

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‘Ashley is going to London.’
‘Ah’ [in approval].
‘Yeah, to get her Masters.’
‘Ahhhh’ [even more approval].
‘In theatre!’
‘Oh’ [disappointed].

My best friend recounted this scene he had with his father, which makes me laugh because it is actually a common response. There is a stigma around theatre, especially in Los Angeles where someone studying theatre is synonymous with someone wanting to break into the ‘business,’ i.e. the film/TV industry. Even I shared in the stigmatization of theatre studies. I started out as an architecture major, something ‘practical.’ When I switched into theatre I went from responses of ‘wow, architecture! That is really intense’ to, ‘oh, theatre. That must be fun.’ [Defensively] Yeah it is fun, because I love what I do.

Then I decided to get a Masters in theatre and performance. Which has brought on even more confounding inquires. Like the following conversation I had with a guy at a pub.

So you are studying acting?
No, not really. I mean I guess acting is what brought me here and I am an actor, but no that’s not really what I’m studying.

Oh, so it’s directing?
Uh, no. I mean, I do want to and have done directing but that’s not it. It’s more academic-y. A theoretical look at theatre and performance. But there’s also practical application too.

What do you mean?
Well, for instance, in my performance lab class, last week we had to watch this visually stunning and completely crazy film by Fellini called Satyricon and recreate a scene or image. Well, there’s this one scene where this woman is cursed for making fun a magician so he takes away all the fire in the town and when villagers need fire they have to come get it from her, well, va-jay. So I basically recreated a fire crotch. With a can of hairspray and a lighter. And that prompted all these questions about fire and the way different things burn; different special effects with fire; the different burning sounds things make, etc. It also brought up the different things fire evokes and stories of fire societies, and buildings and cities catching on fire. And the destruction fire can make. There’s also a deep history of theatres catching on fire. Basically my assignment for the next two weeks is to play with fire.

That sounds awesome, and then what?
I’m going to create a performance from the research and different fire experiments I do.

Like a play?
Like… a… performance. [Silence].
I’m also interested in architecture in relation to performance.

Oh, like set design?
No. As in, how a site or place impacts a performance and vice versa. I’m also interested in site-specific and site-generic pieces and would like to create some sort of walking piece for a project. I’m also interested in the performance of the everyday. And observing, then mimicking behaviour.

It sounds like your programme is all over the place.
That’s the nature of performance, though, isn’t it. For instance, a play can be about anything, and for that matter even a theatre (building) or stage can be anything. There’s this famous director and drama theorist Peter Brook, who in the opening of his book The Empty Space says, ‘I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and that is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged.’ And if we look at the root of performance, which is basically the carrying out an act, then performance can literally be anything and also take place anywhere.

Hmm, I feel like performance is so abstract compared to science.
I’m really glad you just made that comparison because I believe that the study of science and the arts (to use a general overarching term) are both rooted in a fundamental commonality. They’re both grounded in what was (as in, what came before), and explore what is at this present moment, and both project or hypothesize the possibility of what can be. The late astrophysicist Carl Sagan said, ‘Imagination can often carry us into worlds that never were, but without it we go nowhere.’ Imagination is fundamental to both science and performance. But where science is reliant on the laws of the universe, or the defining of facts, performance is basically reliant on suspension of disbelief, or the mutual willingness to participate. I think it’s just as exciting, and dare I say important, to study the laws of physics, evolution, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, etc. as it is to study performance. There is an apparently inherent need to perform, pretend, imagine within the human condition. Today we are constantly bombarded by performance with TV, films, ads, the internet, the news, sporting events, concerts, and, of course, galleries and performance spaces; as well as adopting performative behaviours of certain customs or cultures, etc. Which poses the question, why? Why does every culture have some mode of oral or storytelling tradition? Why do we adopt certain performative behaviours over others? Why do we willingly suspend our disbelief? Why do we participate in and perpetuate fantasy?

Sounds like you have more questions than answers.
Yeah, learning would be obsolete if I already knew everything.

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So let me know what you think! Also, stay tuned. I saw Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act the musical last night so you know I've got to blog about that.

2 comments:

  1. you soooo did not say all of that! haha j/k, i love the debate, the comparison of science and the arts, and delving into the prejudices against formalized education on the arts. I think you are in a wonderful place studying very useful things, and I am so happy to live vicariously through you this year! Keep sharing...

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  2. Thanks so much Kat! I wish you could come and visit! missing you and all your fabulous contributions to the art world.

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