Today in Drama our lecture was about performance, and the definition of performance. We were being encouraged to think outside the normal 'box' as one would say of believing performance is on a stage, infront of a captive audience. This post is somewhat of a collection of ideas and thoughts that came to me during the lecture, and which I think are interesting;

Marvin Carlson believes that all concious human activity can be considered performance, and in some ways I agree with him. Everyday we get up, we put on our costume (clothes) we put on our masks (make-up) to hide who we really are. We sometimes say things just to look cool, or try and fit in (this is our script) and our daily interactions with other people are the other characters.
   In the 21st Century, people as never before live by means of performance, western society is a performance society. We have started to perform to people around the world like no other generation before us, with sites such as you-tube, bebo and myspace and of course LJ, we can even perform in a virtual reality world. We project who we are by the screen name we choose, the skin or layout we have and the pictures we put up. We tell others who we believe we are, or who we want others to think we are in our profiles or blogs.
  This is because we know the power of performance, of what a projected itenity can do for us. Public figures often use performance to make people believe what they are saying. for example, when a person in power makes a speech, his 'men' behind him will nod or clap, making us feel that what he is saying must be good or true "Public figures often make belief by enacting the effects they want the reccievers of the performance to accept for real"

Everything we are told on the news is manipulated, perhaps not maliciously or sinisterly manipulated, but by choosing what to film, who to film, where to film and angles to film at the press are manipulating what we see. It is probably what we dont see, and arent shown that is closer to the truth. The media can exaggerate or reduce the extremity of situations. It is up to us wether to believe it or not. I personally think that most of what we see on the news is true, but heck, who knows?!

Every single person at one stage in their lives has had 'multiple me's' this is not some sign of schizophrenia, but just the way things are. Our long infancy and childhood is just a rehersal for the performance of adult life. As we get older and discover who 'the real me' is we need to use this 'multiple me' less and less, for insecure people the amount of multiple me's may never reduce, but I believe as we discover more about ourselves and who we really are we need them less and less. People use these covers in different social situations, you are a different person when you play a mother, a sister, a friend, a lover or any other role you may have in society. If you are a teacher you are going to play a different role, a different you to the one you will play when you go out for dinner with your friends that night.

I tend to use my 'mutliple me' quite alot at the minute, especially with my new non-christian friends from uni. I have nothing against drinking, I don't think it's wrong so long as you don't get drunk, when I'm out with my christian friends I rarley drink. But when Im out with my non-christian friends I normally always have a drink. This is me 'performing' as a direct result of my social situation (or stage) ok, so I will never get drunk, but at least I look as if I fit in a little bit.

I used to strive so hard to fit in somewhere, but over time I've realised that I dont fit in anywhere because i'm not supposed to fit anywhere. My home is not here, my home is with my maker in heaven. It warns us in the bible not to become too comfortable on earth, as it is not our real home. Life is a journey, and in my desire to find somewhere to fit in I have forgotten my ultimate goal, I have taken my eyes off the prize. I have fallen away from God

to conclude (hehe a conclusion in a LJ post... thats a first for me) I leave you with one of my favourite shakespeare quotes ever:

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts"