ABSTRACT
Performance analysis may appear similar to textual and visual analysis: depending on the aim of our analysis, we use various methodological approaches to answer a research question. Performance analysis also is fundamentally different due to the specific medial conditions of performance (the bodily co-presence of actors and spectators) and the special materiality of performance (its transience). These characteristics of performance differentiate its analysis from textual or visual analysis. First, when analyzing a text or image, one is distanced from one’s object of
study. In performance analysis, one becomes a part of the performance processes one intends to analyze. One is immersed and ultimately helps create the performance by one’s own behavior. It is impossible to take the position of an external observer: one’s analysis has to be partial and subjective. Second, when analyzing a text, one can reread or jump between different
sections of a book without changing the materiality of the text. When analyzing an image, one can look at it from different positions-from up close in order to examine the details, or at a distance in order to perceive the image as a whole. In both cases one separates oneself from the object periodically and consults other material; for example, other versions of the text or image, other texts or images, or documents about the objects, their creation, reception, and so forth. One might then re-read the text, or look at the image again with this new knowledge. In performance analysis, that is impossible. If one tries to pause to contemplate a particularly fascinating moment or to begin to analyze it, one will miss what happens next-which may cast a new light on that very moment and have a big impact on the proceedings. Attempts to create a systematic analysis of a performance can only begin once the performance is over and thus removed from one’s immediate sensual perception.
