Performance

Meanings of the term performance

Performance can be used in multiple ways in South Africa (and hence in this encyclopaedia), not all related to theatre. One of the most common is the use of it as an inmdication of efficiency (e.g in engineering, sport, business, etc). Below we list three uses related to theatre.

An act of performing

The basic and familiar sense of the term – and the sense in which it is employed in this work - is a reference to the act of performing as a performer (on stage, in a performance space). E.g. “He gave a good performance as Hamlet”.

A particular production

A second, equally conventional use of the term refers to a particular presentation of a work of theatre before a particular audience. (E.g. “We went to see a performance of Hamlet.”) This would be a reference to one specific production of a play or show by a given set of performers, at a given time, place and in a given venue. (A series of such performances by the same group of performances would be referred to as a production of the play – see below).

A theatrical event

A third meaning, which has become prominent during the second half of this century, derives from Victor Turner and Richard Schechner’s important and influential writings about what they term performance theory. They use the term to refer to something much larger and more encompassing than the second meaning of “performance” described above. It points to the entire event (also referred to as a theatrical event by some researchers) , i.e. the sum of all the processes involved in performing before an audience (including social, political, contextual, performative, ritual and ceremonial acts leading to and shaping the actual performance on stage, as well as its reception during and after the event. This would naturally also include many performance forms that may seem unconventional in European thinking about theatre forms.

Performance Theory and Performance Studies

This refers to a theory of theatrical perfromance developed by Richard Schechner and Victor Turner, which expanded the idea of theatre beyond the formal stage. It is a theory embedded in what has coem to be called Performance Studies. The term perforrmance studies became current in the USA in the 1970s, and reached South Africa in the early 1980s with the writings of individuals such as Peter Larlham and David Coplan. By the end of the 1980s it had become quite a common term, and was widely adopted by writers, academics, research centres and departments of drama and performance studies.

For more on Performance Theory and Performance Studies, see Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performance_studies and Performance Studies International at http://psi-web.org/

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