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).
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