10 Points

jonathancoker

    Jonathan Coker

    Below find 10 points that I found noteworthy that have been developed throughout our readings thus far:

    1. Power Relations
      1. Foucault calls a society that does not have power relations merely an abstraction. This obscuring of relationships between a dominant ideological force and its subjects is present in performative acts. 
      2. Performance functions “within systems of subjugating power in which body is just another product” (Taylor 96), using the body as an interruption to the status quo. This highlights Balibar’s point in calling speech a power relation. 
    2. Transformation
      1. Performance is a means to transmit knowledge  by means of the body, thus constructing an epistemology that does not rely on writing, but still operates as a vital act of transfer; transmitting social knowledge, memory, and a sense of identity (Taylor 25, 37).
      2. If politics signals a change within change, than performance is innately political (Balibar 12).
      3. Witnesses serve as a catalyst to this kind of political transformation. Theatre encourages feelings to develop within witnesses in order to transform the field itself (Brecht 190). 
      4. In light of this, theatre is here to present “a vision of the world in transformation and therefore is inevitably political insofar as it shows the means of carrying out that transformation or delaying it” (Boal). 
    3. Identifications
      1. Brecht did not want an audience to necessarily identify with his characters, for they were merely representations. This correlates with Balibar’s hope for performances to speak to identifications rather than identities (27).
      2. Balibar also claims every identity to be ambiguous, thus open to leagues of different interpretations. Because performance can be in this way world-making, merely seeing or witnessing can be a form of knowing or digesting information or potentialities in the ephemeral.
    4. Mimesis
      1. Taylor argues that performance is about the past, present, and future (10). It approaches historical context as experimentation; it is a fragmented testing ground for what was, what is, and what can be. 
      2. Boal contends that art is a copy of created things, thus an imitation of nature.
    5. Real vs Unreal
      1. Mimises opens up the question of the importance  of make believe vs make belief
      2. Theatre is classically a place to theorize, or to interpret one’s surroundings in order to draw conclusions. Here, the reenacted can become “real”. However, Taylor contends that performance does not suggest actions are “real,”  instead it gives a voice to what is nameless or invisible by design, further blurring the lines between the real and the unreal (24).
      3. That  being said, Brecht further argues that theatre must be geared into the reality if it wants to effectively represent the reality it seeks to critique. 
    6. Spect-actors
      1. There are many types of voyeurism in the process of performance, but what has been discussed throughout our readings is the relationship between action and spectator (or, spect-actors). Performance challenges the limits of artists and viewers, and in this way is social and relational (Taylor  73). 
      2. Doing nothing (as a spectator is noted to do when in an audience) is a form of doing something. Thus, we can never break outside of theatre as spectacle. The goal is to answer “what am I responsible for?” within this scenario.
      3. In light of this, Brecht defines the one important point for spectators is “that they should be able to swap a contradictory world for a consistent one.”
    7. Anti-Normative
      1. “Breaking norms is the norm of performance” (Taylor)
      2. Performance is unstable and irrational
      3. There is something potent in a definition that requires the breaking of rules and preconceived notions. I feel like this implies a notion of perpetual unrest, aggravating temporality, and encouraging critical thought.
    8. Affectation 
      1. Usually the affective is labelled as adversarial because it does not necessarily operate in the realm of rationality, which is championed within society. However, performance is not judged on rationality’s terms; the affective  is the effective (Taylor 92). 
      2. This speaks to the alienation effect mentioned by Brecht. By alienating the familiar, the public is in turned amazed, or enlivened, stirred by complexities regardless of their truth.
    9. Passion into Pleasure
      1. Brecht asks us to treat theatre as a form of entertainment and we should attempt to discover when it is relevant to our emotions (180).
      2. Brecht also calls pleasure the most noble function for theatre; “nothing needs less justification than pleasure”.
      3. Theatre then strives to show us the feelings that are possible within the realm of humanity (Brecht 198).
      4. Boal calls Happiness the supreme good of man. Thus, one’s desire to be happy, to be entertained, to find pleasure, cannot be undervalued in performance.
      5. Faculties given to us by nature, once enacted, become passions, which are more likely than not reiterated to become  habitual.
      6. “Pleasure comes from solving the challenges of our times”
    10.  Empathy
      1. Brecht names empathy as a method of observation
      2. Because theatres were once observed as places of healing, this innately empathetic quality is fueled not by identification, but by emotional engagement.
      3. Empathy is to understand what is happening with another creature. It is used to survive. 
      4. Catharsis as a means to correct and purify what nature has given us and what we may have manipulated (Boal).