Performances

If you asked me about performance before taking this class or reading this book, I probably would have only responded about it in terms of grand, formal public situations. I used to think that “performances” were just like musicals, concerts, football games, plays, etc. I thought of them as these huge, planned, public occurrences where people gathered to watch something being done. I was reading in the book about “performing proverbs” and to be honest, I never would have considered joking around with one of my friends any sort of performance. I guess now I realize that a performance can sort of be anything as long as it follows some basic rules. I know that there has to be some sort of framing, or something marking when the performance will begin and when it will end (Sims and Stephens, pp. 141). This shows me that framing a performance can be anything from the announcer at a football game bellowing out the names of the players to a friend framing the beginning of a joke. I just realize how you have to look at the context of a situation to figure out what is going on exactly.
I thought about the idea of performances having a reflexive quality after reading the chapter. It really makes sense to me that if your family is talking and someone frames the beginning of a joke, but the joke may be sort of private or misunderstood by other people, yet everyone understands it. I think that the reflexive part of the performance is that the family is so close-knit that they allow for the private quality of the joke to be experienced. If the group was not that close or familial, the performance would not have made sense or been as successful. I guess overall, I just realize how there are SO many situations that I would not have considered performances, but they are because there is probably an audience and someone performing something. I just know that now I can open my eyes up a little more and be more open and willing to see things even when I haven’t been “trained” to see them. This post is my response to the Chapter 5 Reflection Question.