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.

Writing Out Writing?: Kealiinohomoku and Conquergood (Whitney)

It seems to me that the main pitfall of ethnographic approaches can be summed up with a quote from the Conquergood article (apologies for the excessive cropping, but I didn’t want to put the entire paragraph in since we’ve all read it):

“There is an emergent genre of performance studies scholarship that epitomizes this text-performance hybridity. A number of performance studies-allied scholars create performances as a supplement to, not substitute for, their written research. These performance pieces stand alongside and in metonymic tension with published research….To borrow Amanda Kemp’s apt phrase, they use ‘performance both as a way of knowing and as a way of showing’…Several of these performance pieces have now been written up and published in scholarly journals and books.” (Conquergood 152).

I, unfortunately, did not have the time to look at any of the sources Conquergood lists as references of the “performance pieces” that have been “written up and published,” so I am only grounding my thoughts about this quote within the limits of his article. On those grounds, though, it seems hard to reconcile a fervent call for hybridity between “both written scholarship and creative work, papers and performances,” and a gracious nod to recent, specifically performance work (supplementing written research), that is able to embrace this hybridity, with the final line of this quote (Conquergood 151). How do we “record” and maintain sustained and productive conversations about things/people/events/etc. without relying on writing? Surely there are other ways to do it. But the academy as it currently stands – in essentially every field – relies on writing to “bridge the gap.” And I’m using “bridge the gap” here in the broadest possible context – even, literally, to “bridge the gap” between a scholar in Moscow and an academic in San Francisco who are eager to converse with one another about a particular topic.

It seems to me like the kind of study and analysis the ethnographic approaches in these articles call for necessarily omits writing from every part of the process. In their article on kinesthetic empathy, Reason and Reynolds are searching for a way to grab hold of “natural,” “instinctual” physical reactions we have as spectators to other bodies’ movements. But in their attempt to grab hold of these reactions, all they can do is work to articulate, in writing, what these reactions are – let’s find a way to quantify or describe them. And, as seems evident by our class discussion on Tuesday, these reactions seem to elude articulation all together.

Similarly, writing seems to intrude in Kealiinohomoku’s argument as well, although perhaps at a slightly different level. Kealiinohomoku doesn’t adamantly cry out against “textocentrism” in the same way that Conquergood does, but she does argue that current existing texts on dance do an incredible disservice to those cultures and dances that have been categorized as “ethnic.” She speaks out quite forcefully against these current texts: “The readings are rife with unsubstantiated deductive reasoning, poorly documented ‘proofs,’ a plethora of half-truths, many out-and-out errors, and a pervasive ethnocentric bias” (Kealiinohomoku 33). In light of these grievous errors, Kealiinohomoku seems to call for new texts that correct the problems and, perhaps, a shift in focus for anthropologists and ethnographers from a mistaken “world dance” scope to a more local or narrow scope in which expertise can be much more nuanced. She critiques the scholars of the current texts as being, “not interested in the world of dance…really only interested in their world of dance” (Kealiinohomoku 35). But, ultimately, even though Kealiinohomoku’s method seems to leave open a space for more nuanced writing to record reactions and analyses of dance events in any culture, she mistrusts writing to a certain extent. Definitions are nonexistent or glossed over as “we all mean the same thing anyway” and descriptions are substituted for definitions, “which are a different matter altogether” (Kealiinohomoku 38). So, in the end, I’m not sure writing finds a comfortable place in Kealiinohomoku’s methods either.

I’m sorry to only have really touched on one pitfall of the ethnographic approaches presented in these articles, but I think it’s an important one. And it circles back to our conversations earlier in the semester on the tension between the archive and the repertoire. It seems like the ethnographic approach might be on the cusp of providing an interesting way to create a flexible permeability between these two categories of knowledge, but it seems to fall short in the same way the repertoire does when it comes to sustained records for the future that can be reused or, at least, discussed. 

Ethnography Schmography [Lusk]

I'm a little confused by Ethnography. So I'm going to try and think it aloud.

Okay.
Ethnography is defined as "the scientific description of peoples and cultures with their customs, habits, and mutual differences." That makes sense to me. To study other forms of art (for our argument) with the awareness that comparing it to your own culture is not helpful to the study. That makes complete sense to me. How else could we study other cultures? And are WE involved in this study of other cultures? Or is it the whole 'this is how we do it' and 'this is how they do it'.
(Unless I'm REAL off base with this definition.)

So... the dangers of this perhaps fall into our labeling of things, as Kaeliinohomoku points out. She delves into this by saying that the term 'ethnic' doesn't really mean what it means. But, rather one associates it with 'heathen', 'pagan', etc. 

In Jena's post she discusses how ethnography in the dramaturgy of Richard could have only helped the production. This fascinates me. We are no longer talking about obviously different cultures, such as Ballet vs. Hopi dances, but we are delving into subcultures. I think perhaps that this is where ethnography can became a huge headache. I feel like we could potentially fall into this trap of obsessing over the definition/labels of things. As scholars, we really like to know what people are saying when they are communicating their knowledge to us (Kaeliinohomoku has a whole section on the importance of definitions), but where does it end? Is there a point we can stop discussing the definition of the thing and talk about the thing? 

And I feel torn. Right now. Half of me wants to be that free spirited hippy in the quad smoking a joint, rocking out to some acoustic guitar, telling people we are ALL ONE and that LOVE is all we need. And the other half understands the importance of recognizing... no. We are not all one. We all have different sections and subsections that divide SO MUCH that we only stop when we reach the individual. And that's awesome! Both sides excite me completely. But I'm not sure which one would be the best approach in discussing things from a scholarly viewpoint. 

I do think, though, that there must be a line drawn. Between Ethnography and some other type of study. Jena mentioned the Bike Gang motif and how it was unsuccessful and I agree.  And I am immediately taken back to when, a couple years ago, we put on Angels in America. And there was some talk about the upset when a straight man was cast as the lead character, Prior, and that a heterosexual would be directing the show. The assumptions that were made upon these two individuals coincide with this idea that they cannot possibly portray this queer subculture accurate. How could they? They aren't apart of it.  (And homosexuality is a very exclusive club. Secret meetings and all that). 

That's where we run into trouble. The notion that these two very smart, very professional people could not portray the life of a gay man in the 80's because what....? They WEREN'T a gay man in the 80's? That's ridiculous. Especially in theatre. I'm not even sure the man who wrote it, if put in the role of Prior, could live up to some people's expectations of what it was like to be that individual with those circumstances. 

Once we start putting subcultures into the category of Ethnography... it seems too easy for those individuals to not allow access. To not even consider that someone outside of their circle, could possibly know what it was like to be them. Let alone PORTRAY them on stage. And if that starts happening too much... the theatre could become the most boring or most exciting place ever. 

(Going back and reading this I understand that it's real messy. It all stems from me not quite grasping the definition. So I hope to solidify these thoughts more after our discussion.)

Blog 18 (Jenna)

Early in his essay, Conquergood asserts, “The hegemony of textualism needs to be exposed and undermined” (147). This short sentence encapsulates much of his early argument, that scriptocentricism, the dominant mode of Western scholarship, exists at the expense of richer modes which may help illuminate “culture-as-text” and prevent tendencies to “miss the omissions” (147). (Please indulge me in a horrible joke—that much of Conquergood’s early argument describes how the “visual/verbal bias of Western regimes of knowledge” conquers good. See, I told you it was a terrible joke…)

 While thinking of examples in which an ethnographic approach to performance may have been beneficial, I kept returning to the failures of Gavin’s production of Richard III. His was a production that I would associate with the scriptocentricism against which Conquergood argues. As we mentioned in our discussion of Richard III, this was a production that evoked the type of motorcycle culture that those unfamiliar with motorcycle culture would have produced. The concept of the motorcycle gang existed solely within the spectacle of the production; it never breached the center. To borrow from Ellen’s wonderful anecdote, this Richard III was the Batman and Robin of the motorcycle world. This Richard III was one in which royals and nobles wore motorcycle gear and used gang weapons rather than one in which gangs of bikers competed for control of territory. One of the reasons why there was such a disconnect between the motorcycle concept and its execution was Gavin’s scriptocentric staging.

The vast majority of scenes in this production were staged in the familiar “stand and deliver” pattern that I associate with rhetorical presentation. If alone on stage, actors were blocked in central locations and basically stood and delivered their lines. If in a scene with multiple people, the actors were staged along the fringes of the stage in shapes that have a large centrally negative space, like rectangles or circles, and their bodies rarely touched. This type of staging is relatively static and does little to allow the audience to deduce clues about culture. Rather, the audience must get the majority of their information from the text the actors speak. This was certainly true in Gavin’s production of Richard III, which featured the rhetorical skills of his actors. The actor playing Rivers epitomized the stand and deliver approach as he often stood in an erect stance and clasped his hands in front of his body while delivering lines, much like a politician in a debate.  The shape of his body, along with many of the other actors’ bodies, was divorced from the type of body shapes and movements that exist in motorcycle culture. Use of ethnography in the dramaturgical research conducted for this production may have aided in the direction of this play by giving the director the tools necessary to embody motorcycle culture in his staging.

Prompt Blog 18: Kealiinohomoku, Conquergood

This will be our last Group Blog assignment; let's go out with a bang if we can.

First responders:
What are the benefits of an ethnographic approach to performance? Use examples from anything we have read/seen thus far.

Second responders:
Particularly in light of what we have just read (not just Kealiihohomoku and Conquergood, but also Foster and Reason & Reynolds) what are the potential perils / blind spots of an ethnographic approach?

Talkers:
In response to what your colleagues have written, and in preparation for the dance performance we will see this Sunday, start forming your own account of best practices for writing about performance. Have at least three principles ready to discuss on Thursday.

Bonus work:
For those of you intrigued by the Indiana Historical Society / History Center archive, feel free to search about for an artifact to pull and look at on Friday the 9th.

Here is a link to the catalogue: http://catalog.indianahistory.org/