The matter of culture and authority in a performance

Description:

This week in class we talk about the Andian Theatre, and we arrive to the topic of culture, the importance of the audience and authority

Analysis:

“Never before, when it is life itself that is in question, has there been so much talk of civilization and culture. And there is a curious parallel between this generalized collapse of life at the root of our present demoralization and our concern for a culture which has never been coincident with life, which in fact has been devised to tyrannize over life.” - Antonin Artaud

Culture is formed by the different needs we have, nowadays the meaning of culture has been broken, nowadays we think that we have more culture by knowing more, but culture is not how much knowledge we have, it’s the way we live, the needs we have.

But aren’t we all humans supposed to have the same needs? Don’t we all just need water, food, shelter, to survive? Well indeed this is what maintain as alive, but not what forms our culture. Culture goes beyond that, culture is not formed by what we need to live, but the things we do to live, how we manage to live.

The different cultures have different theatre traditions. The worries or ideas in a culture are reflected somehow in theatre practices and other forms of art.

We are going to see the festival in Paucartambo in honor to “Virgen del Carmen”, a typical festival from here. Andian Theatre comes from a different culture than Lima Culture, its different. Theatre shows who we are, theatre shows culture. To understand what they are showing in this festival we have to understand their culture first, because how are we going to judge this theatre practice without understanding what it represents and why certain things are seen that way. The way the Incas lived and the problems and ideas they had will be reflected in this theatre practice.

Now, which role will the audience play in this festival? This festival is done in honor to “Virgen del Carmen”. It is done to adore this virgin, at least the festival started with this purpose. As the role of this festival is to honor this religious image does the audience is important? Research will help me answer this question but as a hypothesis I suppose that all this festival started without giving importance to the audience but due to the tourists the audience was creating more and more importance in this festival due to the tourist attraction it created and the citizens who do this festival will be benefit from this.

Now leaving this behind the issue of authority comes. Who created this festival? Who owns it? The one who takes the decisions is the author of something, but what happens if there are many people taking decisions together? Everybody is the author? I think that to resolve this is why people don’t just recognize the author, but recognizes for example in a theatre play the costume designer, the actors, the scenery designer, etc. All of these are the one who CREATE the theatrical piece. In this case the festival is not just created by one person, it’s a group of people creating and putting up in a stage (the streets) this festival. Each troupe has its own director, this director is the one who takes the decisions of what it’s going to be shown and how things are going to be done, then for he is the author. Does it belong to him? Being the author doesn’t mean that the put into scene is yours, it belongs to everybody who made this as all of them are part of it. The festival in Paucartambo belongs to the town, to all the people who lives here and are part of the festival. But then who is the author of the whole festival? It’s not a big deal; nobody really cares who the author is as the author will not receive any money by being the author. Each troupe has their own director but there is not really a problem between the actors and the director of who does the performance belongs to.

Connections:

The school play this year reflects our culture, the way we live but also has elements of the British culture. The author of the play we are going to do are the directors, then for the authors are Kenzo, Esteban and Roberto, but who it belongs to? Does it belong to everybody who is part of it? And if it is like this why is it the “school play”, does the school own it? And why the school own it if most people in school didn’t do anything for the performance?

Reflection:

The author is the director as he takes the decisions of what is going to be in the performance, the other members of the group suggest but finally the director decides. In the school play or festival in paucartambo there is no really a fight for who belongs the performance, but in other pieces of art it does, why? Does the importance of who belongs something only matters if there is an economic benefits?