Performance Studies Analysis - Research Paper Example

Performance Studies Analysis The performance study analysis and the existence of performance in our daily life greatly depend on the definition of performance that is being marked. Performance can be defined in many ways, but the one that coincides with the performance in everyday life is the one that relates to the society and the human beings. Performance can be defined at one place as the communication between the human bodies. Any human body that reflects communication with another human body, every human undertaking that involves two or more people may be analyzed as a performance that takes place between the humans in their lives. This can be explained in more detail by analyzing the art of performance that exists in the everyday lives of the human beings. This ideology can be related to the philosophy of performance that many philosophers have come up to. Ordering a sandwich and conducting a survey, both of the examples can be included in performance as it involves some sort of human performance. Such actions do include some human communication that exists between one another. Any performance that has the feel of human connection can be regarded as performance. This application of performance is universal and it does not need any sort of conditions (Quevauviller, 1998, p.72). It is a natural philosophy that says that performance exists in everyday life of the humans. When any human being performs any action that tends to transmit its results to another human being, a performance can be said to take place. The performing does not only refer to the performance of ‘arts’, as the philosophers believe that the human experiences in life extends to something beyond just ‘arts’. Hence, it can also be said that all human beings are actors who perform in their lives as all of them ‘act’. Performance can also be termed as any act of the body that has a meaning. It is the representation of the human acts that give meanings to the other humans. It is a sort of communication in which humans interact with each other by performing some actions that give the meaning of what they want to deliver. It highlights the interaction of the human being with the environment that he lives in through his actions. Humans in a social bond perform in order to stay involved in the environment. Under this definition comes the performance study which is related to the human communication and interaction within the environment. The performance study can be analyzed and used in practice under the philosophy. It has a wide range of scope and it relates to the student who learns about the performances in everyday lives. Performance studies are a broad field which is established and gives the students a chance to learn about the analysis and the practice of performance. The goals of the performance studies are wide and greatly depend upon the exploration of learning tactics. The curricula of the performance studies are different as it depends upon the expertise of its students and instructors. The field is broad and it includes many of the branches of studies and practice that the students would rather be inspired to learn instead of forced. It does not only give them a curriculum that they have to follow, in fact the studies give the students a lot more than that (Schechner, 2002, p.452). Since performance is so closely related to the human interaction and communication, the performance studies give a chance to learn about the performance in everyday life of a human. The performance is involved in our everyday life through our communication with others, and thus the students analyze the performance in four stages that they can occur. These four stages are the formation, expression, transmission and reception. These stages show the complete cycle of a performance that may exist in the everyday life of a human. It can be further evaluated through the stages to the concept and to the consequence. Formation is the first stage in which the performance is occurred. The performance among the humans takes place when they interact and communicate with each other and perform certain actions. However, when they perform these actions, they need to have a formation on which their actions are based. They must have a thought, an idea or an intention on which they base their performance. And before performing it, they have to make sure that their action is conceptualized and built upon their ideas. This is the formation that takes place before the action is performed and any communication is taken place. When the performance is occurred in everyday life, formation is the part where the human beings intend to communicate with the other human being. They form their ideas in a way that they can deliver them and convert them in the form of actions. This can be for any type of performance, whether it is when a person intends to walk up to a person and talk to them, or whether he thinks of delivering his ideas in a group of people. The formation of ideas is the first stage in which the ideas are gathered and generated to the other person (Quevauviller, 1998, p.72). Expression is the stage where the individual uses the context of his actions to communicate and explain his ideas to the other person. When it is about the human beings, they communicate the best through their expressions. However, the expressions that are used are those that help to deliver the form of communication that needs to be produced. Either it is a fight of two people, or a performance in front of the audience, the mode of communication is best known through the expressions that the person gives out. The performance is crafted on the expressions that are given by one person to the one he wants to communicate with. In everyday life, performance is existed in the means of communication and involvement that is best showed through the expressions. Even when it is about performing arts, the major thing that needs to be delivered by the performer is the expressions that give a way to the audience to figure out whether the performance is delivering the message of love or hate, peace or war, because the expressions of these emotions are extremely different (Schechner, 2002, p.452). Hence, the expressions are the second stage that needs to exist when it is about the performance of everyday life. The third stage is the transmission. Transmission occurs when one person delivers the performance of his action to the other. Once the idea and intention is formed and the expressions are given, it is now the stage where the action is transmitted to the other person who then accepts it by a reaction. When performance exists in everyday life, it needs to be clearly performed so that it is transmitted to the next person in the right way. Any miscommunication or error can spoil the whole act that is being performed. When such performances are given in everyday life, the transmission plays an important part as it signifies that the action has been reached to the person to whom it related to. The performance of human acts is based upon their analysis and interpretation, and that is identified when the action is successfully transmitted to the other person and thereby understood by them (Counsell, 2001, p.78). Whether it is about two individuals, or a person addressing to a group of people, it is important to know that the message is transmitted, and thus communication has taken place. Successful transmission shows that the action has been meaningful. Reception is the acceptance of the action that is performed by one person in relation to another. This can be based upon the judgment of action reaction. When an action is performed, its reaction signifies that the performance has been successfully transmitted to the other person. In everyday life, when performance takes place, it’s not just one-sided; it is always two-sided. The acceptance and the reaction of the other person is also a performance but it evolves the stages from the starting. The performance made by one person is efficient until it reaches to the stage of reception. The meaningful performance is the one that is undergone these four stages and is understood by the other person. A dance recital can be an example of how the performance exists in our everyday life. Just in the way we interact and communicate with one another using our meaningful bodily language and actions, a dance recital can be a piece of meaningful performance that is delivered to the audience at large. When it is about performance, it is not only about two people, but can also exist when one person addresses to plenty of other people. In such a form, the individual reaction is not important, what is important is the delivery of the actions performed by the one person who is performing. Basically, he is performing alone but he has to refer to the whole audience and reach up to them with his performance. When a dance recital was performed, it was created and formed in the way a performance is formed. This meant that it started from the formation of the performance till the reception. As it was observed, the formation of the dance recital included the preparations and the rehearsals that were involved in creating a successful live event. However, a live event is where the performer has to reach to the audience directly without any second chances. The seating of the audience was also considered when delivering the performance to make sure that it reached to everyone sitting in the audience. The preparations is the formation of the performance in which plenty of people may be involved but when it is about performing actions, the performer alone has to go through the process of formation. This means that the performer has to form him, idealize the act and be confident enough to perform. In the dance recital, it was seen that the impact of the performance lied in the whole act. The set design and the stage layout was also an important part that caught the attention of the audience. Furthermore, the beginning was impactful on the audience and caught their attention, the middle retained their interest and the end of the performance gave a long lasting impact and the part where they started judging. Then the dance performer used his expressions along with his dance to be able to show his act to the audience and create the mood in which he was performing. Although the song and the music effectively delivered the mood of the performance, but the expressions while the dance was taking place left a great impact on the audience. This is when the performance was transmitted to the audience and they made sure that the action has been reached out to them. The ritual of applause shows how much the performance has been perceived by the audience, and it was seen that the audience tend to love it. A dance recital performance would reach the reception stage when the performance is accepted by the audience. Although the performer would be a professional who would be performing arts in her own way, but the audience is the general public for whom the performance would be one that exists in everyday life. They need to understand the message and the delivery of the performance through the dance recital that they are watching. Their comments, reactions and applause showed whether they have accepted it or not, and that would be considered keeping in view the relationship of the context and the analysis of the performance practice. When the students are learning about the performance analysis, they are usually referring to that sort of learning that enhances their minds and bodies to be able to learn something new. When a student is learning about the performance analysis in the everyday life, he is actually rediscovering himself (Read 1995 98). It gives them a chance to have new ways of learning, to ways to relate to others, and new explorations of old assumptions. However, the performance analysis in practice would provide the students to feel the humanly connection that they have with people around them. Thus, the performance has an effective effect on the everyday life of the human and so the performance studies enable the students to be able to learn new skills through the performance studies. It gives them the chance to experience the humans around them and be able to relate to the environment that they are living in. a human connection with any other human body tends to create a performance and then a student studying performance can get a better way in which he can understand the performance. It helps them to build a stronger link with the human race, and hence live in this world which is surrounded by people and their everyday performances. In this way, the student gets to learn more about themselves and is eagerly involved in the study. The ways in which the performance can be involved in everyday lives of the humans is through many, though there are some highlighted events. As the term is broad, it can relate to the performance of artistic and aesthetic performances such as concerts, dance recitals, theatres etc. these are included in the performance of arts and also relate to the everyday performance of the human being when they act as the audience during a performance. Other performances that can be greatly related to the everyday lives are performances such as in sports events, political events and religious ceremonies. Sports involve the interaction of one person to another or one body to perform meaningful acts that are understood by the rest of the people. Political events are also performances that involve the communication between a group of people to the society and the community at large. Religious ceremonies relate to the bodily performance of the human beings towards their God, and also the way these ceremonies are carried out. It involves interaction between many human beings through different acts that are also considered as performances. Performance in everyday life also contains the uses of certain types of languages that specially relate to the people who understand them. This way of communicating and interacting is also a sort of performance that is taken place by the human beings to explain the other person what they want to say or deliver. Other than this, the most general way in which the performance exists in everyday life is when some components require a person to do something or be something. The acts of the human beings and their actions are performances that they undertake throughout their lives (Read, 1995, p.98). Thus, it can be concluded that performance has many definitions and the one that closely related to the existence of performance in our everyday lives is the principles that performance is the way human beings communicate with each other. All the methods of performances show that the communication and the interaction are very important when a person acts something which becomes a performance; although they also have to go through the four stages of formation, expression, transmission and reception to be able to add up to the performance analysis and practice. The everyday performance of the humans is judged by the way they have communicated and interpreted the desired complex action that had to be given out. The natural phenomenon is in relationship to the way the humans perform their actions that result in meaningful issues that they have to address. By the use of performance, the humans carry out all their tasks, ideas, messages, connectivity and their interaction with the social environment in which they are living. This shows that the performance greatly exists in the everyday life and not just in the performance of arts. Bibliography Counsell, C. (2001). Performance Analysis: An Introductory Coursebook. London: Routledge. Quevauviller, P. (1998). Method Performance Studies for speciation analysis. UK: Royal Society of Chemistry. Read, A. (1995). Theatre and Everyday Life. London: Routledge. Schechner, R. (2002). Performance Studies: An Introduction. London: Routledge. Read More