Performance Art: Creating Meaning Through Action - Essay Sample

Introduction

The performance art is a discipline that is practised and moves along the ridge existing between an action that is just about itself as well as the live artwork that is intended. As such, performance art is an instrument of communication as well as an expression whose objective is to decipher or create a given experience. The production of experiences can only be made through the creation of meanings with such meanings giving actions a sense. Performance art that would not have any actions leads to the loss of impact for such performances, thus making it an empty joke with no particular end. Performance art has the body as the site for bringing out the different identity formations and takes the role of creating and situating narratives. In this essay, an exploration of the body in performance will be made. The essay will seek to provide an understanding of the role that the performing body plays in transgressing social taboos.

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Social taboos encompass the bans or inhibitions that societies have put regarding the actions of the members of such communities. It is worth noting that such social restrictions may be related to food items, conduct, or beliefs within cultural, religious, or moral foundations. Usually, human beings exist within the interaction of three primary factors that are inter-psychic, social-ecological, and biological spheres. It is worth mentioning that when human beings feel that one of these spheres is threatened or is in conflict with each other, they tend to protect themselves from the possible crisis of a loss of the inner balance. As such, such attempts at protection are exhibited as protective devices. Transgressing social taboos denotes the process through which the social norms are deconstructed and challenged. It is worth mentioning that such transgressions may not inhibit the continuation of the social taboos that they aim at challenging and as such, may work to create reinforcement for such behaviour.

Transgressing Social Taboos

Clothing the Body

Transgression may vie as deliberately defiant actions. Usually, defiance can take the form of going against the religious and social laws as well as conventions. As Rosie Findlay postulates in her "Dressing the Body", clothing can be used as in defiance of what has been accepted as the suitable for different social occasions (Black & Findlay, 2016). In her description of the author Katherine Mansfield instructions to her assistant, Findlay notes that Mansfield views herself as a "very modern woman" and as such gives the instructions that her cloth should be "cut on the big side" to provide an allowance for her to put on woollen jumpers (Black & Findlay, 2016). In this review, Findlay attempts at showing that the author has a view of herself that she wishes the world to see. Findlay argues that clothing our bodies has a significant role in defiance of what may have been viewed as a traditional society. Consequently, the life of individuals is in the clothes that they wear and are substantial in expressing the desires, feelings, and imaginations as well as exercising taste and a sense of self-becoming (Black & Findlay, 2016). Additionally, dressing our bodies makes clothes to become alive and extensively send out messages.

Further, Findlay while reviewing Joanne Entwistle's book notes that the dress is the first approach which human beings employ to send out cultural as well as social meaning. She notes that individuals who dress their embodied selves usually aim at articulating identities that denotes their gender, taste, ad social class (Findlay, 2016). Traditionally, women were charged with clothing their families to communicate these identities of wealth, social class, and tastes. Therefore, clothing the body creates an understanding of the iteration of the social order. Subsequently, the body, as noted earlier, is the dynamic site where individual concerns of culture, society, and selfhood are challenged, enacted, and enforced as well as embodied. Thus, through clothing, the bodies are rendered socially meaningful.

It can be argued that fashion in several occasions defies the conventions and has a notable communicative quality. Often, clothing has the potential of overrunning habitual human practices and creates personal narratives in addition to lived experiences instead of conforming to industrial trends. In the modern world, there is exhibited consideration for appearance to the world that is creating shifts from the past (Findlay, 2016). What may have been traditionally held as social taboos, for example, the dressing of women in skinny dresses has been overrun. In the desire to advance the communicative qualities of clothing the body, there is a notable deviation from tradition with clothing considerably exhibiting quasi-magical properties as well as meanings.

Consequently, while there are gains made in the communicative qualities of clothing, the fact that such transgressions evoke string social reactions cannot be underestimated noting that transgressions have a significant offence on the shared collective consciousness. If society continues to stick to the norms that may be perceived as outdated, such an organization-organization tends to lose contact with nature and as such, its people (Findlay, 2016). It is in this lost contact that the body is actively put to task to overrun what has been viewed as social taboos.

While referring to Findlay's argument, the dominance of women by men, which is a social as well as cultural aspect, is being challenged by modern clothing (Black & Findlay, 2016). Women are rising using their bodies to defy social norms through clothing as exhibited by Mansfield, who does not mince her words on being a "very modern woman". Male dominance has impeded the attempts by women at seeking authentic self-expression and considerably restricting the erotic freedom of women. However, such social norms are being repressed by women through clothing, their bodies, and evading the crushing of individual desire by social norms (Black & Findlay, 2016). Consequently, the body stands pivotal in pursuing private ethic that is aimed at realizing personal happiness which is often on the altar of sacrifice by the "guardians of social justice". It is worth noting that when the social norms are broken, and entry into the "forbidden territory" is made then freedom is achieved noting that the forbidden territories become the avenues for achieving selfhood for the powerless, deprived, and oppressed.

The Body and Performance

The role of the body in transgressing social taboos cannot possibly be looked at from the inclination of clothing only. Factually, performance is an integral aspect from which the body's role in transgressing social taboos can be viewed. As Niall Richardson postulates, there is no fixed, essential, or permanent body but rather culture dictates what the ideal body and as such, what is taboo. In performance arts, the body plays a significant role in challenging social norms. The bodies of artists are in many occasions used as sites for exploration. In different societies, issues such as sexual freedom, nudity, and extreme performances have been branded as socially unacceptable. However, artists' bodies are providing a site for the exploration of these critical aspects of social norms. Over time the body has been used as a site for medical investigation and artistic practices. It is worth noting that the works of art, such as paintings of crucifixions and martyrdom, have been used to express piety and the glorification of the tortured body. In the modern era, the contemporary culture is suffused with the images of the transfigured, idealized, and grotesque body. The body has become significantly exposed and open to the gazes of the audience. As such, in the performance arts, the body is being used to play with the notions of societal violence, identity, body-horror, and the grotesque.

Triadisches Ballet and The Body as An Artistic Medium

In "Triadisches Ballet" developed by Oskar Schlemmer, the body is exhibited as an artistic medium. Oskar perceives ballet and the pantomime as being devoid of the historical baggage that accrues to opera and theatre thus able to prop human beings as dancers who are transformed by the costumes they adorn as well as their movement in space (YouTube, n.d.). According to Oskar, the audience should be amazed while showing respect for every possible human body movement, especially during the human performances on stage.

The "Rite of Spring"

In the "Rite of Spring", the aspect of the body in transgressing the social taboos is evident. The performers are seen to wear costumes that have been described as hand-painted, heavy smocks which are depicting squares and circles deemed to be primitive. While there was accustomed demure of grace within the classical ballet, the "Rite of Spring" create outrage amongst the public for the graphic nature of its story when a virgin is sacrificed by the villagers to usher in the spring. The sacrifice which is deemed as pagan is an illustration of the body taking its place in transgressing social taboos. The virgin girl who is the "Chosen One" dances to death while the old men to whom the "Chosen One" is entrusted are watching. It can be argued that the body in the performance art of the "Right of Spring" is aimed at critically bringing out the cruelty of the pagan sacrifice which is essential among the practitioners in ushering in the spring.

"Freaks"

While examining the film "Freaks" created in 1932, a trapeze artist, Cleopatra, is depicted as joining a carnival sideshows performers group. The artist's objective is seduction as well as the murder of a dwarf in the group to acquire the dwarf's inheritance (YouTube [Video file], n.d.). While Cleopatra's plot fails in the end, she is made into a grotesque with her tongue removed in addition to her hand's flesh being melted. Additionally, Cleopatra's torso is feathered and tarred permanently, and her legs cut off. It is worth mentioning that in the film, the physically impaired individuals have been used and are painted in a favourable light (YouTube [Video file], n.d.). However, these individuals are positioned such that they exhibit their problems as a creation of the society which is most notably staring while judging them. It should be noted that the performance art in this scenario is an exhibition of the body being used to protest as well as challenge the physically impaired face in a society where they are branded as not fitting.

"Pink Flamingos"

Similarly, the "Pink Flamingos" is an exhibition of the social taboo's transgression achieved by the body through performance art. In this film that has been dubbed as among the "filthiest" film to be made, there is an essential use of the human body to portray what has been deemed as social taboos (John, 1972). It is worth noting that in the film, "The Marbles" are running a black-market baby syndicate whose activities include kidnapping young women and having them impregnated by Channing, a manservant. The babies born are sold out to lesbian couples.

Additionally, the money that is realized from the illegal trade is used in financing heroin trade as well as pornography shops (John, 1972). One of the Marbles members, Raymond, is notorious for his activities of exposing himself to women and stealing from them while they are on the run and as such, earning extra monies. However, Raymond gets scared himself when a transgender woman exposes her breasts as well as a penis making Raymond run away instead.

Notably, the film can be described as notoriously exhibiting scenes of cannibalism, sodomy, voyeurism, incest, rape, masturbation, and exhibitionism. The activities in the film are in many societies he...