WRITE ABOUT – Chapter 1

  1. Analyze the “Fan and the Web.” Which drawing helps you understand the broad spectrum of performance better? List examples of the different types of performance. Which types of performance are familiar to you, and which are areas that you would like to learn more about?
  2. Conduct your own investigation of the use of cell phones, mobile internet, and smart-phone use around the world. How many people in China, for example, regularly use smart phones? How many people use Facebook on a mobile device? On a tablet? On a personal computer? How does access to the internet influence, create, and repeat performances?
  3. Analyze your own Facebook page: in what ways does your profile perform? When are you truly being yourself on Facebook and when are you portraying a particular version of you? Do you create different selves for different sets of friends?
  4. Choose a performance – one that you are or were involved in either as a performer or spectator – and write a short analysis using Dwight Conquergood’s three “A”s of performance studies: Artistry, Analysis, and Activism (see p. PAGE of your book). How well did your chosen performance live up to Conquergood’s model? Do you think performances need to live up to such a mission?

WRITE ABOUT – Chapter 2

  1. Look for examples of the word “performance” in popular culture. Look through magazines and newspapers; browse the internet; read through junk mail; etc. Collect anything you can find that includes the word “performance.” Once you have several examples, write about them with particular attention to how the word is used in different ways.
  2. Choose an act, behavior, or other event not typically considered to be a performance. Write a short analysis of your example as performance.
  3. The “onceness” of certain events that seem to happen for the first time – e.g., the events of 11 September 2001 – is a function of context, reception, and the countless ways bits of behavior can be organized, performed, and displayed. But there have been “other” September 11ths. Research this date in history. Write about what you find. Then look for examples of films and television programs in which similar events take place. How do your findings relate to the concept of restored behavior?
  4. Find an example of a politician speaking in public, either live or on television or the internet. Analyze the performance using the key concepts of “make believe” and “make belief.”

WRITE ABOUT – Chapter 3

  1. Rituals often adapt in response to other changes in society. Research a ritual such as Mardi Gras in New Orleans or St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland. Write about your findings. How have these rituals changed and for what reasons?
  2. Have you ever experienced spontaneous communitas? Write about the event.
  3. Take a ritual that you are familiar with – one that you regularly perform – and describe in writing your chosen ritual with as much detail as possible.
  4. Rituals have often been taken out of their original non-artistic contexts and placed in artistic frames. Research one of the more well-known examples of this (there are several mentioned in Chapter 3, such as AntoninArtaud seeing Balinese dancers at the Colonial Exposition of Paris in 1931). Write about your findings.

WRITE ABOUT – Chapter 4

  1. If you have a pet, spend some time observing its behavior. Write a description of your pet’s activities with attention to the ethological approach to play as described in Chapter 4. Does your pet “metacommunicate” the intention to play?
  2. Find an example of deep or dark play (from your own life, from popular culture, from current events, from your imagination) and write an analysis of the events involved. Does your chosen example conform to Geertz’s definition of deep play or Schechner’s definition of dark play? Explain.
  3. Compare James P. Carse’s idea of infinite games to the Indian philosophical concepts of maya and lila. How do these two schools of thought further compare to Victor Turner’s theory of liminality, or D.W. Winnicott’s idea of the transitional object?
  4. Find at least three people to interview about flow. Ask what activities they engage in where they experience flow. Ask them to describe the experiences in as much detail as they possibly can. How are their experiences different? How are they similar? Write about your findings.

WRITE ABOUT – Chapter 5

  1. Watch EarthCam for at least a few hours. Try to open cameras in different cities around the world. After you have spent enough time watching, write about your experience. Have you witnessed “reality”? A reality different than what? How do webcams differ from reality television?
  2. What does Baudrillard mean by the statement “Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real, when in fact all of Los Angeles and the America surrounding it are no longer real, but of the order of the hyperreal and simulation” (1983, Simulations, 23–25)? Write a response to Baudrillard’s claim.
  3. Research the Frankfurt School and write a response in which you outline the reasons you believe poststructuralist thinkers would have been drawn to the philosophers and critical theorists who make up the Frankfurt School.
  4. Write an analysis of Adrian Piper’s Angry Art Card piece (see fig. 5.9). How does Piper expose race as a social construction in this piece?

WRITE ABOUT – Chapter 6

  1. Think about the different roles we play on a daily basis. Write about a typical day for you with particular attention to the different roles you enact throughout the course of a day.
  2. Choose two different forms of shamanism to research. Write about your findings. Be sure to establish what is similar about each type of shamanism and what is different. Where do you think misconceptions about shamanism derive from?
  3. Your book gives the example of Anna Deavere Smith as a performer who uses hybrid acting. Choose two other examples of performers who use hybrid acting. Explain how your chosen performers use their own versions of hybrid acting.
  4. Watch TruTV for at least two hours. Write about your findings.

WRITE ABOUT – Chapter 7

  1. Irish seisiuns are a unique type of performance that combines proto-performance, performance, and aftermath. You can watch clips of seisiuns at Better yet, try to find an Irish seisiun in your area and attend. Write about your experience – how would you describe the performance process of the event? Was there a frame to mark the beginning and end of the performance? If not, explain why you think such a frame might be absent. Who was watching and who was performing? Did that boundary remain fixed or was it fluid? Explain.
  2. Research a public performance that surprised or “failed” its audience, such as Ron Athey’sFour Scenes from a Harsh Life (1994). Write about your findings.
  3. If you are involved in a performance, keep a journal of the process. How well does your experience of the performance process you document conform to the performance process outlined in Chapter 7?
  4. Research the aftermath of a famous performance. Write about your findings. How much of the performance can you reconstruct from the archive? What sort of new life does the performance take on as you investigate?

WRITE ABOUT – Chapter 8

  1. How have you been personally affected by globalization? Write about your experience.
  2. Choose two intercultural performances: one that is integrative, and another that is disruptive. In what ways do their ultimate goals differ? What similar means, if any, are used to achieve these goals?
  3. Write a critique of the “glocal.” Do you think this is a helpful term? Does it mask the problems surrounding globalization or does it speak to the “hope” in globalization of a better world?
  4. Watch an international sporting event – either live or recorded – and write about the event. How do the nations involved perform identity? Who are they performing for?