Analyzing Performance

Patrice Pavis - Analysing Performance: Theater, Dance and film. The University of Michigan Press, 2003. 362 lk

Lootsin seda lugema asudes leida midagi muud, aga lõppkokkuvõttes täitis ka see eesmärki: teatrisemiootikaga olen nüüd esmatutvuse teinud. See u 300-leheküljeline tutvus on muidugi nii pinnapealne ja ennastammendav, et lisa otsimine on kohustuslik. Meeldis see, et paljud asjad olid arusaadavad nii, et mõned kuud varem need kohe kindlasti seda olnud ei oleks. Kõige elavam näide sellest, kuidas ülikooliharidus tegi selle teose lugemise lihtsamaks, on Geertzi "tiheda kirjelduse" tarvitamine teatri kallal:

Differential Density Rather Than Homogeneity
A production is not always cut from the same cloth; it is not uniform in terms of its density. The notion of thick description comes from the anthropologist Clifford Geerts, who uses it to describe a given culture in a very precise way:
"The aim is to draw large conclusions from small, but very densely textured facts; to support broad assertions about the role of culture in the construction of collective life by engaging them exactly with complex specifics."
The inspiration for this kind of analysis is n an anthropology that strives to conduct a detailed, local analysis and, at the same time, a global synthesis of the forces involved. The local is approached through microanalyses, movements of discourses, while the global becomes explicit in the general discourse of the mise-en-scene (if need be) or in the account of its major working principles.

Kuna üks järgnevatest teostest käsitleb Merley-Ponty filosoofiat, täpsemalt seda, mida ta on spekuleerinud corporeality kohta, tahan siia jäädvustada ka sellist tsitaati:

Lyotard's dissemiotics, it seems, is even less possible and feasible than semiotics, but its merit is in its destabilizing of the notion of the sign, or at least the fixed sign, as linked to language and taking the place of the materiality of performance. This is what phenomenology also sets out to do, criticizing the segmentation of performance into signs and thus of its semiological function. In phenomenology, perception of the performance event is global, making all semiological segmentation absurd. The problem with semiotics is that, by treating theater as a system of codes, it necessarily dissects the perceptual impression that theater makes on the spectator. As Merleu-Ponty has said, "it is impossible ... to decompose a perception, to make it into a collection of sensations, bevause in it the whole is prior to the parts." Here is the source of reactions against analysis, and the beginnings of a globalizing phase where the aim is to find synheses rather than reading grids.

Minu uurimustöö seisukohast kõige olulisem informatsioon pärineb kohe näitlejat käsitleva peatüki algusest ja ütleb (kokkuvõtvalt), et näitleja ei pea emotsioone läbi elama, vaid neid näit-ama.

Approach through a Theory of the Emotions
What do we need to describe in the actor's work? Must our starting point be in a theory of the emotions, as the history of modern acting, from Diderot to Stanislavsky and Strasberg, would seem to suggest? When appliead to theater, such a theory of the emotions would only be valid for a very specific kind of actor: those involved in the theater of psychological mimesis and in the tradition of a rhetoric of passions. But we do need a theory of signification and of global mise-en-scene, in which the mimetic representation of feelings is only one aspect among many. Alongside the emotions, which are in any case enormously difficult to decipher and record, actor-dancers can be characterized through a range of other parameters that lack the fragility of the emotions, and are much easier to focus upon: kinesthetic sensatsions, awareness of the axis and body weight, of bodily structures and the location of their partners in space-time.
In theater, actors' emotions do not need to be real or lived; they must above all be visible, legible, and in compliance with the conventions relating to the representation of feelings. Sometimes the conventions are those of the current theory of psychological versimilitude, sometimes those of an acting tradition that has codified feelings and their representation. The emotional expressivity of human beings encapsulates the range of behaviors that, in turn, generate the psychological and dramatic situations that constitute the framework of the performance. In theater, emotions are always manifested by means of a rhetoric of the body and of gestures in which emotional expression is systematized, or even codified. The greater the degree to which emotions are translated into attitudes or physical actions, the greater their freedom from the psychological subtleties of the unspeakable and of suggestion.
On its own, a theory of the emotions is insufficient if we are to describe the work of a dancer or an actor; we require an entirely different theoretical frame that goes far beyond that of psychology. Indeed, once one extends the study of actors to include performances from outside Europe, one soon leaves the psychological theory of emotions behind, a theory that is at best applicable to theater forms that seek to imitate human behavior (particularly verbal behavior) in a mimetic way, as in naturalistic mise-en-scene.

Ja viimaks katkend aegruumist, milles on kolmandaks osapooleks kas tegija või tegevus (tekk, su ema, liikumine).

The interconnectedness of a time and a space constitute what Bakhtin, in the context of the novel, called a chronotope: a unit in which temporal and spatial indices form an intelligible, concrete whole. When appliead to theater, action and the actor's body are conceived as the amalgam of a space and a temporality. As Merleau-Ponty suggested, the body is not only in space, it is made of space and, one might add, of this time.

Raamatu kohta nii palju, et seda oli meeldiv lugeda, kuigi keel oli jälle võõras. Igat prantsuse keelest inglise keelde tõlgitud teost lugedes on mul selline tunne, et tõlk on ikkagi hoidnud prantsusepärast lausestust või isegi kasutanud selliseid sõnu, mida leiab vaid sõnastikest. Üks osa minust loodab, et järgmine selleteemaline raamat selgitab paremini neid võõraid termineid (nt mise-en-scene), teine osa loodab, et need terminid on Pavisile omased ja teised autorid on vähe selgemad. Pettusin selles suhtes, et lootsin saada mingisugust "sisemist" infot teatri ja näitlemise kohta, aga sain hoopis teoreetilise raamistiku teatrietenduste analüüsimiseks. Suures osas tundubki see raamat olevat teadusliku mulaga kokku põimitud kogumik etendusearvusi. Tõenäoliselt loen kunagi uuesti, aga mitte lähiajal.