Performance = just archive
Performance is that which disappears?
Schneider:
! – Performance is not that which disappears, but an act of remaining and a ritual act (Schneider 103).
? – If performance ‘becomes itself through disappearance’, what is its essence while it exists (Schneider 104)?
Birns: performance is not an end, but a means- unpredicted
! – Ralph Lemon says that “any reckoning with past events must be traumatic and incomplete” (Birns 22)
?- The United States, compared to many European or even South American countries, is a very young country. As the US adds years to its history, will the nature of ritualizing the past change? Is this technique universal?
In Professor Bory’s unit, we read an article by Birns in which he quotes Ralph Lemon talking about the nature of performance and its confrontation of the past. Lemon says that “any reckoning with past events must be traumatic and incomplete.” (Birns 22). We ritualize and mark the past through performance, and Lemon emphasizes the necessity for the performance to be painful. In revolution, not only is there suffering required to perform the goals and mission of the revolution, but it is constantly evolving. Past events dictate the present situations, and reckoning with them through performance shapes perception of both this past and present narrative.