Wednesday, 22 February 2012

How does a solo artist condition the space that they perform in?

Week Five:

22 February 2012

Lecture:

Today we started off the lesson by looking at any questions about the creation of our solo pieces.

Hall, E from last weeks reading looks at the formal, informal and technical learning and how we can create patterns in behavior.

Identity is constructed through society. Therefore, we can use this module to deconstruct the identity that we see through the eyes of the society.

Things to look at for your performance:

What concept do you want to explore for your solo performance and through that concept the format will emerge?

No matter what you articulate you will still be caught in the political of identity. This is because the politics of the world effect almost every aspect of out lives and in one way or another we are influenced by what society thinks or what is morally right or wrong within the eyes of the society.

The same can be said about instincts because can we really say that when we use our instincts it is our decision or have we been conditioned by society and the things we observe throughout our lives that make up our instincts and not necessarily our own behavior! If we look at it that way we behave and present ourselves has been drummed into us since we were little and so therefore it is apart of us to act that way naturally because that is what is excepted of us.

How We will be accessed? To get a 70% or distinction:

How much research is going into your solo piece?
What kind of archive have you collected such as pictures and text?
What solo artist are you exploring or drawing inspiration from?

We will be having one to one tutorials with the lecturers to look at the concept that we have chosen and how you are using gestures and movement within the piece.
We will also have a peer feedback in order for us to get a chance to show our work to the others and get feedback and help in fine tuning or looking more into certain aspects of the piece and maybe help guide us into the right direction as to making the piece clearer.

The performance does not have to linear and is allowed to be fractured such as in exploring memory and can also cross between many disciplines and forms.

We will need to put together our own program with title and a brief description of the performance.

We were given an example of a solo piece by Zena Edwards, who is a poetic artist. She uses movement, poetry and global influences as a jump-off her words.

Zena Edwards is a London-based performance poet, writer and musician. Her vibrant poetry is inspired by her experiences of travel, particularly through Africa, as well as traditional African music and song. She often accompanies her work with mbira, kalimba and marimba (thumb pianos).'She defines the fusion of poetry and music by including traditional African-instrumentation (the Kalimba and Kora) and new technology, to create her own sound tracks for her poems and stories, producing a body of work that reaches culturally and generationally diverse audiences on an international level. She fuses Jazzy Hip-Hop grooves, heavily influenced by her world music collaborations, with South African musicians including Pops Mohamed, one of her most important mentors.' (2011: http://literature.britishcouncil.org/zena-edwards)



'Zena Edwards has been involved in performance for 14 years – as a vocalist, poet and stage-manager after graduating from Middlesex University.'


Group Exercise:

In pairs share your ideas of a concept you have chosen for you performance so far, looking at what research and themes you have so far.

Because I am thinking of maybe looking at alter-egos. 'We all have alter-egos and show them differently like when with friends, family or at work. We always act as someone else. This is because of how we are meant to act in certain situations. When you go for a job interview or casting you are meant to act professional whereas when you with your friends you will act the way they act. For my piece I am looking at maybe playing with different persona's. For me my alter-ego is the opposite of me and she is someone who will do anything and not care what people thinks of her. She loves danger and is not afraid to take risks. During my discussion in class in the pairs, I was told to maybe play with moods, because we always feels differently when we are happy or sad or angry. So while using the free-writing as a tool try and write down things when I am in those different moods and see what I get out of it.

Out of the three readings from last week look at 3 claims and 3 counter-claims: Also look at the way the writers talk about the space in which work is produced:

We are conditioned to act a certain way and we also tend to learn through observations from when we are young. We watch the way our parents act and imitate them and also it is the way we are brought up and what we are taught when we are growing up that influences the way we see certain things. Not everyone see or agrees with certain things depending on where they were brought up or how they were brought up because we were all brought up with different values and beliefs.

When doing our performance we should look at the similarities and differences between the concept we choose. So basically try to see the ides from both sides.

Aernout Mik plays with social contexts by placing his performances in certain ways and letting the audience find their own meaning within what he is doing and as before this depends entirely on how they were brought up. As his performances don't have sound or dialogue it is easier for the audiences to see what is happening and come to their own conclusion of what they see. Mik takes the concept of a situation and shows both sides of a story.

Creative Exercise: Envelope Exchange:

We each had to bring an envelope with a picture, a text and an object but it had to be something that was inspirational. We were then out into pairs and each pair given an envelope from someone else.

For each of the items in the envelope we had to find a concept and discuss in our pairs how we can use the items to make a solo piece.

In my envelope there are a picture of a girl who had multiple tattoos on her legs, a Lauren Hill CD and a poem on life being a masterpiece. The concept I picked out was life's journey and that by using the words from the poem and the girls tattoos show a journey through life from the hard times and the happy times and how a combination of those two and the choices we make we can find a recipe to make a masterpiece in our lives.

Next on out own we had to write or perform a mini response to what we had in the envelope.

I chose to write a bit of text as a respnse:

Life comes in many forms; People choose their masterpieces in different ways: through sharing a bit of their world through songs, other through art. Journey's traveled and choices made. In the end we find the solution. We have to face the good with the bad and the beauty with the ugly. Just like a two-sided coin, you cannot have one without the other.

Afternoon Workshop:

We started off the workshop with a warm-up of walking through the space and then all walking into the middle of the circle. We were told that when we walk into the circle we shouldn't show tension but walk naturally even if you bump or bounce one another. Next we did a balancing exercise were we had to hold each other by the wrist and by sharing our weight evenly go down and back up. To get us focused and working as a group we had to choose one person to lead and we all have to follow them but not looking at them and someone else had to choose who we we were following.

Continuing from the morning exercise with the envelops we had to do back and practice a small performance and then share with the group and get some feedback. Then we went into groups of threes and re-did our piece and we had to give each other feedback as to how it went, what to change or to try it differently and then once again re-group and share with everyone.

I know that it is a task that is mean't to help us with our solo piece but I felt that it wasn't helping us because we are working on other concepts besides our own. It is good to be able to get an example as to how to do our own piece but at the same time I think that it would be more worth it if we focused on our own concepts we want for our solo and work on that and use that time to then get some feedback from the rest, which would be more beneficial.

Reading One:

Heddon, D. (2006) 'Beyond the Self: Autobiography as Dialogue.' Wallace, C. Monologues: Theater, Performance, Subjectivity. Prague: Litteria Pragensia

Women performers are still looked down upon as being something that has less authority and are dismissed as silly and less important.
Autobiography that is less social is considered more as a female genre.
Although autobiographical performances are about an individual, there is still a sense of collaboration within the development process because the performer has to consider the audience reactions to the material and try to remember events with other people.
In Autobiographical performances we portray our 'self' as many different characters both from past, present and future as well as the 'self' that we don't let anyone else see.
Autobiographical performances do not just relate to the self - but the problems and concepts used are universal and can relate to many culturally, historically and politically regardless of language.
Performances tend to be made or scripted with a particular audience in mind so that the audience will be able to compare the performance to their own life.


The explicit use of personal experience in performance, drawn upon as a material resource and regarded as a dramaturgical point of focus, can be traced to the first wave of feminist movement where the 'personal' was understood also as 'the political.' (157)
Autobiographical performance was, from the outset, political in its aspirations and the roll-call of performers who explicitly draw on their own life-experiences underlines the continuity of this fact, from Rachel Rosenthal's 'autobiographical' or 'autoethnographic' performances, to Tim Miller's persistent demand for equal rights for gay men and lesbians in the USA, to Bobby Baker's illuminating performances representing the struggle of simultaneously being a wife, mother, artist or, more recently, her challenge to the cultural taboo surrounding mental health, to Joey Hateley's discourse of living beyond the fixed binaries of sex and gender. (158)
Solo performance is, of course a field rife with self-indulgence and incipient monumental egotism. (159)
As Gammel notes, when personal experiences are expressed via the female voice, they are perceived as being informal and lacking in authority, belonging to the realm of parole rather than the more abstract langue, and as such as dismissed as being of less concern. (160)
Autobiographical performances are rarely about the (singular) self. (161)
In solo autobiographical performance, the performing subject and the subject of performance are typically one and the same. (161)
It is, however, more accurate perhaps to say that selves are inevitably in dialogue with selves, because in performance of autobiographical there is the self who performs, and the self who is performed; there is also the self who lives beyond the performance-the self that we, the spectators, do not witness. (162)
Dialoguing with various 'selves,' autobiographical performance continue to be a mode of consciousness-raising for the performer as much as for the spectator. What also needs to be recognized in the staging of the 'autobiographical' performance is that the 'self' is inseparable from 'others'; psychoanalytically/structurally, the self is dependent on the other to have self-definition.(163)
There is no singular or monolithic culture that inscribes a single interpretation to any event, but rather many possible cultural locations and readings (variously dominant and subordinated.) (165)
The inevitable and continual interactions between languages propose that all are capable of being influential and of being influenced. Performer Denise Uyehara recognizes this Utopian imperative:
Finally, and most importantly, performance is trans-formative. It provides new ways of expressing or imaging a culture, situation or struggle. It challenges us to imagine a new world in which we live.
Stories are powerful in that they are concerned with a 'literary and political re-shaping of language and thus consciousness.' (166-167)
'The goal of autobiographical work should not be to tell stories about yourself but, instead, to use the details of your own life to illustrate or explore something more universal. (170)
Autobiographical performances are very deliberately addressed to, and may variously hope to raise consciousness and educate, politicize, incite, anger, move, and inspire. (171)
Geographer Doreen Massey, proposes that we imagine space 'as a simultaneity of stories-so-far.' (179)


Reading Two:

Sontag, S. (2009) Where the Stress Falls. Penguin Classics

This reading looks at the work of Child's and the difference in method and techniques to Cunningham.
Even though in a dance piece there are many dancers, a dancer can still have a solo or be called a soloist because within the piece there is likely to be a part for the main dancer to perform alone.
Even if they are performing someone else's method it is still regarded a solo in that the dancer brings their own flair and technique to the dance.
This reading also looks at the different ways of making a performance such as the example of Child's dancing on the street and yet her voice was played to the audience six floors up explaining the movements she was doing while watching her perform below.


Child's choreography demands a concentrated all-over attention;it is cumulative, it aims at transporting, not education the audience. (167)
Cunningham is the most important champion of the anti-expressive and anti-subjective, and most of the choreographers who studied with him have extended his emphasis on objective and impersonality. To choreograph means to give movement a rhythmic, countable time structure. (169)
Child's doesn't use in-place movements (live penche, passe developpe, grands battements) that exhibit positions, that display technique. he classical tradition of dance is related to courtesy. (171)
Repetition as an accumulation of effects, as layering. Though usually presented as cool choice, repetition always suggests perfectionist zeal. Repetition is a technique that seems to suggest simplicity, that in principle enhances legibility or intelligibility. (174)
Child's choreographs for herself differently than she does for the rest of the company. As a soloist she gives herself a wider range of dynamic changes, more evolution in the material (rather than in space). (175)


Reading Three:

Tim Miller (2000) ‘Extreme Exposure: An Anthology of Solo Performance Texts from the Twentieth Century, ed. Jo Bonney, New York: Theatre Communications Group. pp. 155- 163

In Tim Miller's piece 'Spilt Milk,' he speaks about the the struggle and conflicts of being a gay man. This whole piece is about (I would think he was talking about himself) and his travels after leaving home at 19 and making his way by hitchhiking to look for a place that gay men could be free and not be judged.

Tim Miller is a gay performer who uses his performances to show the struggles, violence and weaves his political agenda of gay rights activism with personal stories. "In 'Spilt Milk' we see a shard of that struggle; repeatedly in his work, he illuminates the seemingly endless conflict between what we know and ourselves as gay men and what the world tells us is so," (2000, 156).

The link below is a blog of the artist called 'Tim Miller Queer Performance' in which he takes you through his journey through his works and had posts that talks about his travel, workshops and performances. In his latest post 'October 2011' he talks about all that is to come from him in 2012 with dates of his upcoming performances.

http://timmillerperfomer.blogspot.com/

The Video below is a clip from his piece 'Spilt Milk' and the way he has performed it with not so much movement but the use of his voice in which the tempo of speaking continually changes showing his characters nervousness and excitement.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKNgqJz8u0M


http://www.timmillerperformer.com/

There is an article from 'Theater Mania' talking about a teaching performance that Tim Miller will be taking in Philadelphia after one of his other teaching performances were cancelled by another school because 'Villanova said in part that the administration felt Miller's planned workshops "were not in keeping with our Catholic and Augustinian values and mission."

http://www.theatermania.com/philadelphia/news/02-2012/tim-miller-to-teach-performance-workshop-at-bryn-m_51146.html


Reading Four:

Deb Margolin (2000) ‘Extreme Exposure: An Anthology of Solo Performance Texts from the Twentieth Century, ed. Jo Bonney, New York: Theatre Communications Group. pp. 323-331

Within Deb Margolin's play 'Bill Me later,' she plays Monica Lewisnky and gives a lot of emphasis on the feminine sexuality.
She looks at how woman in this case Lewinsky uses her sexuality to her advantage not only on getting a job but also how easy it is to seduce men.
In the opening part of the play she talks about how 'man' wants every woman, she says 'The beauty of this man is, he wants all of us. An American can have a piece of his ass without so much as an in-store coupon. He'll do it with anyone. And that means me,' (2000, 325)
In that paragraph she is speaking as though her character of Lewinsky on how she thinks that the president 'Bill Clinton' was able to get any woman he wanted.



'Deb Margolin came out of her de-sexualized closet to take on what has been perhaps the biggest sex scandal in U.S hostory;...in the Clinton/Lewinsky multimillion dollar fiasco - which reached its climax, not unsuprisingly, with the deaths of 'third-world people,'" (2000, 324)
As with all of her performances, Bill me Later exemplifies Margolin's unique way of making political/philosophical commentary at once farcical and deadly serious, giving even more clout to her piercing critiques of a culture so dissociated from itself that the few of us shrieking the question: 'DID YOU SEE THAT?' can scarcely be heard. (2000, 324)


This is the official web page of Deb Margolin and it includes all her published works and biographic information on this solo performer. It also includes reviews and contact information if you want to contact her regarding her work.


http://www.debmargolin.com/

Deb Margolin is a playwright, performance artist and founding member of Split Britches Theater Company. She is the author of eight full-length solo performance pieces, which she has toured throughout the United States, as well as numerous plays, and is the recipient of a 1999-2000 OBIE Award for Sustained Excellence of Performance and the Kesselring Playwriting Award for her play Three Seconds in the Key in 2005. In May of 2007 she traveled on a Fulbright Senior Specialist grant to University of Tel Aviv to present her play Critical Mass, in a Hebrew translation.

Bobby Baker (Guardian Video)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/video/2010/may/12/art-mental-illness

While I was listening to this interview of how Bobby Baker spoke about how she felt I could see a bit of myself in her words. Where she talks about wondering about having something physically wrong in her head I remember myself always thinking that maybe I had a tumor or something in me that was bad and wanted to come out and I so desperately trying not to let it out. 'Like I've got a monster inside of me.'

This artist used her own personal experiences within her performances and showed her struggle with mental illness and the journey she went through everyday. Also when she speaks about wearing a mask around people, I personally think that is exactly how I am. A lot what she talks about within this interview I feel as though she is talking about me. The same with her drawing and how she says about hiding herself from others. Only recently have I like Bobby Baker been sharing a bit more of my thoughts and what I've been going through in a blog that I write on as much as I can.

http://fallenangelcrissydee.blogspot.com/



Bobby Baker spent 11 years battling mental illness, an experience she recorded in performances and hundreds of private drawings. She explains why at long last she's making this remarkable artistic autobiography public.

These are some of the drawings from bobby Baker.



Bibliography:

Bonney, J (2000) Extreme Exposure: An Anthology of Solo Performance Texts from the Twentieth Century. New York: Theater Communications Group.
British Council Literature (2011) 'Zena Edwards,' http://literature.britishcouncil.org/zena-edwards (accessed 22 February 2012)
Guardian (2010) 'Bobby Baker,' United Kingdom http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/video/2010/may/12/art-mental-illness(Accessed 26 February 2012).
Heddon, D. (2006) 'Beyond the Self: Autobiography as Dialogue.' Wallace, C. Monologues: Theater, Performance, Subjectivity. Prague: Litteria Pragensia
Margolin, D. 'The Official Website of Performance Artist Deb Margolin,' (accessed 26 February 2012) http://www.debmargolin.com/
Miller, T (2009) 'Harvey Milk section 'Spilt Milk' by Tim Miller from the Golden States, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKNgqJz8u0M (Accessed 26 February 2012).
Miller, T 'Tim Miller Queer Performance' http://timmillerperfomer.blogspot.com/ (Accessed 26 February 2012).
Sontag, S. (2009) Where the Stress Falls. Penguin Classics
Theater Mania (2012) 'Tim Miller to Teach Performance Workshop at Bryn Mawr Following Cancellation at Villanova' Philadelphia. http://www.theatermania.com/philadelphia/news/02-2012/tim-miller-to-teach-performance-workshop-at-bryn-m_51146.html(Accessed 26 February 2012)

Saturday, 18 February 2012

What is the relationship of solo performance to the cultural industries: challenging power, policy and capital? How does it relate to mass media and technological communication/audiences?

Week Four

February 15 2012

Lecture:

Today's lecture we looked at the different types of technologies that are used within performances.

What is MASS MEDIA?

. This is a type of technology that try's to bring people together.
. It is used to bring as many people as possible.
. It's a type of communication with technology.


Examples of Mass Media:

There are several main mass media mediums:

1)Books
2)Radio
3)Television
4)Internet
5)Phones
6)Newspapers
7)Journals

All the above can be classified under the terms of printed, recorded, radio, film, TV, internet and mobile.

The internet is the most interactive medium. You can interact on the internet straight away and it is the easiest accessible form of media. People all over the world can interact with one another from different places. Social Networks such as Twitter and Facebook enable people to post what is going on where they are. On the internet a person is able to find what is going on in another country by looking for breaking news stories and researching different things. The internet is the most commonly used and also tends to include all other mass media. It is the cheapest and sometimes free way to access information from around the world.

Theater, Performance and ....internet:

Some examples of mass media through media:

. Intermedial Performance (Albersmeir and Roloff, 1989)
. Virtual Theater (Lanier)
. Cyberdrama (Murray, 1997)
. Telematic Performance (Salz, 2004)
. Cyber Theater (Chatzichristodoulou, 2006)
. Cyber-performance (Causey, 2006)
. Digital Performance (Dixon, 2007)
. Hyperformance (Unterman, 2007)
. Cyberformance (Jamieson, 2008)
. Online Theater
. Networked Performance

Cyberformance: is a live performance that utilizes internet technologies to bring remote performance together in real time, for remote and/or proximal audience.

Jameson, 2008

Examples of performances that use cyberformance:


















Solo Performance: Where only one person is involved, the internet is used to connect to the single performer, rather than to connect distributed performers.

Jameson, 2008


In solo performance the audience become the most important element.

Helen Varley Jameson (2008: Le Salon panoplie.org

http://www.creative-catalyst.com/gesture/index.html

Helen Jameson's performance is broadcast live and while the performance is going to she chats to the audience using a chat box that is shown on the side of the performance video.

. The chat box next to the performance takes the performance to another level.
. It allows the audience to comment on the performance in a way that can help the performer get feedback and be able to change the performance accordingly.

How can a solo performer use the internet for their performance?

. It allows the audience to watch your performance live by using the U-Stream.
. If you want to include a music video within your performance you can have it playing in the background from YouTube.
. You can use the internet to break people's expectations.
. Use the internet as research for you performance.
. Advertise your performance and also to get feedback for ideas you may have.
. Using a blog is also a part of reflecting and writing down ideas of performance.

Up-Stage (cyber-stage) are different things that performers can use.

Cyberian Chalk Circle: Documentation:

This is a performance using the medium of cyberperfomance:

' Live performance that involved interactions with the audience. Included performer, technical.

http://upstage4.cyberformance.net/stages/etheatre

Sit comfortable in your desk chair, your sofa, your bed or even your local café and follow our game while you are updating your TWITTER, chatting on your SKYPE, spying your friends on FACEBOOK, or just searching something on GOOGLE…

Performer: Evi Stamatiou
Director: Christina Papagiannouli

05:00 pm 14/May/2011 (UK local time).

http://upstage.org.nz/blog/

Life streaming performance by Dries Verhoeven (Leaf Festival - 2010)

Leaf is a non-profit organization, connecting cultures and creating community through music and art.

http://www.theleaf.com/index.php/thefestival


A performance was put on miles away using the internet and video cameras while the audience could watch the performance going on from another location.

Social network sites such as Twitter can also be used to show a performance. Take for example the the Royal Shakespeare company got actors to form twitter accounts in which they were the characters from 'Romeo and Juliet.' Within this performance people can follow each character and are continually updated with tweets from the characters speaking to one another. This is a modern version of the play because even though they stay true to the script they are using their own words to interact in this performance.




http://water-wheel.net/(This is a digital platform that for commenting on the technology of performance.)

To use this platform for performance, one of the conditions is for the performer to included water metaphorically within their piece.

How Cyberformance is adjusted within last weeks readings?

. Laurie Anderson uses projectors and a lot of technologies that make her piece dynamic.
. Like in the websites/platforms for performance, you can get the computer to produce a voice for you, similar to Laurie Anderson who uses the computer to distort her voice.
. Philip Auslander speaks about live work and the use of media: 'The blending of real and fabricated personae and situations that occurs when performance personae assume the same functions as 'real' people in the media has the same disorienting effect as the flowing together of various levels and types of meaning on television, but on a larger scale.' (1989, 129).

Creative Writing Exercise:


Within in this exercise, similar to the free-writing exercise I did a few weeks ago I had to write down my thoughts. However, this time I was given a phrase that I had to start my story off with. 'I am writing to say...'

This is what I came up with:

I am writing to say...it is weird how things work out. There are many definitions and conclusions that one person that come across. Is it because of the way we were brought up? Or maybe that things we see! Could it be a combination of what other people tell you and your own thoughts? Maybe it is the way people want you to think. Things don't have to be complicated. They can be easy if we want them to be, we need to find the line between the two. Consider possibilities that you have never thought of before. Maybe you are scared! It is okay to be scared. Many people are, but it is not scaredness you should use as an excuse to hold you back. It is up to you to be all you can be. It is up to you to decided what it is you want to be and it is up to you to fight for it. To be something that nobody else thought you'd be.

Next we had to write again but this time to use a different mode of writing such as a laptop, phone to see how it feels writing on it.

This is what I wrote on my phone:

I am writing to say...that maybe I don't know who I am or where I am in this life, but I do know one thing, and that is I am a Fighter and I don't give up easily. No matter how long it will take for me to find the person I am mean't to be or which paths it may lead me,I know that I will get there. But I would like to get there with you, I would like to know that when I excel and succeed you will be there by my side to share in the success and happiness I found and I hope that will allow you to want to do the same. To not give up, to know that there are better things out there for all of us and you can also find who you truly are. Together we can be amazing, together we will be fearless and mostly we will be together.

What I found was that my writing changed completely. When I was writing on paper I felt that it was more personal and so was able to share a lot more of my thoughts. Once I started typing on my keypad it felt as though I was writing for someone else. It was still a bit personal because at times when I need to write down what I am thinking and I didn't have a paper close by I would write on my phone.

Next we had to choose one of the two stories above and rewrite it as a Facebook Post: What's on your mind?

Re-write it for Twitter: What's happening? 140 characters.

What I realized is that the questions are different and it is also a way that might influence the way you write down your status. It also shows that any random news that one person posts another person will comment.

We can use this as a way of finding ideas for our solo performances,
It is also a way of advertising.
You can also create a character (as in the Romeo and Juliet production).

Afternoon Workshop:

To start of the class we spoke about the need for warm-up's.
Did some stretching,
Some breathing exercises,
Articulation exercises,
Relaxation,
Focus.

All these help a performer prepare for their performance both physically, vocally and also allows them to stay calm and focused.

Improvisational Exercise:

Finding stories with/through our bodies:

Learning to trust yourself and your stories:

For this exercise we had to find a place in the room that we felt comfortable and then relax and find a repeatable movement that we can continue doing. Once we had found our movement we had to repeat out loud or in a whisper, 'I remember...' for as long as we could until we had a thought in our head and then we had to speak what we were thinking instead of keeping it in our head.

After that we had to go back and write down what we spoke or thought about.

I personally found it hard to concentrate and spent most of the time repeating the 'I remember...' I also think that the reason I had a problem with finding something to think about because it felt forced. The harder I tried to relax and think of something the harder it seemed to be and my mind just kept going blank. I personally find it easier to imagine things than speak them out and I think that had a part to play in the way I tried to do the exercise.

Next we had to choose one memory from the previous exercise and try to remember as much about that memory as we could such as smell, place, feeling and clothes we might have been wearing at that time. Then we had to go back and write down what we experienced in a way editing the story from before.

I managed to start remembering a bit of something but it was really distant. Some of the things I saw was in black and white, like when you see an old picture from the past.

Using the memory we had and the repeated movement we had to create a one minute solo piece.

A lot of people's performances were surprising because you could feel the emotion that they went through when telling the story.

Notes for preparing a solo performance:

. Once you figure out what you want to do start doing research on it.
. Start staging your performance.
. Start practicing your piece by trying out ideas.
. Record yourself doing your piece and upload it onto facebook, twitter, youtube to get feedback and more ides.


Reading one:

Hall, E. (1988) Silent Language. Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group


The difference between the types of learning is observing what others do compared to being taught how to do something by another person and corrected if done wrongly.
I think my solo piece falls int eh category of 'Formal Awareness,' because my piece is focused around the search of happiness and where I lost sight of it.  It revolves heavily around my past experiences that has influenced my life at the moment therefore me question if those past influences are what has shaped what I am and who I have become.  
Technical awareness is a combination of formal awareness and informal awareness and also categorized as a fully conscious behavior.  The things that differentiates between the other two is that technical awareness can be written down and recorded or even taught at a distance.
People have different perceptions of things therefore they may never agree on a given pattern because to them it falls in a certain category or means something different compared to the next person.
Congruence is like a search for something that has a certain meaning to a certain person.



Formal patterns are almost always learned when a mistake is made and someone corrects it.  Technical learning also begins with mistakes and corrections, but it is done with a different tone of voice and the student is offered reasons for the correction. (67)
Informal learning is an entirely different character from either the technical or the formal.  The principal agent is model used for imitation.  (68)
Technical learning, in its pure form, is usually transmitted in explicit terms from the teacher to the student, either orally or in writing. (69)
The formal is a two-way process.  Formal learning tends to be suffused with emotion.  Informal learning is largely a matter of the learner picking others as models.  Technical learning rests with the teachers skills which is a function of his or her knowledge and analytic ability.  (70)
Formal Awareness is an approach to life that asks with surprise, 'Is there any other way?'  Formally aware people are more likely to be influenced by the past then they are by the present or future.  The term informal awareness is paradoxical because it describes a situation in which much of what goes on exists almost entirely out-of-awareness.  (71)
The informal is made up of mannerisms or activities which we once leaned but which are so much a part of our everyday life that they are done automatically.  (72)
Deep emotions are associated with the formal in almost every instance.  (73)
In time, as informal systems become firmer they become so identified with the process of nature itself that alternative ways of behavior are thought as unnatural - if  not impossible.  There is little or no affect attached to informal behavior as long as things are going along nicely according to the unwritten or unstated rules.  (74)
The technical is characterized by a suppression of feelings, since they tend to interfere with effective functioning.  (75)
The formal provides a broad pattern within whose outlines the individual actors can fill in the details for themselves.  (79-80)
Technical changes are small changes which have to do with the details of an operation.  (84)
Patterns are those implicit cultural rules by means of which sets are arranged so that they take on meaning.  Culture is neither derived from experience nor held up to the mirror of experience.  (116)
A given pattern is obvious to certain categories of people.  (121)
The counters on the mobility scale are numerous and so finely grained that while the average person can manipulate the system he/she cannot describe how it works technically.  (122)
One cannot underestimate the importance of such patterns and the hold they have on people at all levels.  (125)
The can-may distinction illustrates one of the many different types of informal patterns that exist in our language.  Another type is associated with the use of what is technically known as the superfix first identified by Trager.  (127)
Words that mean the same thing whether you read them forward or backwards are pleasant aberration from the rule of verbal order, as are words which have a real meaning when read backwards.  Order is used differently in different cultures.  (128-129)
Selections controls the combination of sets which can be used together.  For every pattern there are certain points at which selection applies, just as there are other points at which order is brought into play.  What enables us to differentiate between patterns is that they do not use selection and order in the same way.  (130)
Selection plays a prominent part in the patterns of social relations around the world in dress, sex, and in work and play - in fact, all of the basic primary message systems.  Unlike order and selection, which have to do with patterning of sets, the law of congruence can be expressed as a pattern of patterns.  (131)    
Complete congruence is rare.  One might say that it exists when a individual makes full use of all the potentials of a pattern.  Language, it so happens, works in such a way that any adjectival can have comparative superlative degrees.  In order to obtain complete congruity, however, the word unique can be used in certain situations.  (132)
Pattern congruity or style in writing is a function of knowing  what can and cannot be achieved within the limits of the pattern.  (133)
Artists do not lead cultures or create patterns, they hold up a mirror for society to see things it might not otherwise see.  The 'rule' of congruence, or style in the broadest sense, pervades not only the world of art but all kinds of communication.  (135)
Two of the most promising leads are in the study of patterns of the informal type and in developing our knowledge of congruence and how it functions.  (136)      


Reading Two:

Brook, P. Empty Space

I think what this reading is saying is that an actor has to start from within themselves and be able to allow themselves to be vulnerable and strong at the same time. To find in themselves the need to share themselves with their audiences. They don't need much but themselves, the actors body is their instrument and with that they can make a performance from themselves.
In theater, you have the ability to make something that is 'invisible' like you thoughts and ideas or fantasies become 'visible' by being able to bring life to them on stage, in your performance.
By using theater, we are able to give something of ourselves to the audience.
We share elements of our lives that can only be seen in other's but in sharing we are making our own thoughts become reality.
As an actor one has to learn to open themselves to the audience, to share their secrets.
Theater is a means to explore oneself, to study ones own thoughts and ideas, and be able to show those 'selves' to the audiences in a way that makes the actor vulnerable to his own self.
Theater calls for the actor to 'sacrifice' themselves as in be a messenger/laymen for others by displaying/showing commonality between him/herself and that of the audience. Performing things that are otherwise kept within restrictions of oneself.


The Notion that the stage is a place where the invisible can appear has a deep hold on our thoughts. (47)
The theater is the last forum where idealism is still an open question. (47)
We still wish to capture in our arts the invisible currents that rule our lives, but our own vision is now locked to the dark end of the spectrum. (48)
An actor making a gesture is creating both for himself. out of his deepest need, and for the other person. (57)
A gesture is statement, expression, communication and a private manifestation of loneliness - it is always what Artaud calls a signal through the flames - yet this implies a sharing of experience, once contact is made. (57)
Fantasy invented by the mind is apt to be lightweight, the whimsicality and the surrealism of much of the Absurd would no more have st= satisfied Artaud then the narrowness of the psychological play. (59)
Artuad maintained...only in the theater could we liberate ourselves from the recognizable forms in which we live our daily lives. This made the theater a holy place in which a f=greater reality could be found. (60)
Artaud always speaking of a complete way of life, of a theater in which the activity of the actor and the activity of the spectator were driven by the same desperate need. (60)
A Happening is a powerful invention, it destroys at one blow many deadly forms. It can be anywhere, any time, of any duration: nothing is required, nothing is taboo. It is spontaneous, it may be formal, anarchistic, it can generate intoxicating energy. (61)
All religions assert that the invisible is visible all the time. (63)
A holy theater not only presents the invisible but also offers conditions that make its perception possible. (63)
The theater is a vehicle, a means of self-study, self-exploration, a possibility of salvation. (66)
'Auto-penetration' by the role is related to exposure: the actor does not hesitate to show himself exactly as he is, for he realizes that the secret role demands his opening himself up, disclosing his own secrets. So that the act of performance is an act of sacrifice, of sacrificing what most men prefer to hide - this sacrifice is his gift to the spectator. (66-67)


Reading Three:

Aernout Mik:

This work relies on public knowledge, because Mik's work is not allows clear or has a starting or finishing point, the viewer has to rely on their own knowledge of the world or event s they have seen.
To understand Mik's work, the viewer has to make connections between outside to those inside the room in which the work is being presented.
Although his work is fiction, it appears to be documentaries.
Within Mik's work, he tends to not include narrative and hardly gives direction. This is because he wants his viewers to bring themselves to the performance and react in a natural way through their own knowledge and information.
He tends to film for long periods of time because he says that after at least half an hour people tend to forget that they are being watched and filmed and go back to acting natural instead of knowing that they need to act.

Aernout Mik is an artist who exemplifies the fluidity of bu= boundaries. (13)
Mik's audience is of a different persuasions: it is a group distinguished by movement. The crowd changes - enlarges and diminishes - by the moment. (15)
Mik operates in controlled happenstance both in his 'direction' of crowds on-screen and with his viewers. (15)
Mik's notion of film is expansive and suggests another way of appreciating cinema outside the theater. (16)
What does seem to be at work in Mik's creations is the recognition of collective memory. The artist operates with the assumption that the viewer carries with him information filtered through the mass media. (19)
The viewer brings his own personal experience and social memory into play, thus investing the images with the signification the artist withholds: what happens on-screen is not explicated but can begin to be understood, through what the viewer knows of recent history. (19)
Many contemporary artists refer to or even appropriate from the collective memory of popular movies; Mik does not. (19)
It is not the set that Mik decides how his cast will move and what incidents he will cause to transpire. (20)
His movies speak through the mind of the viewer as well as ambient sounds of fellow viewers. (21)

Aeronout Mik's work was exhibited at the MOMA as a series of discrete installations from May 6 to the 27 July 2009.

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/61

Below is a video in which Aernout Mik discusses his exhibition at the MOMA. In this video he speaks about how his work was set up in a way so that it mirrors movements of the crowds in the pieces with the movements of the crowds in the museum. Six screens were set up that show shots from parliament that was shot by six different cameras from six different angels. He says his piece relates to the democratic crisis in the Ukraine and how many of his pieces relates to different political and social events but do not show direct images of it but just snippets or shot flashes that bring in images that the viewers would recognize and cannot really place. His work has no sound.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmnIKihcBHw

This site shows images of some of Mik's installation works.

http://arttattler.com/archiveaernoutmik.html

Bibliography:

Aeronouot Mik
Auslander, P. (1989) 'Going with the flow: Performance Art and Mass Culture,' TDR 33.2, pp. 119-136
Brook, P. Empty Space
Hall, E. (1988) Silent Language. Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group
Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) (2009) 'Aernout Mik Exhibition,' New York http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/61 (accessed 20 February 2012
YouTube (2009) 'Aernout Mik discusses his exhibition at the MOMA,' (accessed 20 February 2012)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmnIKihcBHw

Thursday, 9 February 2012

How has solo performance been used to explore ontological/epistamological negotiations of borders/border crossings regarding cultural politics and identity?

Week Three

February 8 2012

Lecture:

The Program for the day:

1) Looking at the work of Guillermo Gomez-Pena and what he talks about regaurding border and border crossings.
2) Referring back to last weeks reading by J. Kuhnheim looking for 3 claims and 3 counter claims.
3) Scripting and how we can transform something from a script to a solo performance piece.

Driving Exercise:

In order to get us to focus and build some trust within the group we did a 'driving exercise.' In pairs, one person was the 'car' and the other the 'driver.' We were given a set of of instructions.

- To go forward, tap the person on the head,
- To go right, tap the person on their right shoulder,
- To go left, tap the person on their left shoulder,
- To go back, tap thee person on their back,
- To stop, don't tap the person at all.

As a group we had to 'drive' our cars without crashing into anyone else. The person who was the 'car' had to close their eyes and pay attention to the instructions they are given by the 'driver.' Then we had to switch places and the 'driver' becomes the 'car,' and the 'car' becomes the 'driver.'

Aims and observations from the exercise:

-This exercise showed that you had to have trust in the other person whether you were the 'driver' or the 'car.' This is because when you were the 'car,' you couldn't see where you were going therefore you had to reply on the 'driver' to instruct you and hope that you don't crash into anyone. If you were the 'driver' you had to take care of the other person who was the 'car' as well as the other 'drivers and cars' in the room. You had to trust that your instructions are clear and that the other person is able to follow them.
-You had to keep focus on what you were doing as well as what the other people were doing, it is almost like driving a real car.
-When I was the 'driver' I found it a bit hard because you don't want the other person to crash into anyone else and also knowing that they are putting their trust in you.
-I was more comfortable as the 'car' even though my eyes were closed because I trusted that the other person would guide me safely and I had to pay attention to their instructions.
-It was weird that even when your eyes are closed you feel as though you have a sense of where you are going but when you open your eyes you are a completely different spot than you thought you would be.
-Also out of instinct I could hear people around me and some were really close and at times I felt myself wanting to open my eyes and make sure I am not going to bump into anyone or just stop moving but I didn't because I had to get comfortable with trusting my partner.

After this exercise we went over some rules of how we can support each other when creating our pieces.

How do we support others?

1)Be good listeners: Also pay attention to other people when they are working and see if there
is anyway you can help them.
2)Give Time: Be willing to give time to someone if they ask you to have a look at their work or
if they ask for your feedback.
3)Do not judge/Be open-minded: Because most of the work is bound to be personal do not judge the
material of others.
4)Give critical feedback: When giving feedback make sure it is constructive so that it will
help the other person know what to improve or where to make things
clearer.
5)Help them become clear about they are creating by asking questions.
6)Be respectful of rehearsal times: Do not make noise when others are rehearsing.
7)Structured support: Offer them support in the work their are doing.
8)Being fully engaged with tasks at hand.

Transfer from paper to stage:

1)You need to be able to trust and share things that are personal.
2)Know that you got support.
3)Be aware of the rest of the group.
4)Trusting others to help us clear paths and give directions on where to go.
5)Patterns keep coming back to you: When doing your free-writing notice the things that you keep writing that are similar. This will help with determining what to use for your piece.

Reflection on Gomez-Pena's work and the reading:

Gomez-Pena works a lot with community organizations and art galleries.

2 Claims:

1)'A hybrid identity is also a slippery one; it allows a person to mutate, to slide between cultures, languages, and histories, assuming a marginal identity like the trickster, a complex emblem of cultural otherness.' (24)
2)'The narration historicizes the performances and demonstrates how Gomez-Pena's [End page 26] focus on border identity has been adapted to different models and moments.' (25)

2 Counter-Claims:

1) '...identity is perceptible only through a relation to an other - it is a form of both resisting and claiming the other, declaring the boundary where the self diverges from and merges with the other.' (Phelan 1993, 13)
2) '...performance is 'representation without reproduction'(11), reminding us that its duplication and distance from the 'live moment' makes it something else - a product that participates in a reproductive economy.' (25)

Other Notes from the reading:

- Gomez-Pena creates polarities between ethnicity and therefore polarizes the audiences. As a spectator you can only be either against him or for him.
- His performance breaks the fourth wall and therefore plants the seeds for thought.
- His work cannot be put into a genre and therefore appeals to a large range of people. How does it connect to things on the outside world?
- He victimizes himself against the American cultures, e.g. within his piece ' Returning to America after Black Tuesday,' he talks about being stopped at customs because of the way he looks. (Bonney 2000' 282).
- He illustrates the political within his work.
- Border identities is based on multiple identities.
- Does Gomez-Pena's work evoke multiple identities or is his work static? Peggy Phelan talks about it being very static compared to the work of Anna Deavere Smith's. Gomez-Pena does make his identities very polarized.
- Kuhnheim talks about a 'banking way of identity.' Different ways of finding identities by using examples of Anna Deavere Smith and Angelika Festa. She says,

I find alternative possibilities for undermining the authoritative structure of subject positions in performance such as that of Angelika Festa, who Phelan describes as upsetting the stable set of assumptions about the positions of the theatrical exchange in her refusal to participate in representational economy at all (163). Festa's performance portray disappearance itself. Anna Deavere Smith offers another alternative in her presentation of a variety of identitoes in Fires in the Mirror and Twilight, her theater pieces based on the Crowne Point and Los Angeles uprisings, respectively. Tania Modelski has called Smith's work 'an expression of Adornian non-identity in which the subject does not seek to identify or categorize the object, but to let it be in its difference.
(61)

Some video's on the work of Guillermo Gomez-Pena:

Gomez-Pena - 'Welcome to the Third World:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdEF3Sg-5w4

-He juxtaposes a lot of identities through costumes and symbols.

The Couple in the Cage - Clip - twin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLX2Lk2tdcw

- Exploring the indigenous and native in a cage.
- Turns around stereotypes and explores them.

La Pocha Nostra:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bULnwRBVBk

-Talks about fear of the other.
-Uses stereotypes and combines them in a way to show how silly they are. They also a way of him showing the way people look and perceive other people.
-Looks at imperialism

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9TSN-Mx9AE

Within our pieces we were told to think about how we can create humor within our work,or use subtle things that are based on politics!!!
Look at how text and image can relate to border identities.

How does the text under consideration perform its medley of identities via a word and image and what place does it allot its audience?
How does Gomez-Pena define border and border-crossings?

-He brings everything to the surface and makes you question your own stereotypes.
-It is an integration of costumes and the perception that people see in cultures.

Next we did an exercise that is called Ways in which we identify self: How others identify you:

We were given a blank piece of paper that we had to draw a hand print. Within the inside of the hand print we had to write words or phrases of how we see ourselves e.g such as sister, daughter, e.t.c and on the outside was words or phrases of how people see us (this is from maybe words or names we've heard others say about us). Then we went round the circle and each of us had to share one word or phrase from the inside and one from the outside.

When doing this exercise I found it hard to write down how I see myself besides the obvious like daughter, friend. The outside one I find a bit easier not because I know what people think of me but i guess in a way that I feel people see me. I think that doing this exercise was a challenge especially the way I see myself compared to the ways others see me because I personally think that the way I see myself is always from an outsiders point of view. This will probably be seen a lot within my free-writing and I am constantly saying about how I don't even know myself. A lot of the outsiders point of view as well has to do with the way I would like myself to be which is not necessarily the way I am.

Ideas for solo piece:

You can say that it might have to do with an 'alter-ego' me, the person I want to be but know I won't be because of my personality or just the way I am. Maybe this could be a platform for a solo piece, playing between the different versions of me.

I guess everyone has a part of themselves that they never show or a part that is completely opposite from their personality. A way that they want to be or wish they were. Me for example I am a shy person that is always self-conscious about the way I dress or talk and how people see me. So I am always trying to stay in the shadows. Were as when I picture myself in the future and how I want my life to be like I see myself as a very confident, well-spoken person that knows what they want and is not ashamed of getting it.


The picture above is a bit of how I see myself. In a way 'pretty' on the outside and 'ugly' inside. The mind is a very dangerous tool because how I see it there is so much that goes on inside the mind and nobody else can see it. However sometimes it is hard to show what goes on in your head. On the outside you show the you that everyone else sees and in a way you condition the way you do things to fit in with the others around you. Like take me for example, I have always been shy and it is the way people see me. And in my mind's eye I always see myself as someone who is not shy and who is willing to do anything to be happy. But sometimes are will is not strong enough.

Take someone who has a split-personality, they are more than one person. It is like their alter-ego is fighting against the super-ego and that's how you get someone that is completely different from one time to the next.

Research on Alter-Egos:

Human beings are not one-dimensional and sometimes we need another persona to express different facets of our personality. They also make terrific drama! Some are comic; some are terrifying. Some are misguided. There are things that only the alter ego could get away with. In some cases it is hard to distinguish which character is really the alter ego. In no order, we present the top 10 most famous alter egos. http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-alter-egos.php

Similar to the solo artist Andy Kaufman (who I will look at in more detail below) can fall into this category of having an alter-ego.

Andy Kaufman was no ordinary comedian and he always divided audiences. His brand of surrealism and performance art was hilarious to some and bewildering to others. Audiences never knew what to expect. Kaufman took the idea of an alter ego to a new extreme, blurring reality and fiction.

Shared Stories:

We did this exercise in which we had to listen to someone else's stories and try to get every detail we possibly can, then we had to write out the story we were told but in the first person as if it was our own story. Next we had to ask the person whose story we were taking questions to clarify things that we thin we need to know, then we had to re-write the story again using the first person including the answers we got from the questions we asked. Next we were given 'artistic liberty' to change the story but also try to stay true to it. To do this we had to remember the story but write in a way that adds action, humor and the way we see if happening. This is similar to how other solo artists did their work such as Anna Deavere Smith and Rhodessa Jones because they too heard other people's stories and then re-told those stories as though it were their stories. But they did it in a way that they imitated the way the story was told to them using things they picked up from the story-teller such as the way they spoke, the rhythm of their speaking, were they took breaks within speaking. So in that same way we had to re-tell the story we were told to us as though the person who we got the story from was the one telling the story.

Similar to playback theater where a person told their story and it was acted out with emphasis on certain parts of the story or places that the actors felt was the main points of the story. This also makes the story teller see their life from another person's view point.

Afternoon Workshop:

Creative Exercise: Embodied Practices of Identity:

In my afternoon workshop we started off by getting warmed-up. To do this we were taught a routine that looks like a dance and we had to do it unison. We did this a few times and then were split into groups. From the morning lesson where we had drawn our hand and written words, we had to bring that with us. From that list we had to find two contrasting words or phrases, one from the outside of the hand and one from the inside. Then we were told to think of a movement or gesture that went with each word or phrase. Once we had those gestures or movements we had to pair up with another person and show them our movements/gestures and at the same time learn their movements/gestures.

To do this we had to pay attention to little details in the way they walk or hold themselves. Both look at masculinity and femininity because depending on what sex you are you stand or walk a certain way. For example women tend to swing their hips when they walk whereas men don't.

Another thing we had to consider was how we can make smooth transitions from one movement to the next using both our own movements and that of the ones we learn't from the other person. Once we were familiar with those we were paired of with another pair. Therefor we had our own movements plus three others movements we had to learn.

This was a test of focus and also of memory because we had to remember exactly what each person did and how they did it. This was an embodied exercise and id helpful within our development of our solo pieces because when I look back at the the other solo practitioners we learn't about so far a lot of them took on other people's mannerism's and gestures in order to be true to the story their were telling and putting themselves within that person's shoes.

Last task we were given was to take artist liberty with all four movements/gestures and make a piece that was fluid and had good transitions from one to the next. This is a carry on from this mornings writing exercise except this time instead of using words we were just using our bodies to tell a story. So we took what we thought worked and dropped what we didn't.

Then back as a group we went round and each of us did our little piece. In the end you could see a kind of repetition of certain movements/gestures and there were very subtle differences between each. Some you could see were more exaggerated than others, some less obvious and others you could see the difference between the sexes.


Reading One:

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

Media plays a huge role in television recordings of performances because the performers can use technological to distort their voices and persona's to make it seem as though they are two different people.
Even on stage, performers such as Laurie Anderson are able to distort their voices enabling her to play a character of a man
The Mass media culture has become the new phenomenon in theater and film because it provides many ways for a performance to be watched regardless of what area or place in the world you are. This way audiences are able to still watch live performances through streaming videos at the same time it is being played where the performer is.
Mass media also enables performances to be documented for future reference.

Douglas Crimp has in fact argued that performance has become the informing epistemology of much contemporary visual art. (1984)
Lie performance, these performative modes of recent visual art are merging with the mass cultural and entertainment. (120)
Eric Bogosian and Spalding Grey have had cable specials, as has Ann Magnuson, whose performances derived from television initially. All three also have fledgling careers as film actors because of the notoriety they have gained as performance artists. (120)
As Goldberg, has suggested, neither the distinction between the expedient work and the real work nor the need to justify the former in terms of the latter exists for the current generation of performance artists(1984).
The present relationship between art performance and mass culture is one of mutual support - each 'feeds' the other. (120)
Whether performance remains marginal or gains mass exposure seems to have little to do with the nature or content of a particular artist's work. (122)
The relative success of performance in the mass media attests to the ability of a mass-mediated culture to convert almost anything into 'entertainment.' (122)
Goldberg's conflation of the 'real world' with the television industry thus gives a very clear picture of the culture that performance art now engages, a culture in which the economy of mass communication has a decisive impact on artistic production, and which the distinction between 'high' or even 'vanguard' art and 'mass culture' is no longer clear, from either the producers' or the consumers' point of view. (122)
Mass culture itself has emerged as a site of possible resistance to the mainstream. (123)
Richard Schechner has codified that impact in a way that accords with William's and Polan's observations: 'A world that has securely positional is becoming dazzlingly relational.' (1985: 322)
Consider the following description of a performance:
Each individual bit [...] may have a certain sense, a certain message [...], but the whole effect of the show comes from the incongruous confrontation of each bit with the other, the ongoing flow that forces each scene to give way to the next. (126)
A recorded performance has become the referent of the live one (128).
The blending of real and fabricated personae and situations that occurs when performance personae assume the same functions as 'real' people in the media has much the same disorienting effect as the flowing together of various levels and types of meanings on television, but on a larger scale. (129)
Mass media is no more necessarily repressive than vanguard culture is necessarily liberating. (130)
The mass media create collectives in the form of audiences, but the relation to each of these collectives to each other is a relation of absence rather than presence, despite their common participation in the collective. (130)


Reading Two:

Andy Kaufman(2000) ‘Extreme Exposure: An Anthology of Solo Performance Texts from the Twentieth Century, ed. Jo Bonney, New York: Theatre Communications Group. pp 65-71.

Andy Kaufman's characters are hard to define from the real Andy Kaufman. They seem to blend into one and leaves the audiences wondering if he is constantly playing a character or he is being himself. He never considered him a comedian because he felt that being introduced as a comedian it put pressure on the audience to laugh.

From the reading you can see how he opens shows using his alter-ego Tony Clifton who is a character that insults the audience and swears a lot. The Clip below shows Andy Kaufman doing his impersonations of Archie Bunker, Ed Sullivan and Elvis Presley. From what I have seen from the clip he doesn't do his impersonation of Archie Bunker and Ed Sullivan really well as you both characters sound the same. He may of done this intentionally in order to show that he is not those people but trying to be them and also to show that they are made up characters. Were as his impersonation of Elvis Presley is quite remarkable of how he is able to transform himself into the persona of this character. As we all know Elvis Presley is a real person and therefore he must have studied his gestures and the way he speaks to such a degree that he is able to make this character come to life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r59AWfhwpPg&feature=fvst

In this next clip Andy Kaufman is speaking about 'Tony Clifton' and how he came about playing this character of him. From what I get from this interview is that Andy Kaufman says that 'Tony Clifton' is a real person and not a character or alter-ego that he made up but that one of his characters is based on the 'real Tony Clifton' that he had met briefly a while ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhrXrjb3RWg

Andy Kaufman Homepage: This page allows you to explore more of Kaufman's work with one link taking you through his life's journey from the time he was born right up to the time of his death.

http://andykaufman.jvlnet.com/toc.htm

Andy Kaufman was no ordinary comedian and he always divided audiences. His brand of surrealism and performance art was hilarious to some and bewildering to others. Audiences never knew what to expect. Sometimes, he would read a book to them or he might launch into a near perfect Elvis impersonation. He took the idea of a cheesy lounge singer and turned it on its head with Tony Clifton. Tony would swear, abuse the audience and forget the lyrics. He was boorish and impossible to like. It was so convincing that many people thought that he was a real person. One of Kaufman’s other alter egos was Foreign Man, which evolved into Latka Gravas, as seen on the Taxi sitcom. One of Kaufman’s demands when he was cast in Taxi was that Tony be given a guest spot on the show, as if Tony was, indeed an actual person. Tony had a tantrum on set and was fired! Kaufman took the idea of an alter ego to a new extreme, blurring reality and fiction.

Read more: http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-alter-egos.php#ixzz1m5mhOTet

Andy Kaufman as character 'Tony Clifton and as Andy Kaufan impersonating Elvis Preseley.




Reading Three:

Laurie Anderson(2000) ‘Extreme Exposure: An Anthology of Solo Performance Texts from the Twentieth Century, ed. Jo Bonney, New York: Theatre Communications Group. pp. 82-91.

[Laurie Anderson's] stories,...at first were mostly autobiographical, are personal ruminations of themes of politics, love, religion, the natural sciences. They serve a range of different functions in her performances: some stories are connective tissue (between songs), some are joints and some of her favorites are short (fifteen lines) 'with questions in them,' (Bonney 2000, 83)

Laurie Anderson's 'O Superman' As displayed at the MOMA New York:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VIqA3i2zQw

'O Superman (For Massenet)" is a 1981 song by experimental performance artist and musician Laurie Anderson. Part of the larger work United States, "O Superman," a half-sung, half-spoken, almost minimalist piece unexpectedly rose to #2 on the UK Singles Charts in 1981[2]. Prior to the success of this song, Anderson was little known outside the art world." (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VIqA3i2zQw

In this performance Laurie Anderson uses a spot light on the wall in which shows the shadow of her hand moving in a 'waving' motion, she also plays with voice enhancement, making her voice robot like. What I get from this performance is that looks like comes from Anderson's personal experience. Anderson being a woman doing this piece entitled 'O Superman,' I think refers to woman who are strong and take on a lot e.g, motherhood, wife, e.t.c and they do it with so much grace and don't get recognized for it.
http://laurieanderson.com/home.shtml




Reading Four:

Lenny Bruce (2000) ‘Extreme Exposure: An Anthology of Solo Performance Texts from the Twentieth Century, ed. Jo Bonney, New York: Theatre Communications Group. pp. 42-54

Before Lenny Bruce was well known enough to be busted in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and other cities, he worked in West Coast clubs featuring strippers. (Bonney 2000, 42).
Although he had scenarios that he repeated he used to change them depending on his audience and how he felt the time he was performing. His reputation was based on his serious, nearly obsessive, concern with the lies that are endemic to our political and personal cultures. Although he was destroyedd by the rampant censors of his time, he fundamentally changed the anture of comedy. (Bonney 2000, 42-43). Like Andy Kaufman he didn't like being refereed to as a comedian and always asked 'Do comedians get arrested? All the time.

From what I understand from his reading is that he focus' on religion basically Jewish who he classifies as the richest in society. He makes not that if a person lives in a big city regardless of their religion he considers them Jewish because according to him living in a big city and anything that seems 'posh' (for lack of a better word) is Jewish.

Lenny Bruce's Official Site:

http://www.lennybruceofficial.com/



Bibliography:

Andy Kaufman 'The Andy Kaufman Homepage,' http://andykaufman.jvlnet.com/core.htm (Accessed 11 February 2012)
Auslander, P. (1989) 'Going with the Flow: Performance Art and Mass Culture,' TDR 33:2.
Bonney, J. (2000) Extreme Exposure: An Anthology of Solo Performance Texts from the Twentieth Century. New York: Theater Communications Group.
Crimp, D. (1984) 'Pictures' In art After Modernism: Rethinking, Representation, edited by Brian Wallis, Boston: David R. Godine, pp. 175.188
Goldberg, RoseLee (1984) 'Performance: The Golden Years.; In the Art of Performance: A Critical Anthology, edited by Gregory Battcock and Robert Nickas, New York: Dutton, pp.71-94.
Kuhnheim, J. (1998) 'The Economy of Performance: Gomez-Pena's New World Border - Modern Fiction Studies,' Modern Fiction Studies 44.1, pp. 24-35
Laurie Anderson (2007) 'Laurie Anderson Official Website,' http://laurieanderson.com/home.shtml (Accessed 11 February 2012).
Lenny Bruce 'The Official Lenny Bruce Site,' http://www.lennybruceofficial.com/ (Accessed 11 February 2012)
Phelan, P. (1993) Unmarked: The Politics of Performance, New York: Routledge.
Schechner, R. (1985) 'News, Sex and Performance Theory.; In Between Theater and Anthropology, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 295-324.
TopTenz.net (2012)'Top 10 Alter-egos,' TopTenz.net: Life on a short List, http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-alter-egos.php (Accessed 11 February 2012)
Youtube (2011) 'Andy Kaufman's first appearance on the 'Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r59AWfhwpPg&feature=fvst (Accessed 11 February 2012)
Youtube (2009) 'Andy talks Tony Clifton with Merv Griffin,' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhrXrjb3RWg (Accessed 11 February 2012)
Youtube (2012) 'O Superman: Laurie Anderson: As displayed in the MOMA, New York,' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VIqA3i2zQw (Accessed 11 February 2012).