Martha Stuckey
Anthropology through Performance in Four Acts:
An Exploration of Gender, Colonialism, and the Arts
My Distinction Proposal reflects my unique and multi-faceted experience as a Sociology/Anthropology major with a concentration in Women’s Studies and a deep investment in Theatre. The pieces in my portfolio demonstrate distinct characteristics and skills within themes that I have focused on during my college career. These themes are gender, colonialism, and the arts. To reflect my eclectic anthropological studies I chose pieces written for Theatre, Theology, and study abroad courses outside of the Sociology/Anthropology major. I have chosen these purposefully to proffer cohesive themes and to showcase an interdisciplinary approach that speaks to my ability to utilize an anthropological framework in my lived experience. I follow this introduction with a short description of where I was as a student at the time I wrote the piece, how it was formative and the lessons were made manifest in later pieces, and how these pieces are continuing to form me.
Colonizing Caliban and Imperializing Ariel: Re-Inventing Shakespeare through Interpretation and Performance – Ariel’s Written Monologue and Performance
In my time at St. Olaf I really “sowed my seeds” in other departments and other interest areas. Most notably, I spend most of my time and creative and social energy in the theatre department. At St. Olaf I have performed in seven main stage shows, three student directed pieces, aided in sound design and implementation in two shows, designed and coordinated publicity for five shows, and am currently directing a one-act. Because of this even the people that I know best in the department oftentimes do not realize I am not a Theatre major.
I sometimes worry that I will seem like a non-committal Sociology/Anthropology major by being so involved in other areas, but I think the nature of the major does not allow for an absence of thought in the social sciences. From the courses I took in the department I derive a way of thinking and seeing the world that seeps into the material of my other classes and every aspect of my life. I cannot approach a play or musical without the consideration of the social context of the playwright or the inherent social justice issues in the text and themes. Performance is an outlet for my creative energies and talents and gives me tools with which I can impart the messages I learn in my work in Sociology/Anthropology courses. The monologue I’ve included from The Tempest, for instance, embodies how my work in anthropological studies came to be physical manifested in my performance.
I cut, researched, and performed this monologue in my Intermediate Acting class with Professor Jeanne Willcoxon during the first semester of my junior year. The assignment was to find and perform a Shakespeare monologue, and I turned to The Tempest because it deals so closely with colonialism which was an apt interest at that point because that same semester I was in “Global Interdependence” with Professor Williamson. In this course, we examined the power relationships that make up our world today, how they were formed, and how they are felt by the colonized/colonizers.
Embodying the colonized who is at times both victim and a reflection of the colonizer made many of the lessons I learned in Tom’s class manifest. In the process of making the piece come alive, the experiences of Jamaica Kincaid (author of “Small World”) became very real. At times Ariel enacts her role as servant and gladly, promising all of her talents to him and asking him to for his employment. She then goes on flaunting the power she has received from him by recounting the violence she enacted upon a foreign ship in Prospero’s name. In a highly distinct moment she fully breaks from feeling powerful from his deigned favors to realizing the awful destruction she has created for others through an artificial power. To enact these two Ariels, one that is powerful and violent in the name of her colonizer and the other made vulnerable by her colonizer, is to enact the dynamic and complex experience of the colonized.
In the process of preparing this piece for auditions and this portfolio I realized some of the other issues inherent in “commodifying” the performance. Am I colonizing the colonized by embodying an experience I cannot (ethically) touch? Am I imbuing the colonized experience with a conditional power because it has to serve some kind of use in the audition room/distinction portfolio? What effect does the format of taping the performance have on the monologue? Is its power and efficacy diminished because it is not taking place in a theatre space? Is the performance less able to impart a message because it is no longer ephemeral but reproducible? A further discussion of theatrical space is forthcoming. Doing a monologue that deals with themes of colonialism taught me complexities surrounding colonization and the theatrical world that I could not have known without performing and preparing it.
The Lost Rhythms of Women in Ghanaian Society and Music – Ethnographic Research of Drumming in Ghana – The Exclusion of Women from Drumming Ensembles as a Reflection of a Patriarchal Culture
In the summer of 2008 I traveled to Ghana and while taking dancing and drumming classes I did ethnographic and ethnomusicological research. I studied why women are excluded from drumming ensembles and how this practice reflects greater societal practices. After taking “Global Interdependence” and feeling prepared in my ethnographical skills Africa seemed like an appropriate place to consider my study in colonialism. When choosing off-campus study opportunities the chance to meld my academic ventures with art in many forms was an attractive option.
In my reflection on the monologue and this piece I realized something about the nature of art and its relationship to anthropology. When I recorded myself doing the monologue I got a lot of reactions from friends commenting on the importance of live theatre. I chalked their concern up to a theatrical pretension which basically separated my experience as a Sociology/Anthropology major and my experience as an actor which was ruining the point of even including it. It made sense not to perform because of scheduling, but there is something lost when I am recorded and not able to create a world to situate the monologue. The relational quality of an actor and an audience is lost when recording a stage performance. This relational quality is very similar to the quality I had to create in writing my ethnography. In my experience, theatrical/musical space has a different and more compelling quality than an artificial set-up with a video camera or a set date and time for an interview.
To write this ethnography I enacted all the familiar methodological steps to write: literature study, participant-observation, focus-groups, interviews, and general immersion. This was my second attempt at an ethnography, so I was still pretty green and unsure of my voice in the process. To make matters more difficult, I had only two months to gather all the information so it stood to be a pretty short exploration of the subject. In general, I was feeling rushed and pressured to set up an artificiality of knowledge and “Anthropology” to get the job done. I had to quickly derive personal connections in an unfamiliar environment.
I found a way to navigate this new terrain by taking advantage of the theatrical/musical space that I, and many of my subjects, were familiar with. There is a performative aspect in ethnographic interviews and exchange which is very similar to the drumming/dancing lessons I was taking with my teachers. So, instead of setting up interviews outside of my lessons we would discuss gender and the arts during my lessons. I found that my “informants” were more forthcoming with information and I was more comfortable and effective in these settings than in “artificial” settings. In reflecting on this experience and again as I was taping my monologue I realized that to be a fully effective Sociology/Anthropology major intent on studying the arts I need to commit to all aspects of these fields to foster my own abilities and methods.
In writing this paper I confronted the ethical issues of how to live and study another culture as an anthropologist as much of the Sociology/Anthropology coursework discusses. I realized that beyond being a performance addict, I am (mostly) unafraid of partiality and social action (i.e. Nancy Scheper-Hughes-esque Anthropology) especially pertaining to Gender Studies. This subject matter became an interest after taking “GLBT Lives and Issues” and “Feminist Theology.” So when it came to choosing a “theme” for my ethnography, gender, the arts and social change became appealing subjects. In my investigation, I found that the musical practice of exclusion was a reflection of larger gendered practices in society.
When I came across the “Women’s Manifesto,” a demand made by Ghanaian women to correct patriarchal patterns, I felt legitimized in my feelings and aspirations. Inevitably, I carry with me gender expectations from the West, but in this manifesto these women hoped for much of the same. The end of my ethnography became a call to action to find methods to include women musically, or at least discover the ways in which they are already involved. My male Ghanaian professors did give pause to my research and acted as a cautionary force in being fair and thoughtful in my analysis but I moved on vigilantly with respect and hope. Although there are things I might have done differently if given more time and maturity, this paper represents what is a very formative experience for me as a Sociology/Anthropology major.
The Pith of the First Lady’s Posterior: Cultural Messages and Michelle Obama’s Bodily Aesthetic – An Analysis of Media Representations of Michelle Obama’s Backside – a Feminist Bodily Analysis
and
Japanese Porn Under Kenyan Skies: How Kant and MacKinnon Use Sex As a Methodological Tool to analyze First World/Third World Relations – An Examination of Japanese Porn filmed in Kenya – Colonialism, Sex, and Gender
My pieces on the fixation on Michelle Obama’s backside and the ethical implications of global porn showcase my ability to incorporate and critique classic and modern theory in my analysis of relevant domestic and global cultural artifacts with an eye to ethics. I include both to show both my ability to scrutinize my own culture and ethically examine other cultures. Both were written for “Feminist Christian Ethics” taught by David Booth. This semester I grew the most in my Women’s Studies concentration because I was taking “Intro to Women’s Studies” and the above Theology class. The assignment was to analyze of a cultural artifact which ranged from the cover of magazines to Beatles song lyrics. I had a very specific choice of what “artifacts” to choose because of my interests and anthropological mind-set.
Choosing to analyze “presidential body theory” became a wonderful opportunity to be “Exotic No More” and make the “familiar strange” in my own culture. Blogs have become very powerful conduits of information, so the ability to analyze images and interpret what cultural messages are inherent in these sources is one that anthropologists must employ. In this paper, I comment on a piece written about Michelle Obama’s and African American women’s backsides and about public notions of what bodies mean and who decides those meanings. It differs from the other pieces in the way that it uses modern theory, Susan Bordo’s Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body to critique this “cultural artifact.”
I feel at this point I found a new way to understand colonization (pertaining to female bodies and not nations) and gender (unspoken and immaterial manifestations of patriarchy). While being told what our bodies mean seems like a despicable enterprise, what these modern theories bring out is that given our current gendered climate women’s bodies will be written on whether we like it or not. In writing this paper I realized ways I could be politically engaged daily by utilizing anthropological analysis, so like many of the papers I write it reads as a call to action, an opportunity for us to take. By claiming agency in using our bodies as political objects we recover them from our “colonizers.” The most political move I could make might be to eat cake unapologetically, happily accepting the fact that I would not resemble the feminine ideal.
The second paper demonstrates my ability to “make the strange familiar” by discussing the morality of performative sexual acts between people of two different nations in a global world, and marks my attempt of how to use the lessons I learned from doing my African ethnography in an analysis of the “exotic.” This critique not only includes the discussion of historical colonization in art which has become characteristic of my anthropological endeavors, but also facts and figures of the two cultures in determining dominant/submissive relationships, and the morality of “humanitarian” work. The theoretical analysis in this paper is distinctive from other pieces: to unpack this situation I use both Catherine MacKinnon’s theory on sexual relations and Kant’s categorical imperative and discuss how they speak to each other and their ability to make a sound moral analysis of the situation.
This piece was formative because its themes of colonization and gender were the most complex than I worked with previously. This paper was the most challenging paper for me to write in my college career because of the way the theories meshed or did not mesh and because of the many layers of power between genders and nations. Who is the dominant/submissive character in a pornographic film when the woman is monetarily wealthier though she is being violently abused? Even though a man is enacting the violence against the women, what does it mean that he is wearing a mask and being objectified as an African archetype? I feel it is a definite indicator of my progress as a Sociology/Anthropology major in dealing with global cultures, gender, and colonialism.
All in all, these pieces reflect my formation into an Anthropological thinker with interests in gender, colonialism, and the arts. I hope that Theatre, Academia, and Ethnography will be a part of my future in similar as well as in new and even more multi-faceted ways. There are many ways this may become manifest. I could continue an academic career studying the relationship of Art to Anthropology. Perhaps I may write an ethnography in the future expanding on what I researched in Ghana. I may create Theatre that includes Anthropological analysis or methods in productions. In my progression from performing culturally sensitive theatre endeavors to writing an analysis of gender, and colonialism using complex modern and classical theories I have found a voice that is distinct and effective that I will carry into my future.
Eugenio Barba, founder of Theatre of Anthropology writes:
“Among the various forms of ethnocentrism which veil our vision is one which does not depend on geographical and cultural location but rather on the roles created by the theatrical relationship. It is that ethnocentrism which only considers the theatre from the point of view of the spectator and neglects the entire question of the other side: the ensemble, the network of relationships, knowledge and ways of thinking – of which the performance is the fruit”
(Barba, 1990).
Many times I unknowingly separate my work in the Theatre from my work in my major. I sheepishly mention performance dates in class or refer to my major in the Theatre Department as “my real major” without going into detail about what I’m learning. But in reality, my connection with the arts and my ability to respond to other actors (on stage or not) greatly informs my anthropological abilities. It is “ethnocentric” to see two separate performances in Theatre and Anthropology and not consider the way they are an “ensemble” and a “network of relationships.” Theatre is an entrance point for gender analysis, a way to create a deeper understanding of colonialism, and a method for ethnographic research. Anthropology is the spark that informs character work, creates my relationship to the audience through an understanding of subject matter, and a tool for the creation of dynamic productions. So far these plot markers have driven my script and will continue to do so with the methods I have gained from my experience at St. Olaf.
