Filming Theater: the Audiovisual Documentation As a Substitute of the Performance
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Brigham Young University BYU ScholarsArchive Theses and Dissertations 2007-03-23 Filming Theater: The Audiovisual Documentation as a Substitute of the Performance Nestor Fernando Bravo Brigham Young University - Provo Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd Part of the Film and Media Studies Commons, and the Theatre and Performance Studies Commons BYU ScholarsArchive Citation Bravo, Nestor Fernando, "Filming Theater: The Audiovisual Documentation as a Substitute of the Performance" (2007). Theses and Dissertations. 887. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/887 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. FILMING THEATER: THE AUDIOVISUAL DOCUMENTATION AS A SUBSTITUTE OF THE PERFORMANCE By Nestor F. Bravo Goldsmith A thesis submitted to the faculty of Brigham Young University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Department of Theatre and Media Arts Brigham Young University April 2007 Copyright © 2007 Nestor F. Bravo Goldsmith Al Rights Reserved BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY GRADUATE COMMITTEE APPROVAL Of a thesis submitted by Nestor F. Bravo Goldsmith This thesis has been read by each member of the following graduate committee and by majority vote has been found to be satisfactory. __________________________ ___________________________________ Date Megan Sanborn Jones, Chair __________________________ ___________________________________ Date Eric Samuelsen __________________________ ___________________________________ Date Dean Duncan BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY As chair of the candidate’s graduate committee, I have read the format, citations and bibliographical style are consistent and acceptable and fulfill university and department style requirements; (2) its illustrative materials including figures, tables, and charts are in place; and (3) the final manuscript is satisfactory to the graduate committee and is ready for submission to the university library. __________________________ ___________________________________ Date Megan Sanborn Jones Chair, Graduate Committee Accepted for the Department __________________________ ___________________________________ Date Darl Larsen Graduate Coordinator, Theatre and Media Arts Accepted for the College __________________________ ___________________________________ Date Rory R. Scanlon Associate Dean. College of Fine Arts and Communications ABSTRACT FILMING THEATER: THE AUDIOVISUAL DOCUMENTATION AS A SUBSTITUTE OF THE PERFORMANCE Nestor F. Bravo Goldsmith Department of Theatre and Media Arts Master of Arts Theatre is not a thermometer of society; it is the fever. The archive is the aftermath that recalls that fever. In this thesis I theorize about the status of audiovisual documentation, its functionality, and its ontological relation with the performance. I argue that the film of a performance does not constitute evidence per se, but it acquires such status through the concurrence of other documents and archival artifacts existentially related to the theatrical production. I also propose that the audiovisual document becomes a substitute for the performance when it has disappeared from the historical world, becoming the new referent for other documents that also speak of the original performance. In the body of my thesis I introduce the trope of the Model Performance (MP), defined as the epitome of all the shows performed throughout the cycle of a theatrical production, in order to problematize the assumed stable nature of the performance as rather an evolvable entity impossible to document in its whole process. The MP, as a construct, allows me to formulate five orientations the archivist could take into account when deciding which, among the successive shows a production performs, should be audiovisually documented. It is through all these ruminations that finally I arrive to the conclusion of creating a holistic archival model using the new digital technologies, that I think are the best present media to recall and to assess the fever. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS To my wife Liliana with love, for her constant support and help during this fascinating academic journey far from home. To my daughter Mariana, who through this experience has learned the value of acquiring secular knowledge. With thanks to Megan Sanborn Jones for her academic quality, constant encouragement and orientation. To Dean Duncan and Eric Samuelsen for their thoughtful commentaries. To Rodger Sorensen for his friendship and love for the theater, Janine Sobeck for editing my thesis, and Kim and Elizabeth from the Theatre Department. Con amor para mis padres, Nelly y Néstor Alberto, y mis suegros Mirna y Alex. TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter One Introduction……………………………………………………..1 Chapter Two The Audiovisual Document as Substitute of the Performance….14 Chapter Three Theoretical Framework…………………………………………31 Chapter Four The Model Performance…………………………………………52 Chapter Five Performing the Audiovisual Document………………………….75 Chapter Six Conclusions……………………………………………………..116 Works Consulted………………………………………………………………………..131 vii Chapter One: Introduction Performance Studies focuses its interest in those iterative human behaviors that are performed, consciously or not, in a wide range of situations. These range from an individual’s unconscious repetitive actions in daily life, to highly structured and planned social events such as political campaigns, sports, and sophisticated rituals. In the field of Performance Studies the noun performance is used as an umbrella term, which sees discrete human acts as, according Richard Schechner,1 “twice-behaved behavior”, defined as: “Physical or verbal actions that are not-for-the-first time, prepared, or rehearsed.” (Performance 22). It is through the quality of restored behaviors that performances function, as Diana Taylor states in her text The Archive and the Repertoire: “as vital acts of transfer, transmitting social knowledge, memory, and a sense of identity…”(2). Based on this comprehensive notion of performance, theatre and its multifarious manifestations, could be considered as a performative act, and therefore, one of the objects of analysis in performance studies. It is also under this perspective that theatre could be contemplated as an epistemic system that through embodiment, and the extensive use of other expressive means, dynamically preserves and transmits cultural knowledge (Taylor 278). In this thesis, my theoretical enquiry about the audiovisual documentation of theatre will be informed by this notion of performance as a living vehicle of storing and transmitting cultural knowledge. As a matter of fact, I assert that this trope intersects at the notion and function of the archive as a site for storing, preserving, and retrieving 1 Richard Schechner is one of the founders of the Performance Studies department of the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, and currently editor of TDR: The Drama Review. 1 cultural information contained and represented in the form of multiple artifacts and documents. One of the postulates in my work maintains that live performance, and the cluster of archival documents related to it, are not just linked in ontological terms, but that they also work in tandem defining one another. Based on this relation, I claim that one of the functions of the archive of a performance is to testify2 of its ephemeral existence in the factual world. Unlike repertoires that have persisted through centuries (such as the religious celebrations and communal performances known as Hosay in Trinidad (Frank Korom) or the celebration of the Christian Eucharist in the Roman Catholic Church all over the Western World), theatre performances have a relatively brief temporal existence bracketed by scheduled seasons. The essential hypothesis of my work is the notion that in the absence of the performance, the body of archival artifacts linked to it will surrogate the original performance, and that the audiovisual record will become the central referent of all of the artifacts. On the other hand, stating that the very existence of the performance, or the memory of its historical existence, depends on the presence of the archive, and vice versa, challenges the idea that the ontological relation between performance and its documentation necessarily implies the precedence of the performance over the archive. In other words, I postulate that sometimes, if not always, there are previous archival sources that help to shape a performance, and that such documents should constitute part of the aftermath archive of the performance. Although I will challenge the temporal preeminence of the performance in relation to the archive, such intent does not, however, 2 As it will be clear throughout my thesis, the audiovisual document of a performance does not represent visible evidence by itself, but through its correlation with other complementary documents. 2 ignore the fact that the opposite also occurs, where the archival material is a consequence of an existent performance. In this light, I claim that in altering the temporal hierarchy between performance and archive, it is possible to realize that the process of documentation can also operate not just before or after the performance, but also synchronically to it. Said differently, there are certain archival artifacts that can only be generated