Stop, Look, and Listen

Today, I've been reading about performance studies, and, for probably the first time, have started not understand what that term means. Diana Taylor says, "performance explores the use and significance of gesture, movement, and body language to make sense of the world" (77). She also says, "performance is not just a doing, a form of carrying through" (77), it is so much more than the preconceived presentation of script and movement. Performance is deeply psychological. When we edit our thoughts to be polite, persuasive or inoffensive, we perform a version of ourselves. This act of being is performance, and therefore those who study behavior are a part of the umbrella that is 'Performance Studies'. What this leads me to wonder is, what are we performing that we do not mean to present? Taylor mentions that the Natural History Museum presents marginalized cultures as exhibits. What message is this performing? That these cultures are overlooked and must be foregrounded to gain attention? Or that these cultures are so removed from the normative experience that we can safely observe and judge them, that they are just as animalistic as the stuffed lion that shares the diorama? These cannot be consciously selected subjects of performance, but they are performative. How can we control thee subjects we present when, to quote a colleague, "our very atoms at work are performance"? For me, we must be aware. In a way, I feel that Diana Taylor would agree with me, we must be as conscious as possible of what we present to the world. The content with which we perform our lives. Some gain this through education, some through consideration, others observation. As a group of actors would never present a performance without a rehearsal, without a conscious attempt at interpreting a text and crafting a message, so to should humans never present a performance without at least contemplating the finial product. We all experience moments when we fly off the handle, when we speak without thinking. But if we weight our own thoughts routinely, we are less likely to perform something that differs from how we would choose to perform if we had time to consider. This probably makes more sense in my head than on blog, however, if we practice what we preach, if we practice what we perform, then perhaps we can become the thing we are only attempting to be. If we wonder what it is we are performing, doesn't Socrates allow that we will improve our message?