ng Performance Analyzi

and Film Dance, Theater,

PatfiCe PaViS Davidwilliams Translatedby

Arbor TheUniversity Press Ann of Michigan

uction lntrod

The task of performance analysisis enormously demanding, so much so that it is perhaps beyond the skills of any one person. Effectively it requires one to take into account the complexity and range of types of performance, using a seriesof availablemethods-some more tried and testedthan others-or even inventing other methodologiesbetter suited to one's particuIar project and objectives.The spectatornowadays,whether she is amateur or professional(i.e., a critic or an academic), is confronted with the most diverse kinds of performance without a repertoire of universally recognized are rather and proven methods of analysisat her disposal.Existing analyses discreetas to the means and methods they employ, as if the reception and interpretation of performances went without saying. The mapping of the various aspectsof performance and their organization, however, is not at all self-evident; still less so their interrelations within the mise-en-scdne itself, and the ways in which theseelementsare recomposedin the minds of the spectator.This study of performance analysisaims to clarifii the array of different perspectives,and to provide simple and effective tools for the reception and analysisof a performance. First of all, therefore, an attempt must be made to clari$' the principal techniques of "analysis" (a term to w hi ch w e sha llr et ur n) . It is thus with the utmost humility and, above all, caution that we should approach the field of performance; for it is both a minefield containing the most contradictory theories and the most insidious methodological suspicions, and a fallow field that has as yet failed to develop a satisfactory the current situation method of universal application. In order to assess mise-en-scdne, therefore,we have analysis of and future possibilitiesfor the

Performance AnalYzing

Introduction (usually, but not necessarily) an account for a listener or reader who has in the strict sense,can only occur if analysis, production. So seenthe same in real time and in performance, the analyst has personally witnessed a live u r"ul plur", unfiltered by the distorting mediations of recordings or secondary accounts. In this way, analysisdiffers from the reconstructionof past performances. The forms of these analyses and the discourses in which they are inscribed are extremely varied: spontaneouscommentaries by spectators' critical reviewsin both print and electronic media, questionnaires specialist drawn up after periods of reflection of differing lengths, sound or audiovisual recordings,written or oral descriptions of sign systemsby conscientious semiologists,poetic or philosophical meditations inspired by a performance, and so on. The list of such discursivemodes is open-ended,and their combination frequent. It is not a question of finding thetight method (which, as one might expect,does not existas such),but rather of analysis of reflecting on the merits of each approach, examining what qg.h reveals about the object being analyzed-in other words, a pl*ralism of methods

to run the risk of treading on the odd mine (m22ee4;pine). This book aims to provide nonspecialist theatergoers with some. guidelines and keys for anarysls. If such a bold undertaking is to succeed,in one way we would need to begin again from scratch, by putting ourselves inside the skin of a theater lover. We would need to forgg.J eyerything that has already been written in the fields of seln-iology,the aesthetics of reception, hermeneutics, or phenomeqology, so as to apply theSeknowledges more effectively and intuitively to the descriptioii?iid interpretation of live performance; but this would be as thanklessas it is impossible.A pragmatic approach is made all the more delicate given that there are obviously no fixed rules nor evidence to determine whether a production has been "adequately" described and understood, or whether the many theories and contradictory observations have served only to impede a "simple and clear" view of the performance. In addition to this multiplicity of methods and points of view, there is the extreme diversity of contemporary performances.It is no longer.possible to group them all together under a si.4glecategory even those as broad as performing arts, stage arts, or _liveperformance. Text-based theater (the staging of a preexisting text), fhysical theater, dance, mime, opera, (dance-theater),and performance artare all implicated; all are Tanztheater artistically and aesthetically produced forms of performance, and not simply "Organized Human Performance Behavior."' Mise-en-scdne is no lg*nger conceived here as the transposition g-f.atext from page to stuge,b"t rather as a stageproduction in which an author (the director) has had complete authority and authorizationto give i&m utrd'-eaning to the performance as a whole. This author, it must be stressed, is not necessarily a concrete individual (such as a director or choreographer);"rather it is a paiiial (in-biJth sensesof the word), reduced "subject" of limited rysponsibility informing every aspect of the process of producing the mise-en-scdne, making artistic and technical decisions-without these decisions being reducible to intentions that would only need to be reconstituted, once the performance has been shown in its finished form, for the fidelity of their realization to be tested. In fact, analysis does not have to speculate about such decisionsand intentions; it basesitself on the end product of working processes, however incomplete and disorganizedit may be. Performance analysis as discussedhere should be distinguished from histoiiCal recon'sffntti'on. An analyst is present at a pd"ifoimance; she has a direct experiente of it live, whereas a historian is forced to reconstruct performances from secondary documents and accounts. The analyst provides

of a p9Jiinci49.-A3aiiii"it* which!s the elgctopposite and-questiqnings, ." . . . Weshall returnto thispoint.The structure of this book reflectsmy concern to provide nonexpert theatergoers and theater lovers with an outline ofthe current state ofresearch (part r). I will then go on to consider the principal components of performance in a more detailed way, drawing on diverse methods of investigation (part z), before shifting the focus toward reception (part 3) in order to reconstructthe spectator'sdramaturgical readingsof a given performance, her conscious and unconscious reactions, as well as the sociological and anthropological dimensions of her perspectivesand expectations. Each component of performance deserves to be examined both in itself and in relation to the others; each requires its own investiggLlive tools, thijb making a general theory of mise-en-scdnehigtrk im_probable. Therefore specific methods suitable for examining the functioning of each component in a systematic way will be proposed. At the same time, an overview of a miseen-scdneas a whole remains of primaryimportance, without lapsing back into the kina ofiiiiical impressionirrn fr"hi.fr theater people seem rather fond. To avoid this ultimately reductive, albeit elegant, impressionism, a few detours will be taken to encourage the spectator to regain confidence in her,9wn gaze,a confidence she should never have lost.