1.) Pair one phrase from

List 1

to the correct corresponding example in List 2:

List 1

1) explaining showing doing

2) doing

3) showing doing

List 2

a) booking a ticket and flying to Ghana, West Africa

b) a West African dance piece depicting an ancestor-worship ritual in Ghana

c) a book about the importance of West African dance classes in the United States for Black women students who use dance to virtually travel to Africa and reimagine an ancestral community

2.) Short Answer

What are Richard Schechner’s definitions for the following: 

1. doing

2. showing-doing

3. explaining-showing-doing

3.) According to Schechner, which of the following are examples of performance?

a) A theater play

b) A baptism at a church

c) A parent showing a baby how to eat, by lifting a spoon to their own mouth

d) All the above

4.) Short Answer

Writing in your own words, what is restored behavior? If you quote from the reading use citations AND explain the quote in your own words.

5.) Give an example of a restored behavior performed by:

a) you everyday

b) your family (biological or chosen) at home 

c) other students, staff or teachers on campus or online/at school

Choose one of your three examples and consider how this performance is usually/habitually staged. If you change the stage, how does the performance change? Do specific behaviors change? Does the audience change? How does the change of stage affect the performance? For example–napping at home to napping at a bus stop. (3-4 sentences)

6. SHORT PARAGRAPH: Pick one of the following hegemonic idea-concepts to describe as-performance. “Hegemonic” refers to the ways the idea-concept has become a dominant (often expected and enforced) cultural construct within a specific society and/or across many societies. How have you experienced the idea-concept performed in everyday life?

Consider the following questions to guide your response:

• Who is the performer(s)?

• What specific restored behaviors are typical of the performance? What habitual actions/behaviors/gestures/movements go into the performance of the idea-concept? Be specific: Are specific parts of the body emphasized? How do those body parts move? 

• Where does the “as-performance” usually take place? Are there specific stages or ways of staging the performance to make it very successful or least successful?

• How does the performer(s) use elements like costume, prop, script to make the performance most convincing? Describe the elements and how the performer(s) might use them in an everyday setting.

Use the underlined, highlighted performance vocabulary terms in your written response, to help you think and write as a performance theorist.

a) “girl” as performance

b) “masculinity” as performance

c) “diversity” as performance

2 WHAT IS PERFORMANCE?

What is “to perform”?

In business, sports, and sex, “to perform” is to do something
up to a standard – to succeed, to excel. In the arts, “to
perform” is to put on a show, a play, a dance, a concert. In
everyday life, “to perform” is to show off, to go to extremes,
to underline an action for those who are watching. In the
twenty-first century, people as never before live by means of
performance.

“To perform” can also be understood in relation to:

Being
Doing
Showing doing
Explaining “showing doing.”

“Being” is existence itself. “Doing” is the activity of all
that exists, from quarks to sentient beings to supergalactic
strings. “Showing doing” is performing: pointing to, under-
lining, and displaying doing. “Explaining ‘showing doing'” is
performance studies.

It is very important to distinguish these categories from
each other. “Being” may be active or static, linear or circular,
expanding or contracting, material or spiritual. Being is
a philosophical category pointing to whatever people theorize
is the “ultimate reality.” “Doing” and “showing doing” are
actions. Doing and showing doing are always in flux, always
changing – reality as the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher
Heraclitus experienced it. Heraclitus aphorized this
perpetual flux: “No one can step twice into the same river,
nor touch mortal substance twice in the same condition”
(fragment 41 ). The fourth term, “explaining’ showing doing’ ,”
is a reflexive effort to comprehend the world of perfor-
mance and the world as performance. This comprehension is
usually the work of critics and scholars. But sometimes, in
Brechtian theatre where the actor steps outside the role to
comment on what the character is doing, and in critically
aware performance art such as Guillermo Gomez-Pena’s
and Coco Fusco’s Two Undiscovered Amerindians Visit the
West (1992), a performance is reflexive. I discuss this sort
of performance in Chapters 5, 6, and 8.

Heraclitus of Ephesus (c. 535–475 BCE): Greek philosopher
credited with the creation of the doctrine of “flux j” the theory of
impermanence and change, You can’t step into the same river twice
because the flowof the river iusuresthat .11ew water continually
replaces the old.

G6mez-Peiia(1955- ): Mexican-born bi-national
performance artist and author, . leader of La Pocha N ostra. His works
indudehothwritingsWarriorfor Gringosuoika.(1993), The New World
Border (1996), Danaeroqs Border Crossers(2000), and Ethno:- Techno
Writinas on Performance. ACtivism, and Pedd809J (200S •. with Elaine Pena)
– and performances; &rderBrujo (1990),EINc!ftazeca (1994), Border
StaSis (1998), Brownout:·. Border Pulp Stories (;WO 1 ), and Mexterminator
vsthe GlobalPredator (2005).

Coco Fusco (1960-): .Cuban.;.born interdisciplinary artist based
in New York City .. · Collabotated with Guillermo Gomez-Peiia on
the performance . Two Undiscovered Alnerindians Visit the West (1992).
Otherperformances include: Doloresfiom lOb to 22h (2002, with
Ricardo Dominguez) and The Incredible Disappearina Woman. (2003,
with Ric

reflexive: referring back to oneselfor itself.

Performances
Performances mark identities, bend time, reshape and
adorn the body, and tell stories. Performances – of art, rituals,
or ordinary life – are “restored behaviors,” “twice-behaved
behaviors,” performed actions that people train for and
rehearse (see GofTman box). That making art involves
training and rehearsing is clear. But everyday life also
involves years of training and practice, of learning appro-
priate culturally speCific bits of behavior, of adjusting and

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