#whatisperformance

https://www.perbristow.com/performance-what-does-it-mean-to-perform/

In terms about this question, you perform every single day of your life without even doing it. People around the world always interact with different people in most parts of their lives, interaction with friends and family would be different, depending on how you perform in front of them. 

As an example, I would tend to be more spoken and interactive with family as I feel comfortable. However, with my friends I don’t tend to speak out much, just observe and make a comment when I feel the need to.

Most people would say if its still a performance even if there is no audience. Well, I like to think that the whole world is the audience and that just a small glance from people or interaction with family is a performance.

What is Performance?

“Is performance studies a ‘field,’ an ‘area,’ a ‘discipline’? The sidewinder snake moves across the desert floor by contracting and extending itself in a sideways motion. Wherever this beautiful rattlesnake points, it is not going there. Such (in)direction is characteristic of performance studies. This area/field/discipline often plays at what it is not, tricking those who want to fix it, alarming some, amusing others, astounding a few as it side-winds its way across the deserts of academia.”

Site specific is any type of theatrical production designed to be performed at a unique, specifically adapted location other than a normal theatre. It started around the late 1960s and early 1970s and it’s an expanding area in contemporary theatre. Practitioners aren’t so trapped by the four walls of a traditional theatre building; allowing them more freedom. As it is a move away from traditional theatre buildings site specific therefore allows you to emphasise images, stories and events more effectively. As an example, if you were to perform Peter Pan in the woods, it would allow the audience to understand and be emerged into the performance more than if it was in a traditional theatre (natural light from open space, natural sounds and trees - just like real woods).

Site Specific performances can be performed ANYWHERE!

However many would create a performance that can link to their surroundings. 

There are five different types of performing site specific

Experimental 

Interactive

Environmental 

Promenade

In my perspective you perform on a daily basis, even if you aren't an actor/actress. 

(You have different characters, in a sense of behaviour and language.) 

Everyday you interact with different people, you perform differently to those you have known for a long period of time, you have your own way of performing in front of them; you wouldn't act the same way that you do with your friends with your family. As an example, when I am with my family I don't swear and avoid being rude, simply because its just respectful (I know how to act around them in a sense). Whereas, with friends, I will swear, make rude jokes, because I know that I am allowed to act in that way.

Many would say that if you don't have an audience, do you really have a performance? I would say, well of course, you, as a person, are still acting, the world is your audience. An audience doesn't need an expensive seat, to be seen as your audience, your audience could be as simple as someone walking down the street and glancing at you.