Understanding Anti-performance: The performative division of experience and the standpoint of the non-performer

Performance theorists have long been drawn to the potential of performance to subvert established institutions. The results of performance are never fully determined in advance; performances subject established images to reinterpretation; they take place before an audience that can criticize and int...

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Main Author: Joseph Grim Feinberg
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Performance Philosophy 2020-02-01
Series:Performance Philosophy
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.performancephilosophy.org/journal/article/view/279
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spelling doaj-9e85bff3bfce487ba8aabf8941adabea2020-11-25T03:08:27ZengPerformance PhilosophyPerformance Philosophy2057-71762020-02-015233234810.21476/PP.2020.52279167Understanding Anti-performance: The performative division of experience and the standpoint of the non-performerJoseph Grim Feinberg0Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of SciencesPerformance theorists have long been drawn to the potential of performance to subvert established institutions. The results of performance are never fully determined in advance; performances subject established images to reinterpretation; they take place before an audience that can criticize and intervene. But performative principles also play a role in maintaining established institutions and ways of being. Performance demands that participants take on roles and perform them more or less effectively. Performance also establishes a separation between the relatively active people who have the authority to perform publicly important roles and relatively passive audiences who observe those institutionalized performances. In this paper I argue for a balanced view of the subversive potential of performance, taking seriously the tradition of anti-theatricality, in order to determine the role of performance both in undermining and in upholding established institutions, and I call attention to the potentially subversive (but often contradictory) role of what I call anti-performance, the attempt (which is just as contradictory as performance itself) to move beyond the performativity that is imposed by established institutions, in order to achieve new forms of being that are experienced not only as “played” but as “real.”https://www.performancephilosophy.org/journal/article/view/279ontologyanti-theatricalityspectacleaugusto boalrousseau
collection DOAJ
language English
format Article
sources DOAJ
author Joseph Grim Feinberg
spellingShingle Joseph Grim Feinberg
Understanding Anti-performance: The performative division of experience and the standpoint of the non-performer
Performance Philosophy
ontology
anti-theatricality
spectacle
augusto boal
rousseau
author_facet Joseph Grim Feinberg
author_sort Joseph Grim Feinberg
title Understanding Anti-performance: The performative division of experience and the standpoint of the non-performer
title_short Understanding Anti-performance: The performative division of experience and the standpoint of the non-performer
title_full Understanding Anti-performance: The performative division of experience and the standpoint of the non-performer
title_fullStr Understanding Anti-performance: The performative division of experience and the standpoint of the non-performer
title_full_unstemmed Understanding Anti-performance: The performative division of experience and the standpoint of the non-performer
title_sort understanding anti-performance: the performative division of experience and the standpoint of the non-performer
publisher Performance Philosophy
series Performance Philosophy
issn 2057-7176
publishDate 2020-02-01
description Performance theorists have long been drawn to the potential of performance to subvert established institutions. The results of performance are never fully determined in advance; performances subject established images to reinterpretation; they take place before an audience that can criticize and intervene. But performative principles also play a role in maintaining established institutions and ways of being. Performance demands that participants take on roles and perform them more or less effectively. Performance also establishes a separation between the relatively active people who have the authority to perform publicly important roles and relatively passive audiences who observe those institutionalized performances. In this paper I argue for a balanced view of the subversive potential of performance, taking seriously the tradition of anti-theatricality, in order to determine the role of performance both in undermining and in upholding established institutions, and I call attention to the potentially subversive (but often contradictory) role of what I call anti-performance, the attempt (which is just as contradictory as performance itself) to move beyond the performativity that is imposed by established institutions, in order to achieve new forms of being that are experienced not only as “played” but as “real.”
topic ontology
anti-theatricality
spectacle
augusto boal
rousseau
url https://www.performancephilosophy.org/journal/article/view/279
work_keys_str_mv AT josephgrimfeinberg understandingantiperformancetheperformativedivisionofexperienceandthestandpointofthenonperformer
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