Site under construction: Taking 'Reading Performance' literally.
Originally published SDHS conference proceedings for “Rethinking Theory – Rethinking Practice” 2007 conference in Paris.
© Astrid Bernkopf, 2007
The review printed in magazines and newspapers contains information
on the performance it discusses. Therefore, the review can be
considered as stepping in for the performance after the latter has
vanished. Conventions regulating journalistic writing and the review in
particular guide the reader through the text and ensure that some main
points are addressed. Although reviews are used by reconstructors and
historians, they do not appear to have gained a significant status as
sources that capture and record dance performances (1). In this
presentation, I am going to explore the notion of Reading Performance,
which I have already started to define in my PhD thesis by using only
ballet scenarios as source materials (2). Here, however, the centre of
attention is the critic’s review and how it may be read as representing
the performance. For this investigation, I intend to take you on a
journey investigating how factual the facts contained in reviews are.
This will happen through a combination of elements of Critical Theory
and historiography, which hopefully will illustrate my point.
Italian lecturer of semiotics Keir Elam points out that ‘the written
text … is determined by its very need for stage contextualisation, and
indicates throughout its allegiance to the physical conditions of
performance’ (3). This implies that the fact that a text is written to
be performed influences the text’s shape and appearance. Furthermore,
the stage text is not equal to the literary one and has its own distinct
features. The words of a play, an opera or the scenario of a ballet
are, therefore, not entirely literary texts, but written performances
displaying the most important features of the live performance. The
critic’s review, however, does not precede the performance, but directly
follows and is borne out of it. Although partly a journalistic text,
the review may be considered as exhibiting the features of the art form
from which it originated; the performance.
The composition of the review can be understood as following a
conventional pattern of textual narration. Firstly, a general statement
concerning the performance, choreographer and theatre is given. At this
point, the reader is informed which performance is dealt with and where
it has taken place. This is usually followed by a more detailed account
of the evening or production, which may focus on choreographic features,
narrative, spatial patterns and interpretational skills of performers.
Other features regularly mentioned in articles are costumes, stage
design, the use of machinery and music. By referring to these elements
the critic sets up an account of the performance that seeks to capture
the main elements so that the reader can receive an impression of the
performance.
Given these considerations, it seems possible to extract the
elements of the performance from the subjectively written review. These
facts will constitute the performance as it has been captured by the
critic. However, the problem is what facts are. Historiographer Edward
Carr sees facts simply as events (4). A fact would be that we all are
here in this room. That some of us have arrived by car, whereas another
fact is that others took the tube. The fact, according to Carr, receives
relevance through its treatment. Hence, some facts are more important
than others. For the review, this means that the critic does not present
the entire performance, but selects from all events the facts that are
most important to him. This selective process discards many elements and
focuses only on a few. By doing so an emphasis on particular events is
achieved. It can be observed that some reviews draw all attention to the
soloists of one performance, whereas others prefer to go into lengthy
accounts over the corps de ballet and hardly, if so, mention
the soloists. Hence, the review does not depict the entire performance,
but seeks to give an impression of it without accounting for all
details.
At this point, the critic himself as the one to select comes into
play. The critic perceives the performance and may be considered as
responsible for the point of view that his text assumes. He filters the
events through his mind and is influenced by his socio-cultural,
educational, political and religious background and origins. Terence
Hawkes states in Structuralism and Semiotics (1992) that ‘in fact, every perceiver’s method
of perceiving can be shown to contain an inherent bias which affects
what is perceived to a significant degree’ (5). Consequently, everyone
perceives according to his/her own method, which is influenced by bias.
This bias causes a person to perceive a situation in a particular way as
opposed to another person’s perception. Thus, by viewing the
performance, the critic creates his own version of it. Such
understanding goes hand in hand with the view expounded by French
literary critic Roland Barthes in his seminal essay Death of the Author (in Image Music Text,
1977, p. 142 – 148). Here, Barthes claims that ‘the text is henceforth
made and read in such a way that at all its levels the author is absent’
(6). The reader creates the text according to Barthes, whereas the
author vanishes immediately after having composed it. Such creation of
the text happens in the reader’s mind according to the words and clues
he finds on the paper. In relation to theatre, it can be said that the
performance is consumed by the audience, whereby every member of the
audience becomes, as reader, the author of the performance.
The next step in the critic’s work would be to write the review and
transmit all information about it. However, since a review is a
subjective text meant to evaluate, the words and sentences are arranged
to influence the reader. Not only that the critic chooses which facts to
pass on and which ones to leave out, he also manipulates his own
audience through his choice of words and the use of language. Edward
Carr, again, has summarised this notion of presenting facts according to
a particular view as such: ‘every journalist knows today that the most
effective way to influence opinion is by the selection and arrangement
of the appropriate facts’ (7). With this additional problem, it appears
necessary to consider not only one single review, but several. In many
articles from a number of authors more facts about the performance may
be found. Furthermore, it might be possible to filter out the critic’s
personal comment as opposed to the facts.
In order to distinguish between the influence a particular time and
culture had on an individual and facts, a profound knowledge of the
critics’ influences and time is necessary. This would lead on to
research into a particular era and its socio-cultural climate.
Additionally, political influences such as censorship would have to be
considered, as these may have a significant impact on what is published.
According to recent theory, this notion of being able to understand
what people in distant cultures or times thought and how they lived has
been critiqued. Keith Jenkins, philosopher of history, focuses on the
actual work of the historian in his book Rethinking History
(2003). He claims that ‘[historians] take with them certain identifiable
things. First they take themselves personally: their values, positions,
their ideological perspectives’ (8). The historian reads, according to
Jenkins his sources, and presents his own view of how matters could
have been. This understanding is due to the recognition of the
interpretational work on behalf of the historian. Furthermore, the text
is presented by the historian diluted by his own influences in form of
his socio-cultural, educational and religious background and views.
Hence, it is not that we, as dance historians, read all about the
Romantic ballet in Paris, but what we read is, according to Jenkins,
what Ivor Guest presents us as Romantic ballet in Paris (9). Of course,
the selective process is also here applicable and, therefore, only the
most important events are dealt with by Guest.
Edward Carr has, in this sense, another explanation for this
phenomenon: ‘All history is ‘contemporary history’, declared Croce,
meaning that history consists essentially in seeing the past through the
eyes of the present and in the light of its problems’ (10). Carr
insists that we cannot rid ourselves of our own influences and, thus,
will always be hampered by our own upbringing and views. For people
having grown up in the late twentieth century, it is hard to imagine a
time when it was not common use to brush ones teeth in the morning.
Therefore, all our conclusions are tainted by our understanding and
perception of the world, which does not correspond with the era we
research anymore.
Hence, going back to Roland Barthes and Death of the Author,
it can be said that the researcher or historian himself creates a text
when reading it. Thus, whatever the critic put into his review may be
lost in interpretation by researchers. Just in as much as every
spectator creates the performance when watching it, the reader of the
review produces it when reading. This would result in one single article
multiplying through such interpretative process on behalf of the
reader.
The site of performance construction is therefore not the blank
page, but the mind of the reader or scholar. Herbert Grabes terms such
process theatre of the mind and states that the reader of a play
synthesises the information by adding stage directions and implicit
textual clues (11). Furthermore, the stereotypical presentation of
characters, movements and narrative situations in ballet tradition, for
example, provide a stock repertoire for the reader to draw upon. The
poses of the shy girl are in as much codified in ballet tradition as the
seductress. Consequently, the text of the review triggers particular
pre-existing notions and concepts of performance tradition that help to
construct the performance from the review. Having said that, the
performance remains an individual construct as opposed to that of
another researcher. Through continuous reading and researching, the
constructed performance changes as new information and insights are
gathered. Thus, not even the constructed performance remains static.
To this end, the performance can be considered as lost, but through
its various artefacts it encourages a process of constant construction.
The theatre takes place in the mind of the researcher, who views the
performance according to his personal mode of perception. In relation to
history, Keith Jenkins states that ‘history is produced by a group of
labourers called historians when they go to work; it is their job’ (12).
I do hope that in the course of this presentation it has become clear
that the theatre of the mind creates the performance. Consequently,
performance is produced by scholars – critics – when they go to work; it
is our job.
1. Chapter in Janet’s book on reviews and that it gives a comparison that does not consider changes in choreography, countries and different journalistic conventions in different eras and countries.
2. See Bernkopf, Astrid. Narrative Variants and Theatrical Constants: Towards a Dramaturgy of Romantic Ballet. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Surrey, 2005.
An extended version of this paper will be published in the forthcoming book publication Reading a Dance or Two by the European Association of Dance Historians.
3. Elam, Keir. The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama. London/New York: Routledge, 2002, p. 191
4. Carr, Edward. What is History? Hampshire: Palgrave, 2001, p. 5 – 6
5. Hawkes, Terence. Structuralism & Semiotics. London: Methuen, 1977, p. 17
6. Barthes, Roland. Image Music Text. London: Fontana Press, 1977, p. 145
7. Carr, 2001, p. 5
8. Jenkins, Keith. Re-thinking History. London/New York: Routledge, 2003, p.25
9. Original by Jenkins: ‘Let us imagine that you have used one major text-book: Elton’s England under the Tudors. … When the exam came along you wrote in the shadow of Elton. And when you passed, you gained an A level in English history … But really it would be more accurate to say you have an A level in Geoffrey Elton: for what, actually, at this stage is your “reading” of the English past if not basically his reading of it?’ (Jenkins, 2003, p. 9)
10. Carr, 2001, p. 15
11. Grabes, Herbert. Staging plays in the theatre of the mind. in Scolnicov, Hanna and Holland, Peter (eds.). Reading Plays: interpretation and reception. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, p. 94 - 109.
12. Jenkins, 2003, p. 25
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Belsey, Catherine. Critical Practice. London/New York: Routledge, 2003.
Carlson, Marvin. Theatre Audiences and the Reading of Performance in Postlewait, Thomas & McConachie, Bruce (eds.). Interpreting the Theatrical Past. Essays in the Historiography of Performance. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2000.
Carr, Edward. What is History? Hampshire: Palgrave, 2001.
De Marinis, Marco. Dramaturgy of the Spectator in The Drama Review Volume 31, No. 2 Summer 1987, p. 100 – 114.
______. The Semiotics of Performance. Bloomington/Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1993.
Eagleton, Terry. After Theory. London: Penguin, 2004.
______. Literary Theory. An Introduction. Second Edition. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005.
Eco, Umberto. Lector in Fabula. La cooperazione interpretativa nei testi narrativi. Milan: Tascabili Bompiani, 2004.
Elam, Keir. The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama. London/New York: Routledge, 2002.
Hawkes, Terence. Structuralism & Semiotics. London: Methuen, 1977.
Jenkins, Keith. Re-thinking History. London/New York: Routledge, 2003.
Shepherd, Simon; Wallis, Mick. Drama/Theatre/Performance. The New Critical Idiom. London/New York: Routledge, 2006.
