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Art, performing

DOI
10.4324/9780415249126-M034-1
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DOI: 10.4324/9780415249126-M034-1
Version: v1,  Published online: 1998
Retrieved March 29, 2024, from https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/art-performing/v-1

5. Performance in the absence of works

So far I have concentrated on the connection between performances and art works, but performances might take place in the absence of works, as is sometimes the case with street theatre. Dancers might dance without making an instance of any work, or thespians might act without performing a play or making a film. Where there is no work to be followed, the content of the performance is improvised. While there is much to appreciate that is common to both improvised performances and performances of works, there also are differences to be recognized, as Philip Alperson has noted (1984). Obviously one cannot criticize free improvisers for lack of faithfulness to artists’ specifications, since they follow none. (There can be mistakes in improvisation, however, when, for example, conventions of the adopted style are violated.) Spontaneity and inventiveness are valued in improvisation; meanwhile, some looseness of structure and lack of polish are less blameworthy in an improvised performance than in one in which such factors are produced by the artist or result after hours of rehearsal. And where there is common ground for appreciation the basis for evaluations can differ. Both improvisations and works for performance might be enjoyed for their narrative or formal structures, inner harmony or overall beauty, but it is relevant that, in the case of the former, responsibility for the achievement lies solely with the performers, who act freely and do so at the moment of performance.

Why not say that improvisation results in a work created by someone who acts both as performer and artist, even if the piece that is the outcome is not itself for performance? The difference between improvisation and the creation of a work through performance does not depend on the number of instances, because an improvisation might be taped and, thereby, duplicated, just as a film might have many prints. The results of improvisation are not more ephemeral in principle than are works created with the help of performers. The basis for the distinction, I suggest, is a matter of convention – we talk of films as works, yet we do not describe sessions of free improvisation by this term. This way of talking implicitly acknowledges differences in the goals of improvising and of creating permanent works through performance.

Why not allow that improvisation results in a model of a work for performance? The answer is as before: improvisation is not conventionally approached as providing a work recipe for others to realize through emulation. An artist might recall and notate a piece that was originally improvised, as J.S. Bach is thought to have done with his Musical Offering, but this shows not that all acts of improvisation simultaneously involve the creation of works for performance but only that a work for performance might be composed through improvisation. It matters that the artist supplies a notation or specifies that the original improvisation be taken as a model performance, for without such indications there is no warrant for regarding the result as the creation or performance of a work.

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Citing this article:
Davies, Stephen. Performance in the absence of works. Art, performing, 1998, doi:10.4324/9780415249126-M034-1. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Taylor and Francis, https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/art-performing/v-1/sections/performance-in-the-absence-of-works.
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