Peformance Studies

Performance Capture (PCap) is the process of capturing a continuous recording of an actor's movements and emotions using motion capture technology, typically in a 3D virtual world. This presents a somewhat unique situation for the actor in that they are challenged to imagine their virtual counterparts and a completely abstract, computer-generated world whilst delivering their performance. Central to this paper is the identification of the various implications that affect the actor's abilities during a performance by investigating professionals' experiences when using performance capture and through the exploration of the implications of performance capture in the creation of a short experimental animation.

Drama is to be understood as a subset of performance involving verbal and physical interaction between two or more persons. Finding evidence for this activity in ancient Egyptian sources is challenging, but not without results. Dramatic texts appear to cluster between the 26th Dynasty and the Roman Period up to the second century CE and may point to the influence of Hellenic culture.

Wat zien we als we naakte lichamen bekijken op een theaterscène? Zien we dan nog een afbeelding van de persoon, of misschien-eindelijk-de persoon zelf, niet langer verhuld door een kostuum? Is een naakte acteur meer zichzelf geworden-een biografische persoon-nu hij naakt aan ons verschijnt? Is naaktheid een vorm van intimiteit, dat meest persoonlijke datje met een toeschouwer kan delen? Moeten we daarvoor dan niet allebei naakt zijn? Is een naakte acteur op scène en een geklede toeschouwer die er naar kijkt per definitie een voyeuristische opstelling? Waarom valt er altijd die gespannen stilte in het theaterpubliek wanneer een acteur zich ontkleedt? Waarom moedigen we hem of haar niet aan zoals dat bij andere gelegenheden, in andere lokalen, wel gebeurt? Waarom zijn we überhaupt geïnteresseerd in naaktheid op het theater, wanneer die zo evident geworden is, zo normaal? En wat maakt die naaktheid op scène anders dan pakweg een naakte scène in een film of de vele half ontblote beelden waarmee de reclame ons consumentengedrag wil beïnvloeden? Over deze en andere vragen gaat deze bijdrage. Over de relatie tussen de blik en het (naakte) lichaam. Over het kijken naar naakte lichamen op scène. Voyeurisme De positie van de toeschouwer die kijkt naar naakte lichamen roept onmiskenbaar die van de voyeur op. Dat begrip 'voyeurisme' biedt meteen een interessant denkkader om mee van start te gaan. De term plaatst het kijken meteen in een bepaald perspectief, wie durft de term in een zoekmachine te gooien wordt meteen overstelpt met een vloedgolf van links1 die het al bijzonder bedenkelijke allooi van de term voyeur alleen maar bevestigen en versterken. De kern van de voyeuristische handeling waar ik het hier over wil hebben situeert zich echter elders, ver weg van het internet. Daarvoor moeten we terug naar de mythe van Actaeon. In de overlevering van Ovidius die teruggaat op verscheidene Hellenistische bronnen, gaat het om een held-jager, altijd vergezeld van een meute perfect gedresseerde honden, die onverwacht, te midden van de bossen geconfronteerd wordt met een badende Diana, de godin van de jacht. Hij is geïntrigeerd door het schouwspel, blijft kijken en wordt daarvoor gruwelijk gestraft. Diana transformeert hem in een hert waarop zijn meute honden de jacht inzet en hem aan stukken zal scheuren. Zijn 34 trouwe honden, ze worden door Ovidius allemaal een naam gegeven, verslinden de held en hij verdwijnt in hun ingewanden waar hij wordt verteerd en verzwolgen. In het schilderij dat Titian van dit tafereel schildert2 is vooral het spel met

En el excelente dossier  “Teatralidades y cuerpos en escena en la historia reciente del Cono Sur”, coordinado por Lorena Verzero,
Malena La Rocca y María Luisa Diz (Revista del Núcleo de Estudios sobre Memoria). El dossier incluye textos de Alicia Del Campo / Lola Proaño Gómez / María Gabriela Aimaretti / Maximiliano Ignacio de la Puente / Verónica Perera. También una entrevista a Katherine Hite sobre los sitios de memoria.
Sección reseñas al final.

This essay analyzes Jérôme Bel and Theater HORA’s Disabled Theater through a critical lens of disability by closely reading several of its Berlin and New York performances, drawing upon interviews with audience members and actors, and comparing the production with Bel’s earlier work, The Show Must Go On. Although Disabled Theater has been celebrated for aesthetic innovation and a bold, so-called politically incorrect embrace of disability, I argue that its aesthetic and affective work is coupled with and dependent upon a reductive approach to disability. The production achieves its force and audience interest by tacitly targeting the uncomfortable feelings many of us have about disability and then offering a fallacious sense of emancipation from these disabling perceptions and emotions. There is, however, an exception to this dynamic and outcome. Refusing to abide by the production’s otherwise normate perspective and expectations, Peter Keller’s individual performances offer an example of disability’s transgressive power and beauty onstage.

Viennese Actionists and film makers presented radical movies and actions in Munich. Here the performers FLATZ and Alexeij Sagerer reacted to the Viennese actions with their own forms of action theater, f.e. with their own kinds to use carcasses. URL: http://iasl.uni-muenchen.de/discuss/lisforen/dreheraktion.html

Aunque por una parte la conferencia performativa podría verse como una variante más de la lógica apropiacionista que, desde Duchamp, intenta socavar la noción romántica del autor, por otra la relación de este género con la noción de autoría es más ambigua y más compleja de lo que pudiera parecer.
Este texto analiza las conferencias performativas de Robert Morris, Andrea Fraser y Chiara Fumai. Se trata de tres casos de estudio especialmente interesantes porque, lejos de enmascarar las contradicciones y ambivalencias de esta práctica con respecto a la figura autorial, las incorporan como parte activa de la propia obra, poniéndolas a trabajar.

Art, and increasingly the convergence of performance or live works, can act as a provocation; it operates as the conscience of a society, producing discomfort and bringing its audience into crisis (Barratt and Bolt 2010). For art- ists, this discomfort and crisis represents precisely art’s bene t, both to the participants and to the wider community. I am not so convinced, as I hope to explore in this chapter.

ED. Kat Jungnickel.
Researchers rethink tactics for inventing and disseminating research, examining the use of such unconventional forms as poetry, performance, catalogs, interactive machines, costume, and digital platforms.

Este texto procura articular nuances entre sexualidade, gênero e política no contexto da dança de Reisado na região do Cariri cearense. Através da teoria performativa da assembleia de Butler (2018) e dos processos de experimentação nas micropolíticas de gênero em Preciado (2018), pretende-se perceber a manifestação cultural como uma forma de performatividade corporificada plural, principalmente, diante do alinhamento das condições de precariedade da cultura popular com a articulação da emergência das performances das minorias sexuais e de gênero nos terreiros da dança. Nos rastros sentimentais de Rolnik (1989), desenha-se cartografias do desencantamento, para assim, por meio da pesquisa-intervenção, esmiuçar a noção de teatro como encantamento de Barroso (2013) a partir do direito de aparecer e da possível política de coligação na performance LGBT+.  Considera-se a capacidade de desterritorialização dos corpos dissidentes, pelas transformações do desejo no campo social, em conduzir as apresentações de Reisado para uma política das ruas, no sentido de reconstruir imaginários e enunciados biotecnomágicos coligados em resistência a precariedade e as relações violentas, pois como explica Albuquerque Junior (1999b), sobre masculinidade e nordestinidade, a violência aparece como discurso de legitimidade social. Dessa forma, percebe-se a tradição do Reisado como uma assembleia provisória e transitória, onde performances transviadas são requeridas e festejadas através dos improvisos das cenas do folguedo, principalmente, na reconstrução não violenta dos esquemas regulatórios das tradições através do corpo inventado nas artes do Nordeste.

El Archivo Oral de Arte Latinoamericano es un proyecto de Fernanda Pinta y Federico Baeza que consiste en la lectura, por parte de un actor, de una conferencia histórica escogida por ellos. La aparente austeridad del gesto curatorial -la reposición del texto sin interpretación, un escenario compuesto solo por una mesa, silla, micrófono y un vaso de agua- contrasta con la densidad discursiva y temporal que construye. Las voces de Oscar Massotta, Marta Traba, Tomás Maldonado, Lina Bo Bardi y Alberto Cruz hablan ahora de modo oracular. Cómo el pasado puede seguir activo en el presente, qué puede entenderse como continuum, dónde se cristalizan fracturas, qué zonas se encuentran irremediablemente clausuradas; son algunas preguntas y percepciones que se materializan al escuchar voces a medio camino entre la vida y el más allá.
http://untref.edu.ar/rec/resena_florencia_qualina.php

Abstract: Through the musical imagery process it is possible mentally listen to music without touching the instrument. The literature suggests that this process is relevant to the musician during the preparation for the performance. This article presents some elements that may be useful for the construction and use of this process during preparation for public performance of the Sonata 1942 of Brazilian composer Claudio Santoro. It was also used musical analysis of elements to build clusters that facilitated the musical understanding so as to build a fluent sound idea and also to memorize. The imagination of movements with the sounds facilitated the design of running as a whole, integrating the movement to the desired acoustic result.
Key words: Musical Imagery; Imagination; Interpretation; Claudio Santoro; Sonata 1942.

Esta reflexão teve como ponto de partida a relação que pode ser estabelecida entre The Order (Matthew Barney) e Cut Piece (Yoko Ono), não de uma forma totalizante - afinal, interessa por vezes deixar mais questões do que respostas -, mas tendo em conta pequenas bases reflexivas apoiadas essencialmente em dois aspectos que escolhi desenvolver como centrais. Um deles prende-se com o domínio simbólico de cada uma das obras e com a mutabilidade intrínseca desse mesmo domínio, que se reconstrói incessantemente por factores externos à própria obra (como a diferenciação espectatorial, a inserção socio-cultural, a própria história das artes cénicas, etc.), fazendo com que esta se comporte como um organismo vivo e em constante evolução. O outro
aspecto central ao estabelecimento de relações entre as duas obras diz respeito à sua capacidade de romper com paradigmas artísticos anteriores e contribuir para a evolução da arte em geral e das artes cénicas em particular. Para tal, partiu-se das noções de Stoss de Heidegger e de Chock de Benjamin, fundindo a necessidade de ruptura que é inerente às obras mencionadas (e às vanguardas artísticas em geral) com a sua vertente simbólica intencional.

This paper presents a case study from my doctoral research which investigates the creative processes of musical performance across different contexts, aiming to develop a broader model of creativity reflecting the collaborative processes of music-making. Here, I document the clarinettist Antony Pay recording an unaccompanied work, Alexander Goehr’s Paraphrase (1969). The aim of this case study is to uncover the rich collaborative network of relationships behind this ostensibly solitary activity, including the performer, composer, notation, past performers and recordings, and demonstrate how these elements are deeply intertwined with performance decisions in response to apparently highly specified notation.

This paper counters prevailing images of the violent “criminal Jamaican” by exploring murals and vigils commemorating those who have died as a result of state violence or violence between armed strongmen. Proposing that violence has been key to the ushering in of neo-liberalism in the Caribbean, this article explores local memorials that dramatize the desires, hopes and dreams of those caught in conflicting hierarchies of violence.  It argues that memorials vividly demonstrate how older transnational formations of racialized citizenship haunt the present and offers examples of desires for respectability and recognition in street murals while exploring assertions of fear and disillusionment with formal politics and the state.  It concludes that while there is deep ambivalence about secular ways of challenging violence, these memorial acts demonstrate the desire for a form of visibility that directly and immediately serves local needs while also joining them to a global community that struggles against the new imperialism.

Ford-Smith, Honor. "Gone but Not Forgotten: Memorial Murals, Vigils, and the Politics of Popular Commemoration in Jamaica." At the Limits of Justice: Women of Colour Respond to Terror. Ed. Suvendrini Perera, and Sherene Razack. Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2015. 263-288.

This study focuses on elements of design and execution in Minimalism, notwithstanding the perceptiveness and receptiveness in trends such as Phase-Shifting Process; thus mostly experienced as a mechanical repetition-sort of a multiplication of a very restricted, limited, sometimes even monotonous material. This material and supportive arguments also serve to pedagogical aims to a great extend-while percussion playing is mostly regarded as a mechanical idiom-at least in initial levels, repertoires as such might be handled as bridging tools, especially in introducing contemporary music and respective techniques. Thus, this study aims to be an introductory contribution to performance practices as a byproduct, whereas its limited volume regarding the theoretical scope should only be seen as a very brief survey to the idioms subject to be elaborated.

Wat zien we als we naakte lichamen bekijken op een theaterscène? Zien we dan nog een afbeelding van de persoon, of misschien-eindelijk-de persoon zelf, niet langer verhuld door een kostuum? Is een naakte acteur meer zichzelf geworden-een biografische persoon-nu hij naakt aan ons verschijnt? Is naaktheid een vorm van intimiteit, dat meest persoonlijke datje met een toeschouwer kan delen? Moeten we daarvoor dan niet allebei naakt zijn? Is een naakte acteur op scène en een geklede toeschouwer die er naar kijkt per definitie een voyeuristische opstelling? Waarom valt er altijd die gespannen stilte in het theaterpubliek wanneer een acteur zich ontkleedt? Waarom moedigen we hem of haar niet aan zoals dat bij andere gelegenheden, in andere lokalen, wel gebeurt? Waarom zijn we überhaupt geïnteresseerd in naaktheid op het theater, wanneer die zo evident geworden is, zo normaal? En wat maakt die naaktheid op scène anders dan pakweg een naakte scène in een film of de vele half ontblote beelden...

A significant amount of work is invested in human-machine teaming (HMT) across multiple fields. Accurately and effectively measuring system performance of an HMT is crucial for moving the design of these systems forward. Metrics are the enabling tools to devise a benchmark in any system and serve as an evaluation platform for assessing the performance, along with the verification and validation, of a system. Currently, there is no agreed-upon set of benchmark metrics for developing HMT systems. Therefore, identification and classification of common metrics are imperative to create a benchmark in the HMT field. The key focus of this review is to conduct a detailed survey aimed at identification of metrics employed in different segments of HMT and to determine the common metrics that can be used in the future to benchmark HMTs. We have organized this review as follows: identification of metrics used in HMTs until now, and classification based on functionality and measuring techniques. Additionally, we have also attempted to analyze all the identified metrics in detail while classifying them as theoretical, applied, real-time, non-real-time, measurable, and observable metrics. We conclude this review with a detailed analysis of the identified common metrics along with their usage to benchmark HMTs.

Sports give so many opportunities for growth, socialization, physical development, camaraderie, and learning but there is another side. That side is where psychopathology can exist. Psychopathology can exist in many forms for the athlete. Some examples are depression, eating disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and anxiety. After 30 years of involvement in athletics as either a coach or player, one begins to wonder how psychopathology comes into being and what can be done to help alleviate it.

Research has discovered that anxiety can be the fuel for both good and bad performances. Just the thought of competition can have an athlete feeling nauseated and out of breath as well as thoughts of doubt about his or her ability. This may not happen to everyone. The level and symptoms of anxiety one experiences depends on the make up of that individual. There is no one mold for determining who will perform best, it is based upon one’s interpretations and experiences of the anxiety. One athlete’s arousal may be called excitement and another’s competitive anxiety.

Therefore, the question becomes how is anxiety defined. How much anxiety is too much – when does it become pathological? What specifics play a role in the creation of detrimental anxiety on performance? Is the desire to be successful or competitive producing aspects like perfectionism, approval seeking, and lack of self-efficacy? Are there external as well as internal pressures/stressors? What can be done to ease the competitive anxiety of an athlete? How can one use the anxiety to produce positive outcomes?

It is the goal of this research to answer these questions and possibly more. To begin, a definition of anxiety is prudent. The definitions and theories will open doors to understanding the wind of anxiety as well as how it manifests in sports and affects performance. It is the hope that after the doors open, one may be able to recognize what to use to regulate the wind and calm the storm.

“Without you I wouldn’t have known the look of the dew on the green grass in the morning or the moon in the night sky.” (Jameson, p. 6)
In Theatre Alibi’s performance, Blinky, a black and white cat, attempts to show his gratitude to the teapot that provided the water to open his crusty eyes by telling him about everything that he sees. Through Blinky’s’ eyes the audience is invited to see the environment, as well as the activities of non-humans and humans, from the cat’s imagined perspective.
Theatre Alibi’s storytelling techniques, slipping between first- and third-person narration, enable their stories to be told from multiple perspectives, including those of animals and even objects. This invites audiences to engage with events through multiple perspectives, and allows agency to be shared between these.
Theatre Alibi combine this with changes of scale, which draw the audience from macro to micro and back again. In doing so, events are seen to be the result of the combined actions of human and non-human forces, creating an environment in which the inter-relationships of organisms underpin continued co-existence. By combining these changes in scale with first-and-third-person (organism) narration, the impact of human and non-human agency on all organisms is explored at both a physical and emotional level.
Through analysis of the performance of Teapot and other examples from the company’s portfolio, I argue that Theatre Alibi’s techniques provide a powerful approach for exploring both human and non-human responses to the environment and its precarity.

Reference:
Jamieson, D (2002) ‘Teapot: the Stories’ in Theatre Alibi: Teapot Teacher’s Notes (Exeter, Theatre Alibi)

“Building a Utopian Playland: Steampunk and Performance.” in Steampunk User’s Manual Ed. Jeff Vandermeer and Desirina Boskovich.

Steampunk, the retro-futuristic cultural movement, has become a substantial and permanent genre in the worlds of fantasy and science fiction. A large part of its appeal is that, at its core, Steampunk is about doing it yourself: building on the past while also innovating and creating something original. VanderMeer’s latest book offers practical and inspirational guidance for readers to find their individual path into this realm. Including sections on art, fashion, architecture, crafts, music, performance, and storytelling, The Steampunk User’s Manual provides a conceptual how-to guide that motivates and awes both the armchair enthusiast and the committed creator. Examples range from the utterly doable to the completely over-the-top, encouraging participation and imagination at all levels.

A dança tumba carnaval da comunidade afrodescendente em Arica (Chile) tem vivido uma dinâmica de “resgate” e “recriação” pela mesma comunidade, que desde sua aparição e com mais de uma década, tem-se consolidado como uma expressão “autêntica” dos afroariqueños. Mas nessa dinâmica, próprias de uma performatividade, as temporalidades se entrecruzam: essa dança é principalmente encenada no carnaval contemporâneo “Arica con la fuerza del Sol” que marca uma temporalidade festiva com a vida cotidiana da cidade; onde o desfile tem outra experiência do tempo, que se pode compreender como uma vivência ritual. A dança tumba carnaval coloca sua memória -como afroariqueños- nos movimentos, pois ela narra seu “passado” e o traz para ser experimentado em um presente. Assim, sendo uma forma de encenar e narrar uma “outra história” e viver o tempo, o tumba carnaval também traduz um desejo “futuro” como afrodescendentes. O presente trabalho procura expor a dinâmica criativa vivenciada pela dança tumba carnaval -seus componentes sonoros e movimentos- que possibilita essa vivência temporal de múltiplos planos, como uma forma de se experimentar como afrodescendente na cidade de Arica (Chile) e que, por meio da busca de afirmação, produz um gesto de autenticidade, de sua presença nesse território.