The Power of Performance: Actors, Audiences and Observers of Cultural Performances in India

The volume aims at examining the transformative power of performances from three perspectives: that of the performer, of the audience and of the observer.  In part I, different rituals are studied from the perspective of the performers, their physical enactment and their techniques of empowering a performance and creating presence.  What makes their performance meaningful, true, efficient? How do they empower a performance? Is it words, action, charisma, or merging the individual personality with the enacted character? The papers in part II switch over to the perspective of the audience.  The meaning and the impact of power cannot be derived from the actor alone.  The decision about the authenticity of a performance or about its failure is to a large extent taken by the audience.  The contributions to part II show that there might be an objective meaning in a performance, but it is also subjectively made by each member of the audience.  In part III, problems of cultural translation and representation are dealt with from the perspective of the outside observer.  Assuming that actors, participants and audience understand a performance in accordance with their respective cultural and personal background, it becomes essential to consider that not observing and describing, but acting oneself is the way to obtain new insights into how the power of performance is obtained.  This has resulted in another approach: observers learning to be performers themselves.  Three scholars-cum-performers provide new insights into what exactly empowers a performance, what it means to give up one’s own individual personality, what it means to taste emotions and make the audience taste them as well.