The place of performance in performance studies

ABSTRACT

This essay calls attention to the value of conspicuous aesthetic performance in performance studies. It provides a review of past and current practice and offers suggestions for increasing both the practice of performance and publications about that practice. Further, it recognizes the labor of those devoted to conspicuous aesthetic performance. Ultimately, it argues for the centrality of conspicuous aesthetic performance in performance studies and works to galvanize a continued commitment, among those in performance studies, to performance practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Conspicuous aesthetic performance
• oral interpretation
• performance studies
• performance history
• praxis

Acknowledgement

Tracy would like to thank Jay Allison for providing valuable feedback to an earlier draft of this essay.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 For excellent examples, see Allison, Louis, Suchy (Dangerous), and Trudeau and Vaughn.

2 The history of NCA performance studies and the value of conspicuous aesthetic performance have been priorities in my research agenda for over a decade. As such, several of my essays, while not exact in purpose or style, cover similar ground. I have tried to note that throughout.

3 TPQ published a special issue, edited by Heather Carver and Bryant Alexander, devoted to revisiting the Dangerous Shores metaphor.

4 Contemporaneous with “The Dangerous Shores,” Keith Brooks published “Oral Interpretation in American Universities.” A national survey of oral interpretation curriculums, it covered the years from 1946–1957, and included information on enrollments, class size, course offerings, etc. Brooks determined that enrollment increased almost 50% during the survey period, and an estimated 60% by 1960. Oral Interpretation thrived at mid-century. The survey showed 230 schools offering 533 courses in oral interpretation. Most interestingly, the diversity in course content had lessened over time. That is, more courses in 1960 looked alike than in 1926. The survey confirms the impact of performance as literary study on this period.

5 The NCA Performance Studies Division established the NRB to provide peer evaluation of creative research for use by scholars as part of their promotion and tenure dossiers. I am the current editor of this body. For more information, please visit: https://ncaperformancestudies.wordpress.com/national-review-board/.

6 As early as 1983, John Gentile argued for the name change in his NCA paper entitled, “The New Interpretation: From ‘Interpretation' to ‘Performance Studies,'” alluding to S. H. Clark's paper delivered at the National Association of Elocutionists “The New Elocution.”

7 Dwight Conquergood is the best-known proponent of performance studies’ diversity. See “Of Caravans and Carnivals: Performance Studies in Motion.”

8 Fenske’s “Interdisciplinary Terrains of Performance Studies” reviewed three edited collections, each trying to make sense of Performance Studies in this period: Philip Auslander’s Performance: Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural Studies (2003), Judith Hamera’s Opening Acts: Performance in/as Communication and Cultural Studies (2006) and D. Soyini Madison and Judith Hamera’s The Sage Handbook of Performance Studies (2006).

9 “Refreshment” was performed at the Annual Performance Studies Benefit for the Southern Illinois Regional Effort for AIDS (SIREA), 1995; the Second Annual Performance Studies Conference, Northwestern University, 1996; the Central States Communication Association annual convention, 1996; and SUSHI Performance Space in San Diego, 1996. The “Refreshment” script was subsequently reprinted in Performance Studies: The Interpretation of Aesthetic Texts, 2nd edition along with a DVD of the performance.

10 See, for example, The Future of Performance Studies: Visions and Revisions. Ed. Sheron J. Dailey. Annandale, VA: The National Communication Association, 1998: 199–300.

11 A good example of hybridized performance is autoethnography, which takes aspects from personal narrative and performance ethnography.

12 Of course, Alexander’s publication of this assignment also serves the visibility and usefulness of conspicuous aesthetic performance. For several excellent examples of performance assignments, see Stucky and Wimmer’s Teaching Performance Studies. In addition, Liminalities also contains a recurring series entitled Performance & Pedagogy.

13 Information about Mosaic can be found at http://www.uni.edu/commstudies/save-forum. The Mickee Faust Club www.mickeefaust.com, the subversive theatre troupe created by Donna Marie Nudd and Terry Galloway, is another noteworthy example. The troupe consists of community members.

14 The Petit Jean Performance Festival, founded by Sally Roden at the University of Central Arkansas and currently organized and hosted by performance studies faculty at the University of North Texas, is the longest-running performance festival in the nation. The Patti Pace Performance Festival, which is named after a practitioner, provides yet another model of a performance gathering. It differs from the Petit Jean festival in that it is organized by Melanie Kitchens O’Meara, and managed cooperatively by multiple universities and migrates annually among the campuses.

15 Dustin Goltz's 2017 Comic Performativities: Identity, Internet Outrage, and the Aesthetics of Communication is another excellent example of theorizing conspicuous aesthetic performance from a practitioner's perspective.