scholarly journals A GLANCE AT FOLK PERFORMANCE AND NON-NATIVE AUDIENCE

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 93-114
Author(s):  
Niraj Kumar ◽  
Subhashree Sahoo ◽  
M. Ramkrishnan
Keyword(s):  
Performance Studies ◽  
Interdisciplinary Studies ◽  
Academic Fields ◽  
Cultural Life ◽  
Performance Tradition ◽  
Performance Context ◽  
Folk Performance ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Point Of Intersection

Performance is an interesting subject of study and it is the point of intersection for many academic fields within humanities and social sciences. The studies on performance, thus, could provide opportunities for exploring different aspects of human behaviours and their creative reflections on the matters that are intrinsic to the concept of performance. In pursuit of performance studies, one could come across various knots that connect performance with every aspect of the socio-cultural life of people by redefining the stereotypical notions of “stage”, “actors” and “audience.” Further, the studies on performance could not be placed on a single trajectory as several approaches, perspectives and orientations that have emerged ever since the delimitation of performance happened by opening up its boundary for interdisciplinary studies lead by the undefined ‘performance studies’ of Richard Schechner. However, by dealing with the performance as a live presentation in all perceived forms of “stages”, a significant question has been asked in this paper as a token of beginning on the “problematic” presence of audience as outsiders (non-native and non-belonging) who, by their nature of reception and response, are understood as those who have no concern either for the performance or for the performers. While each form, in the folkloristic sense, is comprising of its natural context along with a dedicated or defined audience, it seems to be a surprising phenomenon as it developed over a period of time as a result of the prodigious and irresistible globalization process. Thus, the unintended and unsolicited transformation, as an impact of globalization, in the traditional and modern performances has shaped the nature and role of ‘audience’, making it an insignificant and irrelevant entity for the consumption with aesthetic appreciation and conviction on the values demonstrated. So this article problematizes the nature of audience in the decontextualized performance context by drawing insights from performance studies, semiotics, and other cognate disciplines. Based on the insights drawn from the fieldwork on Sarhul festival held in Ranchi district a few years ago, this paper argues that the role of audience cannot be understood unless there is a clear perspective on the nature of performance and performance tradition as defined by the community.

Cultural Labour

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brahma Prakash
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Performance Studies ◽  
Life Experience ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Folk Performance ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The Relationship

Folk performances reflect the life-worlds of a vast section of subaltern communities in India. What is the philosophy that drives these performances, the vision that enables as well as enslaves these communities to present what they feel, think, imagine, and want to see? Can such performances challenge social hierarchies and ensure justice in a caste-ridden society? In Cultural Labour, the author studies bhuiyan puja (land worship), bidesia (theatre of migrant labourers), Reshma-Chuharmal (Dalit ballads), dugola (singing duels) from Bihar, and the songs and performances of Gaddar, who was associated with Jana Natya Mandali, Telangana: he examines various ways in which meanings and behaviour are engendered in communities through rituals, theatre, and enactments. Focusing on various motifs of landscape, materiality, and performance, the author looks at the relationship between culture and labour in its immediate contexts. Based on an extensive ethnography and the author’s own life experience as a member of such a community, the book offers a new conceptual framework to understand the politics and aesthetics of folk performance in the light of contemporary theories of theatre and performance studies.

Folklore’s Contemporariness: Dynamics of Value Orientation in Bihu

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 177-189
Author(s):  
Dev Nath Pathak ◽  
Moureen Kalita
Keyword(s):  
Identity Politics ◽  
Performance Studies ◽  
Cultural Anthropology ◽  
Value Orientation ◽  
Harvard University ◽  
The Other ◽  
Folklore Studies ◽  
Folk Performance ◽  
And Performance

The folklore studies scholar, such as Dorson (1976, Folklore and fakelore: Essays toward the discipline of folk studies, Harvard: Harvard University Press), was emphatic about the distinction between folklore and ‘fake lore’, one being authentic and the other as invented by the popular industry; however, he paradoxically maintained interest in the contemporariness of folklore. This was a paradox since the contemporariness of folklore is largely, and usually, due to intersections of folk with popular and political. Nevertheless, the emphasis on contemporariness was a harbinger of discussion on the potential dynamics of folklore, and everything buried therein, including value orientation. This essay is guided by the observations emerging from folklore studies, socio-cultural anthropology and performance studies in order to get into a specific case of Bihu, a folk performance inclusive of songs, dance, attires and instruments inter alia in Assam, in the northeast of India. The curious case of Bihu in flux divulges dynamics of value orientation and intersections of identity politics, in the wake of the contemporariness of folklore.

scholarly journals The translator

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Gabriela Saldanha
Keyword(s):  
Performance Art ◽  
Performance Studies ◽  
Literary Translation ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
Art Form ◽  
And Performance

Abstract This article proposes that in order to understand the nature of literary translation as an art form, we need to complement existing approaches drawing on literary, linguistic and sociological theories with insights derived from performance studies. As a way of exploring what the theorization of translation as performance art could contribute to our understanding of literary translation, I map four basic tenets of performance as restored behavior (Schechner 1985) to two translators’ (Margaret Jull Costa and Peter Bush) accounts of their practice. The mapping is illustrated with writings by and interviews with the translators, focusing on four points of contact: the unresolved dialectal tension between self and other, the deliberate, rehearsed nature of decisions, the need for distance between original and performance/translation, and the role of the audience.

“Treated neither with Respect nor with Dignity”

2020 ◽  
pp. 19-40
Author(s):  
Eithne Luibhéid
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Queer Theory ◽  
Performance Studies ◽  
The United States ◽  
African Refugees ◽  
Political Model ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The U.S

In this chapter, three LGBTIQ African refugees who have been resettled to the U.S. stage performances of belonging that insist upon seemingly contradictory desires to assimilate into neoliberal capitalist social formations while simultaneously indexing critiques of these very structures of power. The chapter draws on theorizations of fantasy and subjectivity from political theory, queer theory, and performance studies to suggest that these performances of self offer an expansive political model of belonging: to self, community, and nation that might be particularly necessary in contemporary shifts in political economy in the United States. I work to contribute a queer critique to existing scholarship on the role of imagination and fantasy in studies of refugee subjectivity and agency.

Downtown Mardi Gras

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leslie A. Wade ◽  
Robin Roberts ◽  
Frank de Caro
Keyword(s):  
Hurricane Katrina ◽  
New Orleans ◽  
Performance Studies ◽  
Age And Gender ◽  
Mardi Gras ◽  
Cultural Life ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Performance ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The City

After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the surrounding region in 2005, the city debated whether to press on with Mardi Gras or cancel the parades. Ultimately, they decided to proceed. New Orleans’s recovery certainly has resulted from a complex of factors, but the city’s unique cultural life—perhaps its greatest capital—has been instrumental in bringing the city back from the brink of extinction. Voicing a civic fervor, local writer Chris Rose spoke for the importance of Carnival when he argued to carry on with the celebration of Mardi Gras following Katrina: “We are still New Orleans. We are the soul of America. We embody the triumph of the human spirit. Hell. We ARE Mardi Gras”. Since 2006, a number of new Mardi Gras practices have gained prominence. The new parade organizations or krewes, as they are called, interpret and revise the city’s Carnival traditions but bring innovative practices to Mardi Gras. The history of each parade reveals the convergence of race, class, age, and gender dynamics in these new Carnival organizations. Downtown Mardi Gras: New Carnival Practices in Post-Katrina New Orleans examines six unique, offbeat, Downtown celebrations. Using ethnography, folklore, cultural, and performance studies, the authors analyze new Mardi Gras’s connection to traditional Mardi Gras. The narrative of each krewe’s development is fascinating and unique, illustrating participants’ shared desire to contribute to New Orleans’s rich and vibrant culture.

scholarly journals Philosophy of Islamic Values and Life: A Review of the Methodology of Cultivating Islamic Values Towards Modern Culture

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 01-07
Author(s):  
Triyo Supriyatno ◽  
Cyril Musaddad Abbud El-Aribi ◽  
Ahmad Muntakhib ◽  
Mulyani Mudis Taruna
Keyword(s):  
Moral Education ◽  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
Moral Foundation ◽  
Modern Life ◽  
Modern Culture ◽  
Cultural Life ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Islamic Values ◽  
Separate Discipline

There is no separate discipline of ethics in Islam, and the comparative importance of reason and revelation in determining moral values is open to debate. For most Muslims, what is considered halāl (permitted) and harām (forbidden) in Islam is understood in terms of what God defines as right and good. There are three main kinds of values: (a) akhlāq, which refers to the duties and responsibilities set out in the shari‘ah and in Islamic teaching generally; (b) adab, which refers to the manners associated with good breeding; and (c) the qualities of character possessed by a good Muslim, following the example of the Prophet Muhammad. Among the main differences between Islamic and western morality is the emphasis on timeless religious principles, the role of the law in enforcing morality, the different understanding of rights, the rejection of moral autonomy as a goal of moral education, and the stress on reward in the Hereafter as a motivator of moral behavior. An Islamic life system cannot be conveyed only by using verbal suggestions, verbal warnings but also necessary means that can form a complete cultural network. In this regard, intense dialogue with various existing values ​​is needed to bring about a paradigm shift in thinking in the form of symbols that can be applied in local cultural life. The method of cultivating Islamic values ​​demands conditions for improving the quality and performance of Muslim humans who have these values. Islamic values ​​that are properly understood will function as a compass for the direction where and how to live a modern life full of changes in values. Islamic values ​​will still play an important role in the future, especially in providing a moral foundation for the development of science and technology. Religious teachings must be brought closer to the context of modernity.

scholarly journals Dehierarchizing Space: Performer-Audience Collaborations in Two Portuguese Performances of Shakespeare

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (30) ◽  
pp. 27-41
Author(s):  
Francesca Rayner
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Collective Responsibility ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Performance Space ◽  
Cultural Encounter ◽  
Performance Context ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Shakespearean Tragedy

This article addresses the key role of performance space in mediating between cultural locations. It discusses two Portuguese performances of Shakespeare where audiences were invited to become part of the performance and the ways in which this dehierarchization of the performance space framed a cross-cultural encounter between a globalized text and a localized performance context. In Teatro Oficina’s 2012 King Lear, both audience and performers sat around a large table in a production which reflected upon questions of individual and collective responsibility in Shakespearean tragedy and in the wider political sphere. In the middle of this performance space hung a large cube onto which the translated text was projected, setting up a spatial tension between text and performance that also foregrounded the translocation of the Shakespearean text to a Portuguese performance context. In Tiago Rodrigues’ 2013 By Heart, ten members of the audience were invited onstage to learn Shakespeare’s Sonnet 30 “by heart and not by brain.”1 In doing so, Rodrigues emphasized the cultural embeddedness of Shakespearean texts in a wider European cultural context and operated a subtle shift from texts to performance as a privileged repository for the cultural memory of Shakespeare. The article explores how these spatial shifts signaled the possibility of enabling cross-cultural identifications with Shakespeare through performance.

Visual Criminology

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Brown
Keyword(s):  
Interdisciplinary Studies ◽  
Dark Tourism ◽  
Crime And Punishment ◽  
Social Documentary ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Social Orders ◽  
And Control ◽  
Urban Aesthetics ◽  
Data Visualizations

Visual criminology emerges from a call to rethink the manner in which images are reshaping the world and criminology as a project. The mobility, malleability, banality, speed, and scale of images and their distribution demand that we engage both old and new theories and methods. Visual criminologists pursue a refinement of concepts and tools as well as innovative new ones to tackle questions of crime, harm, culture, and control. Concerned with how ways of seeing are foundational to social orders, visual criminology gives close attention to the production of crime’s power and spectacle in the visual field and relies upon emergent conceptual terms and vocabularies to do so. It insists that it is no longer possible to understand crime and control separately from how they are represented. Visual criminology is born as an alternative academic space that is neither supplementary nor secondary to mainstream social science; rather, it calls us to understand the power of crime and punishment beyond the written and numeric registers of reports, studies, and research. The concerns of visual criminology are numerous. Visual criminologists are interested in the role of vision and the visual in the historical foundations of criminology as a discipline. They push crime and media scholars to investigate more deeply the role of the image itself, beyond conventional studies of crime and media. Using a growing and sophisticated set of theories, methods, and concepts, they track how the various optics of criminology and criminal justice (defined by disciplinary, institutional, and epistemological boundaries) are produced, culminating in popular and scientific perspectives that inevitably bring certain principles, claims, and possibilities into the line of vision and omit others. They also give attention to how these optics are contested and transgressed. Focal points of this work span a variety of media and artistic modes that continue to grow at an unprecedented rate: photodocumentary, photoethnography, new and social media, interactive and social documentary, architecture, data visualizations, design, conceptual and performance art, mixed media, theater, embodiment, spatialization, surveillance and aerial/satellite/drone technology, graffiti and urban aesthetics, ruins and dark tourism, models, exhibitions, and imaginative interventions to envision crime and punishment otherwise. Even as this visual focus expands the disciplinary tools and insights of criminology, it also broadens the field’s boundaries, drawing from a rich theoretical terrain of interdisciplinary studies.

scholarly journals The Performer as Philosopher and Diplomat of Dissensus: Thinking and Drinking Tea with Benjamin Verdonck in Bara/ke (2000)

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christel Stalpaert
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Performance Studies ◽  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
Felix Guattari ◽  
Bruno Latour ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Eco Art

Ecology and activism is a burning issue in theatre and performance studies. However, following the French philosopher Bruno Latour, a radically new encounter with ecology is needed today, if eco-activism still wants to have a future. It seems that, in order to survive, eco-activism and eco-art have to move beyond their narrow and limited anthropocentric perspective. In this paradigm shift, the performer as philosopher – in the sense of a diplomat of dissensus – might play an important role. The Flemish artist and performer Benjamin Verdonck picks up this role of a performer as philosopher. In his artistic tree houses, Verdonck invites passers-by for coffee or tea and gently raises ecological issues. He performs protest as what I call “a diplomat of dissensus”, combining Latour’s writings on contemporary ecology and the function of the diplomat therein, and Jacques Rancière’s writings on dissensus and art in public space. Ecology, for its part, moves into the direction of what Félix Guattari in The Three Ecologies refers to as “the ethico-aesthetic aegis of an ecosophy” (Guattari 2000, 41), a contraction of ecology and philosophy that connects the environmental with a reflection on the psychic production of subjectivity and social relations.

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