Thursday, November 1, 2012

Blog 18 First Responder (Derek)



An ethnographic approach to performance would position the scholar/researcher at “a view from ground level” in a local context, producing “knowledge that is anchored in practice and circulated within a performance community” (Conquergood, 146) and helps avoid what we could term the fallacy of “monolithic wholes” (Kealiinohomoku, 34). An ethnographic approach allows researchers to focus on subjugated knowledges, “to meanings that are expressed forcefully through intonation, silence, body tension, arched eyebrows, blank stares, and other protective arts of disguise and secrecy” (146). The work by Reason and Reynolds on audience experiences of watching dance is an example of researchers focusing on the body in an ethnographic study that seeks “a personal connection: ‘knowing how,’ and ‘knowing who’” (146). Their study of dance audiences shows the extreme variability of response an observer will have of kinesthetic changes in the dancers. In other words, the subjectivity of the observer complicates their understanding and interpretation of the movements they observe. This suggests a similar difficulty would face the alien researcher attempting to first recognize and then accurately interpret or understand the subtle kinesthetic changes that constitute the subjugated knowledge gleaned through an ethnographic approach to performance studies. Overcoming this barrier, however, allows for deeper and fuller knowledge in myriad situations, both in theatre and in the real world.

In the world of theatre, ethnographic approaches allow performance studies practitioners new ways of seeing and understanding the events on the stage and their effects on the audience. The stylized facial expressions and body movements of bharatanatyam, for example, or of kabuki or even of ballet, might be analyzed in terms of their significations within their respective cultures of origin, thus providing an alien observer with a new and hopefully more accurate (or closer) perspective on – and understanding of – those performances. It might help us to avoid inadvertent colonial practices of consumption and possession (Foster, 81; 89). Changing tack to focus on the audience, imagine observing the audience during a performance of Beckett’s Not I in order to track their external displays of kinesthetic empathy or other physical changes that might indicate affective reaction to the performance (e.g. searching for signs of stuplimity). Furthermore, in translating a dramatic work from one culture to another in preparation for performance, an ethnographic approach to performance studies could help dramaturgs, directors, and actors to more accurately understand the original scenes, character behavior, and especially past “native” performances prior to making their own decisions of how to interpret and perform the work in their own idiom. Something like that could be said to have occurred with the IU production of Richard III; for example, the inclusion of visual cues such as Queen Anne’s pill bottle and her (to us, an obviously drugged) demeanor and body language. An ethnographic approach might also be a tool for helping actors gain new awareness of their own craft, if such an approach could be incorporated into theater exercises. Lastly, I’d like to suggest that an ethnographic approach to performance studies could also help outsiders to understand the performances enacted within various sub-cultures (e.g. Japanese visual-kei bands).

In the real/political world, ethnographic approaches to performance studies can be utilized by researchers to inform their work across disciplines ranging from international politics to sports studies. In politics different cultures have different ways of expressing themselves in body language and facial expression. For example, to the uninitiated, it might be difficult to recognize that the unsmiling face of a Japanese politician or corporate CEO does not necessarily mean anger or some other negative emotion as it might more safely be presumed were that person American. (Whether that example falls under the domain of performance studies is perhaps arguable.) As for the applicability of ethnographic approaches to performance studies being used in sports studies, the Reason and Reynolds article made me think about my own experiences as an athlete and now as a spectator of athletic events. It seems very useful to take such an approach when studying fan behavior and the performance of team support, especially comparatively; e.g., a comparative study of the fan cultures/behaviors of American, English, and Spanish soccer fans, or even of the differences between regions within a single country, or between first division and second division team fans.

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