By Means of Performance: Intercultural Studies of Theatre and Ritual - Assignment Example

Name Tutor Course Date Question 2 Introduction It is upon the currently existing persons who have life to interpret and bring meaning and memories to objects in the museum since they are a representation of dead scenes, events and people. According to Tuner (1990), performing arts in Australia embraces the aspect of culture and historical events. Since there is only some evidence of the happenings and not the real events and people, performing arts carries out a recollection of the events and performs it as arts in response to keeping the culture. Schechner (2002) says that, performance involves embracing the day to day activities in the society and creating an understanding of the events to the audience. It therefore considers every aspect including people’s interactions with the environment. Performance and Memory According to Patraka (2003), references of the past are unstable and lack the transparency in depicting the meaning. This is another reason for recollection and creation of a meaning and memory. Performance involves place and space. Patraka thinks of place and space as descriptions for creating meaning. A place signifies the aspect of making the article of performance fit in a given setting by representing what no longer exists in person by creating stability and in the most appropriate way. Place in performance ignores the prospect of double existence. Space refers to the outcome from the procedures of fitting the object of performance in a given location and making it function appropriately. Therefore, creation of space is subject to historical events which increase the space and the items within it. The reference of Holocaust considers the difference between place and space, depicting the Jewish among Australians in their traditions. Episodes of the holocaust therefore directly affect the Australian people, arouse their emotions, and the museum is evidence of the role of the currently existing persons to create meaning and memory of the past events. The museum views place as a screenplay presentation that people can interpret and space creates spots for accommodation of many of these performances while bringing out the spectator as part of the history. According to Schlunke (2006), Holocaust museum serves as a site of performance as people who visit the museum and the museum guards are the only representatives of life. The historical images and objects in the museum are dead, and can not move, therefore it requires the guards to understand and perform interpretation of the ancient events. Visitors to the museum take home knowledge from their own interpretation of the images in the museum. The interpretation includes imagination (seeing what is not visible) from what they see. Performance involves viewers with no specific location but moving, the holocaust museums have objects in their specific locations suitable for the passing viewers. The drafts people in the museums and the planners serve a major role of creating demonstrations from the objects of history and therefore creating space which is a point of focus for the viewers. Dapin (2006) argues that the objects of a museum setting have no magic existence but are a creation of other people. While viewing the objects of a holocaust museum, the viewer traits change and one starts witnessing the events, in their imagination as if they are happening at the moment and one’s own memory becomes a historic memory. This is the process of creating a memory and making it historic as it is performed in the Holocaust museum where by remembering and understanding the holocaust requires one to become a performer. Re-performance The history of Australia is a living history as there are many sites established to play the role of re-endorsing the previous happenings. Institutions are coming up to support arts and performances of the ancient days, which apply some slight changes to favor the current generation interpretation as the art of performance requires. Re-performance employs the art of recreating a past event and fitting it in the current world for current viewers. According to McCarthy (2004), re-creation of past events happens in the current world. Lain and Jane do the recreation of a play performing at the mental institute of Napa. Adopting the flow of the previous play but having their own additions for the current audience, this is why Jane, in her opening speech makes the audience aware of the art of recreation but allows the current audience to freely express themselves. McCarthy writes about the police of the time applying the art of recreation to trap a murderer who they expect to turn up at the performance. Cesare (2005) writes on a re-performance of ‘The score’. Marina Abrarnovic also re-performs different arts of other people alone, such as Seedbed which she re performs as a woman when the original character was a man. ‘The battle of Orgreave’ is a film that displays the drama in the ancient years of 1984 when workers at the mine decided to go on a strike, a row that takes a whole year and more to be settled between the workers and the trade union. Jeremy Deller re create the events of 1984 in his film which is shown 17years after the original incident, in the year 2002. Holocaust is a recreation of the past events whose characters ceased to exist being done by the designers and planners of Museums. Performances on the holocaust bring up the aspect of the harsh treatments and killings taking place in the primeval days which are no longer in existence. There are also the oral performance recreations. Through songs and narratives, the current people are re performing songs of the aboriginal times with their ancient dances and dressing. Musicians create rhythms and melodies which assist create the performance of the ancient music. Performing the Nation A nation also performs itself by representing its culture and capabilities at the international levels. Australia represents itself through the Sydney Olympics, displaying its capabilities through narratives for the nation, its Olympics and aspects of its colonial times. Events of the opening ceremony of Sydney Olympics illustrate how the performances of nationalism are evidence in Australia. The event starts with a demonstration of the Australian culture celebration displaying a horse and its rider. There is a flow of events celebrating the Australian continent and its flag as people from the south and the north placed a demonstration under the Australian flag in front of all the viewer nations and an applause for the athletes of Eastern side of Timor. The applause is an act of performance by the people of Australia on their nation, demonstrating their appreciation of its athletic abilities. The appearance of Captain Andrew Gaze is a performance for the nation, with a proud look and waving the flag illustrates his appreciation for the team of over six hundred athletes. This event is also celebration of the first women contestants in the sports sector, who proudly carry a torch round the stadium. The games finally started and Australia exhibits its potential as expected in the Olympics. A total of fifty eight medals marks a good national performance fro Australia, with sixteen gold medals, twenty five and seventeen silver and bronze respectively is a huge success and a very positive imprecision for the country. Australia appears in the fourth position of the medal champions among the United States, Russia and China. They had representatives for all the sports of the Olympic and displayed a break through in the field of gender equality as there were 283 women representatives among the over six hundred that the country had. The children of Australia like Rechelle Hawkes who played Hockey and the basketball captain Andrew Gaze among others display a performance of their nation in the world of sports as they are champions who carry the flag of Australia. Ian Thorpe, a seventeen year old and youngest team member of the national representatives is also given the opportunity to display performance for his nation, not only by participating in the game but also carrying the national flag at the closing of the ceremony. Among the games, Australia also celebrated the cycling sport where two representatives united and won the sport at ‘Dunc’ Gray Velodrome. Apart form all the medals that Australia won, they were also celebrating comradeship among its representatives and their will within their group and with other stakeholders like the viewers, financiers and opponents. This is a performance for the nation and displays togetherness across the whole nation. Conclusion Performing arts involves conversion of events into performance and interpretation of these performances to the understanding of the current audience. Creation of specific memories and meaning and integrating it to the past is a part and parcel of artists’ daily activities. Historical performances involve creating memory from the past, where the actual participants no longer exist and perform them to arouse memory in the current audience. Re-performance is also a way of creating meaning and memories of dead objects. This is where events of the past are re-created by another person and performed in the current world to the current audience, creating memories in them. Performance of the nation is majorly represented in the world of sports where Australia celebrates its champions. Works Cited .Schechner, Richard. Performance Studies: An Introduction. Routledge: New York, 2002. Dapin, Mark. ‘Lest We Remember’ in The Sydney Morning Herald Good Weekend 8 July 2006, pp33-34 Turner, V By Means of Performance: Intercultural Studies of Theatre and Ritual. Cambridge, London, 1990. Patraka, Vivian M. Spectacular Suffering: Performing Presence, Absence, and Witness at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’ in Performance Studies. Palgrave, Houndmills, 2003. Schlunke, K. ‘More than Memory: Performing Place and Postcoloniality at the Myall Creek Massacre Memorial’ in Unstable Ground: Performance and the Politics of Place. 2006. Connolly, Fiona and Larissa Cummings ‘Cannibal Capers Hard to Swallow’ in The Daily Telegraph, 2006. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, B. ‘Objects of Ethnography’ in Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display. Smithsonian Press,Washington, 1991, Rowe, David and Stevenson, Deborah. Sociality and Spatiality in Global Media Events’ in National Identity and Global Sports Events. State University of New York Press, Albany, 2006. Meekison, Lisa. ‘Whose Ceremony is it Anyway? Indigenous and Olympic Interests in the Festival of the Dreaming’ in The Olympics at the Millennium: Power, Politics and the Games. Rutgers, New Jersey, 2000. Read More

According to Schlunke (2006), Holocaust museum serves as a site of performance as people who visit the museum and the museum guards are the only representatives of life. The historical images and objects in the museum are dead, and can not move, therefore it requires the guards to understand and perform interpretation of the ancient events. Visitors to the museum take home knowledge from their own interpretation of the images in the museum. The interpretation includes imagination (seeing what is not visible) from what they see.

Performance involves viewers with no specific location but moving, the holocaust museums have objects in their specific locations suitable for the passing viewers. The drafts people in the museums and the planners serve a major role of creating demonstrations from the objects of history and therefore creating space which is a point of focus for the viewers. Dapin (2006) argues that the objects of a museum setting have no magic existence but are a creation of other people. While viewing the objects of a holocaust museum, the viewer traits change and one starts witnessing the events, in their imagination as if they are happening at the moment and one’s own memory becomes a historic memory.

This is the process of creating a memory and making it historic as it is performed in the Holocaust museum where by remembering and understanding the holocaust requires one to become a performer. Re-performance The history of Australia is a living history as there are many sites established to play the role of re-endorsing the previous happenings. Institutions are coming up to support arts and performances of the ancient days, which apply some slight changes to favor the current generation interpretation as the art of performance requires.

Re-performance employs the art of recreating a past event and fitting it in the current world for current viewers. According to McCarthy (2004), re-creation of past events happens in the current world. Lain and Jane do the recreation of a play performing at the mental institute of Napa. Adopting the flow of the previous play but having their own additions for the current audience, this is why Jane, in her opening speech makes the audience aware of the art of recreation but allows the current audience to freely express themselves.

McCarthy writes about the police of the time applying the art of recreation to trap a murderer who they expect to turn up at the performance. Cesare (2005) writes on a re-performance of ‘The score’. Marina Abrarnovic also re-performs different arts of other people alone, such as Seedbed which she re performs as a woman when the original character was a man. ‘The battle of Orgreave’ is a film that displays the drama in the ancient years of 1984 when workers at the mine decided to go on a strike, a row that takes a whole year and more to be settled between the workers and the trade union.

Jeremy Deller re create the events of 1984 in his film which is shown 17years after the original incident, in the year 2002. Holocaust is a recreation of the past events whose characters ceased to exist being done by the designers and planners of Museums. Performances on the holocaust bring up the aspect of the harsh treatments and killings taking place in the primeval days which are no longer in existence. There are also the oral performance recreations. Through songs and narratives, the current people are re performing songs of the aboriginal times with their ancient dances and dressing.

Musicians create rhythms and melodies which assist create the performance of the ancient music. Performing the Nation A nation also performs itself by representing its culture and capabilities at the international levels. Australia represents itself through the Sydney Olympics, displaying its capabilities through narratives for the nation, its Olympics and aspects of its colonial times. Events of the opening ceremony of Sydney Olympics illustrate how the performances of nationalism are evidence in Australia.

Read More