An exploration of the aesthetics of an oral history performance developed in the classroom

Abstract

This paper aims to explore a range of aesthetic aspects involved in the devising and production processes of oral history performance in a classroom setting. It touches upon the ethical dimension of aesthetics employing the Confucianist Wang Yang Ming's aesthetic philosophy and Buber's theories of relation as the theoretical frames. The devising process realises the concept of aestheticisation of ethics by fulfilling the ‘I–You’ relations through the constructed dialogues formulated by the teacher-facilitator. The paper is divided into six parts to illustrate the whole aesthetic system – from aesthetic framework to reception. I apply Ricoeur's narrative theory to analyse the cycle of re-interpretation and reception process of the personal narratives. Deleuze's theories in ‘Signs and Memory’ have been employed to decipher how the signs of art have been distilled from personal memories. Bachelard's poetics of space and Lefebvre's theories of the subversive power of space have been employed to demonstrate the possibility of the presentation and subversion of body and space through performance. In conclusion, I apply Shusterman's pragmatist aesthetics to argue that oral history performances put ethics into action by re-negotiating personal and collective identities through dialogical process and re-interpreting the past.

Keywords:

• oral history performance
• aestheticization of ethics
• aesthetic practice of I-You relation and narrative re-figuration/reception

Notes

1. I have done four oral history performance productions with graduate and undergraduate students from 2007 to 2010 in the department and the three other productions are: ‘The Sound of Flower Blooming’, ‘Hello, Grown-up’ and ‘How Wonderful Youth Is!’ Each of them was shown for only one performance. Our black-box theatre with 100 seats was always full and this kind of performance has become one of the creative characteristics of our department. Students often adapt some of the stories to perform them again in the school's annual art festival.