NYU Understanding Performances Discussion

Most performances are about something, they have a topic or a focus. Understanding the topic of a performance is only the beginning. The topic serves as the foundation for a deeper understanding of how it FUNCTIONS.

This is the challenge of your paper and this is where your skills of description and interpretation will be very important. The challenge is that most performances can serve many FUNCTIONS and ACCOMPLISHES many things. Your job for the paper is to pick one performance and argue one socially significant FUNCTION that it accomplishes.

To continue practicing this method of understanding human expression, this week I’ve listed the clips below. Click on each link, watch each clip,

and follow the instructions below for each clip to contribute to this discussion.

NOTE: This is meant to be practice to help master the skill of theorizing what the function of specific individual performances can be.

1) IDENTIFY – Explain what elements of or in the performance is familiar to YOU.

2) DESCRIBE what happens in the clip (remember, use DESCRIPTIVE terms that explain what can literally be seen or heard).

3) INTERPRET – Explain what the performance is ABOUT.

4) FUNCTION – Explain the FUNCTION of this performance in the broader culture/society.

Answer the questions to EACH video.