Midterm Study Sheet 2017 TO BE WRITTEN

For the exam, you will be asked to write three short essays. The essays questions will be chosen from among the following questions – so study them all!  Some of the questions may seem to overlap, but be prepared for each. In class, there will be one quick short answer test with about 10 questions in addition to the essays. You should spend about 10-15 minutes on the single sheet short answer test and that will leave you about 20-25 minutes for each short essay. Exam books will be passed out for you to write in. You are allowed one 8x10 page with writing on one side only to accompany you to class. No computers or cell phones are allowed. The exam will be proctored by the Teaching Assistant, Yeong Ran Kim.


1.What does anthropologist Gregory Bateson mean when he writes: “The playful nip denotes the bite, but does not denote that which would be denoted by the bite”? As discussed in Schechner’s Introduction to Performance Studies, Bateson argues that “metacommunication” is necessary to this denotation. Why? Offer an example of at least one way in which theatre, ritual, or performance behavior can be said to employ or even signal metacommunication.


2. The following three questions under number 2 are versions of one question.



2a. What follows is an encapsulation of Sir James Frazer’s Year God or Year Spirit hypothesis about the formation of a prehistoric “Primal Ritual” (as discussed in class lecture):

Through often repeated communal and mimetic dance-ritual, the tribes did everything they could to attract new life which they longed to receive. As soon as the spring appeared in nature the entire community hurried to welcome it and strengthen its power by an elaborate representation of its victory over winter and summer. The battle between winter and summer is of primary importance in the development of primitive religion as well as of the theater. Frazer’s numerous examples demonstrate how, through annual repetition of these rites, the idea of a definite seasonal change retires to the background and winter-in-general gradually opposes summer-in-general, death opposes life. From this concept arose the performance of the year-king or year-priest, known over the whole world, who overcomes death to bring life. With the approach of winter the year-king himself turns into the demon of death and must perish in a duel with the champion or king of the next year for life to spring forth anew (Hunningher, The Origin of the Theater, 17-18).

Frazer’s Year God Hypothesis was adopted by the Cambridge anthropologists and employed in theories of how early theater grew out of a “Primal Ritual” to become tragedy (winter) and comedy (summer). Discuss at least one of the problems in focusing the origin of theater on a “primal ritual” (note that it is not enough to simply say that in some area climates have no seasons). Does Roy Rappaport’s notion of “ecological ritual” (used by Schechner) contrast with Frazer’s theory? What is “ecological ritual” and how does it compare or contrast to Frazer?



2b. Richard Schechner discusses Rappaport’s notion of “ecological ritual” in Performance Theory. To what does this phrase refer? Building on the notion of ecological ritual, Schechner claims that “theatres everywhere are scenographic models of sociometric process”? What does this mean? Chose an example from material we have studied to date to help explain this concept.



2c. In Performance Theory, Richard Schechner offers a theory suggesting that the root of theatrical behavior (or “performances”) are early “ecological rituals” among nomadic hunters and gatherers. He cites Roy A. Rappaport’s view that ritual performance “operates as a regulating mechanism in a system” (Schechner 157). How can performance function as a “regulating mechanism” between groups – especially those who might be, in Schechner’s terms, “ambivalently collaborative and hostile”? Suggest some ways in which Greek theater might be discussed as “ecological”? Or, can you use Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman as exemplary in any way of “ecological ritual”? Or, Plautus’s The Captives? 



3.  Give at least one reason why, according to Geertz,  many Balinese men attend cockfights. Or, if you prefer, illuminate one important thing that occurs at a Balinese cockfight. Then, be able to expand the reason or event you choose into a brief explication of what you take to be Geertz’s major point about culture and performance in his essay “Notes on the Balinese Cockfight” from his book The Interpretation of Cultures.

4. One theory concerning the prehistoric origins of ritual is that ritual grew up out of “sympathetic magic.” What is sympathetic magic? If performance (at its prehistoric roots) was designed to effect an outcome, select a play or a performance practice we have discussed this term and suggest the way in which it might have been meant to effect an outcome (remember, this is not a question about the “outcome” of a story told by the play, but a question about effect of the drama beyond the play itself -- an effect either on the audience or on some other aspect of the world in which the play or practice is performed).

5. Why does Leprohon have so much trouble with the question of whether or not Triumph of Horus  can be considered theatre? Identify at least two stumbling blocks for him. Do you agree of disagree? That is, do you have any trouble identifying Triumph of Horus as theatre? Say why. 

6. How can The Triumph of Horus be seen to be "chiasmatic." Can you relate this to any other play we have read this semester so far? Say how, if so. 



7. Discuss some ways in which theatre as it developed in Greece between 600 and 408 (The Bacchae) BCE might be called a scenographic model of sociometric process. Give some examples of the ways in which specific practices or architectures of enactment in ancient Greek theatre might be related to broader social  processes.



8. Moderns, in whose world art, religion, humor and politics are largely separate activities, find it hard to grasp the different situation of a 5th-century Athens where such spheres were not so distinct. In ancient Greece, festival and state were inseparable in that they were included in one another. The connection between festival and state was fundamental to an emerging democracy -- where not only leaders but the gods themselves would come under the scrutiny of the people. Since the “right to speak freely” was a proud hallmark of Athenian democracy, can we see comedy and tragedy as a demonstration of that right? Can you take any one of the three Greek plays we read and discuss it as an example of “free speech”? Or, use a play to discuss both the emergence of free speech and the limits of free speech? For example, how can Thesmaphorizusae be seen as exercising the right to free speech, as discussed above? How can it, conversely, be seen as reinstating the status quo where the speech is free for only certain Athenians? In answering this, take into account not only the play, but the mode of production in its time.



9.  In what ways do Plato and Aristotle agree? In what specific ways do they disagree?  With which argument do you most agree and why?  If you have time, you can also write about how the distinction between Plato and Aristotle’s thoughts on mimesis might be used to explain the similarities between St Augustine and Tertullian.
 
10. Why is “the body” such an important category for Paul Connerton in his discussion of how societies remember? Relatedly, why is “the body” such an important category for Eugenio Barba in Theatre Anthropology? Can you think of a way to connect these two books?  To answer this question may involve original thought as we may not cover this territory in class. So: go for it!

11. What sense is predominant in Plato? Compare and contrast this sense in Plato's "Simile of the Cave" and the way the sense manifests in Euripides The Bacchae. 

12. Be able to discuss the development of theater in Rome relative to the Roman Empire. Write a short essay that touches on at least three of the questions in this paragraph: Roman performance is often described as variety theatre. Why? What are some reasons that spectacle should be such a lavish and important form in Rome? How did the physical architecture and placement of the theater change from Greek design to Roman design and what significance did those changes have, especially in terms of vision and the relation between the play and everyday life? What was the place of the gods in Roman theatre and how was this different from Greece? 


13. What is the importance of silence in Odai Johnson's reading of  Roman Comedy? How does he relate this to the curse tablets? What is the most significant aspect of Johnson's essay for you?  

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