PERFORM – Chapter One

1.Form a circle. Each person speaks her/his name. Continue until everyone in the class knows everyone else’s name.

2.Someone walks across the room. Someone else describes that action. The person walks across the room again, “showing” what previously they were just “doing.” What were the differences between “walking” and “showing walking”?

3.Choose an example of performance from everyday life that you are familiar with (it can be any number of actions, from a job interview to going out to a nightclub) and adapt it to become a formal performance for an audience. How does the activity change once it happens “on stage”?

4.J.L. Austin defined performatives as utterances such as bets, promises, namings, and so on that actually do something, that perform. Enact a performative and record your thoughts afterward. What did you accomplish with your performative? Was it successful?

PERFORM – Chapter 2

1.Observe an everyday encounter of people you do not know. Intervene in the encounter yourself with a definite goal in mind. Afterwards, discuss how your intervention changed the performances of the others. Did they welcome or resent your intervention? Why?

2.In small groups, take turns reproducing for your group a bit of behavior that you ordinarily do only in private. How did the behavior change when you were self-consciously performing for others?

3.Work with a group to create a happening in the manner of Allan Kaprow’s “lifelike” art. The performance can be as simple or complicated as you wish (and can feasibly pull off). When it is over, discuss the performance’s “onceness.”

4.Choose a performance (a scene from a play, an improvisation, a warm-up, a stand-up act, a famous speech, etc.) and rehearse the performance with different functions in mind. What happens to your performance when you are no longer performing to simply entertain? What happens to the performance when it is meant to heal, teach, or foster community?

PERFORM – Chapter 3

1.Go to a synagogue, mosque, or church not of your own faith. Insofar as you can without feeling dishonest, participate in the rituals. What effect does this participation have on you? Did you feel you were “playing a role” as in the theatre? Or did you experience something else?

2.Invent a ritual. Then perform it. Then teach it to others and perform it with them. Is what you did “really” a ritual? If so, why?If not, why not?

3.Choose a ritual that you are familiar with and adapt it for a formal performance for an audience. Does the ritual have to change to accommodate your audience? How does the meaning of the ritual change?

4.Working with at least one other person, create a performance piece around two or more rituals. Try to choose rituals that are different from one another either in a formal way or in function or meaning.

5.Because rituals often take place in special, sometimes sequestered places, the very act of entering the “sacred space” has an impact on participants. Create a unique performance or ritual space. How does it feel to enter that space? In what ways do you act differently once in that space? Why?

PERFORM – Chapter 4

1.Teach a group from the class how to play a game you used to play as a child. Don’t theorize, but rather convey only what’s required to play the game. After playing, discuss the structure of the game. Does it have a beginning, middle, and end? How do you know when to stop? Are the rules stable? Or are they obscure and subject to change? What signals are used to send the message “this is play”? Did the group find the game enjoyable? Why or why not?

2.Using Augusto Boal’s Invisible Theatre technique, prepare a brief scene. Perform your scene in a public place without letting on that it is “theatre.” Have a designated observer or observers note how the scene is received by people. Afterwards, discuss the reactions. Was what you performed theatre? If not, why not? What was it if not theatre?

3.Fan play: Attend a professional sports event. Try to get as involved as possible, e.g., wear team colors, paint your face, bring a team flag, wear a clown wig in the color of your team, learn and sing the team’s song, comment on the action from the stand, start a wave, etc.

4.Gamers spend enormous amounts of time in play worlds. Find a virtual world (Xbox Live, Wii, CAVE, Second Life, etc.) and take some time to play in it. Record your experience – i.e., how much time passed without you noticing,who did you become in your virtual world,etc.?

PERFORM – Chapter 5

1.Cross-dress and go out for a “night on the town.” Note how people react to you, how you feel about yourself. Come home and write a brief essay on the subject “Gender is a Social Construction: True or False?”

2.Compose a piece of “performative writing” describing a personal experience. Randomly exchange these and then act them out. Were you imitating or simulating? What is the difference?

3.Choose an example of performance art to re-perform. Pick something that is feasible to do and one that can be carried out without endangering you or anyone you work with. Research the performance, talk to the artist if possible, find a suitable venue, and use your research to help you rehearse the details as much as possible. After the re-performance, talk to your audience. Did anyone witness the original? Were audience members familiar with the piece? How was it the same? How was it different?

4.Create an online petition for a cause you care about. It can be a proposed ban on the use of plastic bags on campus, or a plea to stop a tuition hike. See how many signatures you get. Send your petition on to campus administrators. Perhaps you can prove the internet is an effective political tool for social change.

PERFORM – Chapter 6

  1. Stage a scene from a realistic play by Henrik Ibsen, David Mamet, or Arthur Miller – in a totally non-realistic manner. Is your scene successful? If so, why; and if not, why not? Discuss how the text of a drama does or does not determine the style of acting.
  2. Make a Happening. Be certain that all the performing in it is “nonmatrixed.”
  3. What constitutes realistic acting changes over time. Watch an “old” film – or, better yet, several “old” films (from the 1940s, 1960s, 1980s, for example). Work in a group – watch together. Discuss whether the acting is “realistic.” Then choose one scene from each film to perform – in exactly the same “realistic” style as in the film. Perform your scenes for an audience, and have a discussion afterwards about what was “realistic” or not.
  4. Take a class in a performance genre that includes codified training (ballet, tap, martial arts, yoga, etc.). Is it possible to master any elements of a codified performance form in one class?
  5. Create a piece of object performance. First, decide what story or concept you will use as raw material for your piece. Then design your objects and rehearse. How does working with objects differ from working with masks or puppets?

PERFORM – Chapter 7

1.Begin to stage a scene from a drama or a performance from everyday life such as getting ready for a date, a supper party, or going to a doctor. Invite your audience to one or two rehearsals. Discuss the “workshop phase” and/or the “rehearsal process.” How does it differ from a “finished performance”?

2.Using only “aftermath information” – newspaper accounts, scholarly articles, reviews, opinions of people who have attended the event, photos, videotapes, etc. – reconstruct and perform a scene. Do you think such a reconstructed scene is an accurate rendition of the “original”? If so, why? If not, why not?

3.Create your own warm-up exercise. Teach it to the rest of the class.

4.Choose a scene to perform with a group. Attempt to apply the different variations of the performance quadrilogue as your group rehearses the scene. Perform the version your group deems the “best” for an audience.

PERFORM – Chapter 8

1.Using social media, contact people from at least four different cultures and geographical regions. Set up a web-based group meeting. Use “mother tongues” rather than a “global language” such as Spanish or English. Can you communicate? How much comes across? On the basis of your experience, do you think globalization is real? Or can it work only if there is a hegemonic language?

2.Stage a “border scene” in the style of Gómez-Peña. Do it twice, once in class; once in a public space.

3.Work in groups to create an intercultural performance. Take time at the start to discuss your own cultural backgrounds and try to incorporate these experiences into the performance. Then, you can decide as a group whether to research and try to include elements from cultures outside the group. Is your performance an example of horizontal or vertical intercultural performance?

4.Create a tourist performance on campus. It could be a creative or themed campus tour, a living museum, or something else. Gather “tourists” to serve as your audience.

5.Create a piece of social theatre. You can work with a group of classmates, work alone, or find a local organization to collaborate with. How is social theatre different from conventional theatre?