Performance

Before reading chapter five, I just thought of performance as a regular form of entertainment. The only things that came to my mind were plays, musicals, and dace recitals, and even when thinking of these examples, I never delved into all of the parts that make it a performance. I never thought that simply just having a conversation with someone is also an example of a performance. I suppose that makes sense, since songs and plays are generally made up of words and conversation, but I had never really thought that me talking to my mother could also be considered a performance. I gave a presentation the other day for another class and didn’t even realize that I was giving a performance at that very moment for my class.

One important aspect of performance is setting. Since I always thought of performance as a play, I imagined that a characteristic of most performances is a big, lavish set meant to catch the audience’s eye. Now I know this is not true. The scenery can be anything from the living room of my house to, like my earlier example, the classroom. It doesn’t have to be something hand made to get a reaction from an audience. It is just a place where the performance happens.

Probably the biggest thing that changed my aspect of performance was the audience’s role. From my perspective, I used to think that the audience was the least important part of a performance. I figured that it didn’t matter, as long as you had actors and a play, they could put it on for fun and it could still be considered a performance. After reading this chapter, I realized that I couldn’t be more wrong. The audience is by far the most important part of the performance. They are why the performance is even taking place, and their interaction with the performers is what helps make many performances work.

I would say that the way I looked at performances has been changed greatly by reading chapter five.

This is my response to reflection question 5.