Doing Field Projects

14 Performance

In many ways, performance can be seen as a part of ordinary life. We perform our social roles and use such performances to manage our relationships with others. Performance is also an essential element of the skilled performing arts. Similar to the process project (Chapter 11), for this chapter you will document a process. However, this time you will focus on a particular skilled performance, rather than a tangible product. You will document the process of your research participant planning, preparing for and presenting a public performance. This type of ethnographic research used to be restricted to specialists, such as ethnomusicologists, but is increasingly used as a tool for more general ethnographic fieldwork because of the ubiquitous nature of performance globally.

Learning Goals

1. Document the process of preparing for and presenting a public performance in the arts or in related fields.

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2. Document public performance in creative ways, such as recording multiple performances of the same piece, analyzing audience reactions, or reflecting on the relationship between performance spaces and performances.

The exercise for this assignment is similar to the Process Project (Chapter 11), except in this case your focus is on a skilled performer preparing for and performing a piece (loosely defined) as opposed to someone making a tangible object. For this project, the finished “product” is an ephemeral experience, a single performance – which is more elusive and ...