Ethnography as a Tool in Creative Performance Practice.

Ethnography and performance are two separate realms of thought which both place culture and experience at the centre of their methods, methodologies and outcomes. This essay aims to explore ethnographic methods as tools in the process of creative performance practice. Using the lens of performance with consideration to practices which are constructed through ethnographic methods, I discuss Anna Deveare Smiths Fires in the Mirror (1993), Tami Sprys Skins: A Daughters Reconstruction of Cancer (2004) and Mike Pearsons Bubbling Tom (2000). Through the analysis of these performances I aim to highlight ethnographic research and the relationship it has to creative performance practice. Throughout this essay I will further consider the theoretical underpinning of Norman Denzin (2007, 2003), Dwight Conquergood (1982,1991, 1992, 1998, 2002) and Tami Spry (2011, 2004) and how their methods and discourses function alongside ethnography and creative performance practice. Although these theoretical discourses are far apart, in that Denzin and Conquergood both discuss ethnographic practices and Spry is a performer/autoethnographer, I seek to explain the links and the ruptures between both performance and ethnography. I will structure these arguments by firstly discussing performance with reference to Richard Schechner (1988, 2001) and secondly shifting this discussion into the ethnographic paradigm. Complimenting this paradigm shift are discussions on authenticity, representation, re-representation, ethics, memory and experience and how these provide conflict when performance and ethnography are considered alongside one another. Ethnography is a social scientific research method which can provide a platform for collating research for the use in creative performance practice. As a theatrical based performance method, ethnographic research is often, in turn, dissected, played with, structured and re-structured in order to generate performance material. This material is then shared, often in a live context, in order to provoke a shared cultural experience. Ethnography proves an interesting method when considered alongside performance practice; they are both closely related to cultural experience and to borrow Michael De Certeaus (1984) phrasing The Practice of Everyday Life. Performance as an artistic practice, but also as a more generic terminology, routes itself in the everydayness of life as we assume that art is an imitation of life.
1 Kirsty Shipley, MA Performance.

(Schechner: 1988: 28) This knowledge of art, drawn from Plato, appears to compliment ethnography, they both situate themselves in similar territory. Both ethnography and performance methodologies and the methods associated with the pair are closely routed in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. (Goffman: 1959) Introducing Performance Performance is an overarching terminology broadly defined by many discourses. I have chosen to discuss the theories developed by Richard Schechner (1988, 2001) because his approach includes a broad spectrum which includes everyday practices right through to theatre. Schechners discussions also situate performance within the realm of everyday life and culture. Schechner uses the diagram of a fan (1988: ii, 2001: 11) as a model for discussing the umbrella term of performance studies and its relationship to the social sciences. Schechners discussions, particularly in his book Performance Theory (1988) are centred on this fan model. He interprets performance as constructed from a broad range of activities of man (2001: 10) from every day rituals within culture and society through to art. Listing the umbrella of meaning he relates to performance Schechner states Performance is an inclusive term. Theatre is only one note on a continuum that reached from the ritualizations of animals (including humans) through performances in everyday life greetings, displays of emotion, family scenes, professional roles and so on through to play, sports, theatre, dance, ceremonies, rites and performance of great magnitude. (Schechner: 1988, 2003:1)

Performance engulfs a wide spectrum and it is through the wide spectrum that cross-overs into the social sciences occur. Drawing from Plato he later adds art is an imitation of life. (Schechner: 1988: 28) In this sense Ethnography and performance as a joint methodology appear well suited when we consider their relationships to culture. They both separately engage in experiences and representations of everyday life; ethnography as a process for collating knowledge concerned with every day experiences and performance as a platform for re-presenting that oral interpretation. They both seek to share knowledge and experiences across cultural borders in order to provoke social recognition and shared understandings. Also at the centre of Schechners notions are discussions on performance as a repeated ritual practice, an
2 Kirsty Shipley, MA Performance.

everyday occurrence which is also a daily ritual and how these notions focus on a way of engaging with the world we live in. The blending of social scientific research and performance research can be articulated through a shift labelled as the performative turn (Goffman: 1959: Turner: 1985 )The performative turn seeks to explain the paradigm shift between the social sciences, anthropology and arts practices. The performative turn shifts the meaning of performance into a broader spectrum which engulfs everyday practice, society and culture. Specifically relevant here is Victor Turner (1985) who sought to mould the paradigms by coining the term homo performans to highlight the significance of everyday behaviour and its resemblance to performance practice. Homo performans a play on the term homo sapien, places human actions and interactions at the centre of performance. Additionally Goffman in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959) defines performance as all activity of an individual which occurs during a period marked by continuous presence before a particular set of observers and which has some influence on the observers. (Goffman: 1959: 22) Both performance and ethnography privilege the body as a site of knowing. (Conquergood:1991: 180) They both seek to represent life through their engagements with people in order to transfer social and cultural knowledge across borders. As methods the pair situate the body at the route of epistemologies. The body is not only the source of knowledge but also the source of knowledge transference across bodies. We know the world through our experiences of it and out literal contact of body with environment is through to provide a privileged mode of knowledge (and of course different bodies produce different knowledges). (Heddon: 2008: 105) As individuals our knowledges differ and are dependent upon our own individual engagement and interactions with everyday experiences. Performance and ethnography seek to share these privileged modes of knowledge in order to sustain a wider sociocultural understanding of the world in which we live.

3 Kirsty Shipley, MA Performance.

Introducing Ethnography. Ethnography is a qualitative research method situated in the realm of the social sciences. As a method ethnography seeks to chip into sociocultural realities and experiences in order to gain and share knowledge and understanding. The boundaries of the normative distanced and detached scientific researcher are blurred through ethnographic methods. In comparison ethnography usually requires the researcher to immerse themselves within culture and experience in order to gain an insight into the participants day to day life. Field research can often last years as ethnographers seek to become embedded within a culture and environment that is often unfamiliar to them. Through field research, ethnographers seek to gain a fuller understanding of the culture in order to share knowledge across bodies and borders. Field research often takes the form of interviews, observations and personal narratives as Goodall (2000) describes in his steps for Writing the New Ethnography Hanging out with others in their local contexts, engaging in verbal exchanges with them, sharing and learning about their everyday practices, digging back into our own- and their own- memories for likely antecedents to current practices, jotting down notes or tape recording interviews when possible returning to our offices/homes/rented rooms to write our representations of field experiences, engaging in armchair, after the fact-self-reflection, analysis and editing into a narrative. (Goodall: 2000: 84-85) Goodalls steps discuss a process for practicing ethnography and constructing and reconstructing ethnographically based writing. As a methodology, Goodalls steps can provide a starting point for developing a theatrical based performance which engulfs ethnographic research, personal experiences and the experiences of others. Goodall advises a documented interview/observational process, with the input of personal narrative, in order to develop ethnographic writing. He also suggests several forms that ethnographic research might adhere to in relation to the documentation of the process, such as photographic, video and tape documentation. When we consider these ethnographic steps in line with performance the steps would continue to be added to as the research shifts into the creative realm. These extra steps could include the development of a related scenography, maps and action development amongst others. What I may add however that is the steps, when we shift ethnography over into the performance paradigm, are partaken in no particular order.

4 Kirsty Shipley, MA Performance.

Dwight Conquergoods discourse additionally played a vital part in constructing performance theories and ethnographic practices as joint a methodology. In his discussions on Rethinking Ethnography (1991) Conquergood addresses five key areas of ethnography as it shifts from the written text into the performance paradigm Performance and cultural process, performance and ethnographic praxis, performance and hermeneutics, performance and scholarly representation and the politics of performance (190). Interestingly Conquergood makes a differentiation between performance and cultural process, and performance and ethnography. Through his questioning of performance and its links to ethnography Conquergood raises many questions such as What are the differences between reading an analysis of fieldwork data, and hearing the voices from the field interpretively filtered through the voice of the researcher? and How does thinking about fieldwork as performance differ from thinking about fieldwork as the collection of data? (Conquergood: 1991: 190) These are questions I aim to explore through my discussion on the performance and ethnography as joint methodology. The Umbrella of Ethnographies There are many subgenres of ethnographic practice that can also be related to performance. The categories do not fit into neat boxes. Richardson (2000) discusses the term creative analytical practices to describe the blur of narrative forms that ethnographic practices and documentation replicate. performance autoethnography, short stories, conversations, fiction, creative nonfiction, photographic essays, personal narratives of the self, writing stories, self stories, fragmented or layered texts, critical autobiography, memoirs, personal histories, cultural criticism, coconstructed performance narratives and performance writing. (Quoted in Denzin: 2003: 14) Not only are these effective tools for ethnographic practice they are also provide suitable points of reference for developing performance material too and this emphasises the cross-overs between the two methodologies. Ethnographic subgenres are not easily definable into categories and as a performance ethnographer my practice appeals to several of the subgenres of ethnographic practice. (narrative ethnography, performance ethnography, critical ethnography, autoethnography, accidental ethnography to name but a few) Of particular relevance to this discussion are autoethnography, verbatim and performance ethnography. These many genres of ethnographic research problematize this study
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somewhat. As a performance ethnographer I borrow from many of the ethnographic subgenres in the creation of theatrical based performance. This is not particularly problematic to performance but

highlights the versatility of ethnography and its umbrella of related practices. I am now going to briefly discuss these subgenres of ethnographic research. I will focus on the elements central to each subgenre whilst using performance examples to highlight how ethnographic methodologies are transferred into the performance paradigm.

Verbatim, Ethnography, Performance. Verbatim, is used to describe something which represents word for word. It is a tool. Although not entirely an ethnographic method verbatim is often discussed alongside ethnographic research. It can also be used as a performance vehicle in order to transfer field research into a like for like performance narrative. Anna Deveara Smith, an actress, performer and ethnographer, creates one woman shows based upon ethnographic field research in order to focus on the conflicts across cultural borders. In her series of performances entitled Fires in the Mirror (1993) Smith uses interview techniques in order to embody twent- six different characters, from varying backgrounds, regarding their involvements with the Crown Heights riots in Brooklyn. The Crown Heights riots occurred in 1991 when a young black Guyanese boy was fatally hit by a car. The scenes escalated and a young Orthodox Jew was stabbed hours later. These incidents triggered a riot which lasted three days. Smith, in the aftermath, then used an ethnographic method to interview a mix of people, from varying backgrounds, such as a poet, teacher, physicist and schoolgirl, in order to represent the contrasting truths of cultural conflict in a theatrically based performance. Smith says of her work What most influences [me]ishow an interview text works as a physical, audible, performable vehicle. Words are not an end in themselves. They are means to evoking the character of the person who spoke them. (Smith: 1992: 1994: quoted in Denzin: 2003:77) Smith embodies the characters of her research participants, using props as a visual aid to differentiate between the characters. She also uses verbatim interview texts from her field participant research. Smith
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characterises the multiple narratives as she seeks to represent her interviewees and the differing versions of the riots. Verbatim, as an ethnographic performative research method, relies heavily on documentation. Referring back to Goodalls (2000) steps, I would consider video and tape documentation of particular importance when using verbatim techniques. Smiths study of this documentation will have been an extensive process in order for her to embody the characters (mimic their body language, gestures and voice) she portrays through the verbatim interview texts. Smiths performance highlights the varying opinions based upon the same events and emphasises the many versions of event that exist. This is not to say that one version is more truthful than the other, all the versions Smith sustains in her performance are just as truthful as the next. They are all based on individual experiences and we are not forgetting that each individuals experience differs. Autoethnographic Performance. Autoethnography, as a methodology, moulds together autobiographical and ethnographical research. Unlike ethnographic methodologies, autoethnography primarily focuses on a study of the self. Ellis defines autoethnography as research, writing and method that connect the autobiographical to the cultural and social (and) claims the conventions of literary writing. (Ellis: 2004: xx) In autoethnography it is the self that is placed at the route of epistemologies, the self is the main subject of the research. It is worth noting Tami Spry as an autoethnographic performance practitioner. Spry places herself and her self-experiences at the centre of her performance practice, autoethnographic writing and research. Sprys performance Skins: A Daughters (re) construction of Cancer (2004) offers a first-hand experiential performance constructed from the loss of her mother to ovarian cancer seven years prior. Her journey from taking her mother to the hospital, to returning home after the death and to spiral of grief she entered afterwards are all evident in her performance. Spry embodies personas of herself, herself as daughter, her mother and a saleswoman in order to perform her experiences. Discussing her process and the outcomes of the performance Spry highlights personal reasons for making the performance, it helped her discuss the
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grief that she had kept bottled up for so long. Autoethnographic outcomes are often critiqued for being too self-indulgent, as a focus on the self. The product or in this case the performance often reflects a singular autobiographical take on experience and therefore is viewed as leaving little room for spectators to situate themselves within the work in relation to their own experiences. However Spry elaborates on the reactions of the spectators who witnessed her theatrical performance. Following this performance, audience members were anxious to tell me about their own experiences with family members, grief, and healing. Notice, rather than telling me how much the liked the performance, the performance generated meaning, ideas, memory in their own lives that they wanted to share. (Spry: 2011: 49) Rather than appear to be self-indulgent, the performance engages spectators and stimulates them to discuss their own losses and grief as they relate in differing ways to Sprys autoethnographic performance. The performance generates an empathetic sharing as spectators are reminded of the similar experiences situated in their own lives. It is an experience that triggers spectators to reflect upon their own experiences in and through everyday life. Speaking of such performance Pearson and Shanks add What such work often elicits is other stories, and stories about stories. It catalyses personal reflection and the desire on the part of the listener to reveal her own experiences. It works with memory: raking up old ones, stimulating new ones. (Pearson & Shanks: 2001: 60) Autoethnography then seeks to discuss elements of self which appeal to a wider shared cultural understanding. Through autoethnography we recognise that self-experiences are related to the experiences of others and a shared knowledge of experience can be gained through the articulation of these experiences through a performance context. As Olorisa Omi O. Olomo suggests Performance and ethnography meaningfully come together as performance ethnography which is ethnographic research embodied by the ethnographer, the fieldwork, community, an audience or any combination of these participants. Performance ethnography rests on the idea that bodies harbour knowledge about culture and that performance allows for the exchange of that knowledge across bodies. (Quoted in Madison & Hamera: 2003: 339) Sharing Experience Across Borders It is important for ethnographic performance to evoke the viewer into gaining an insight into selfexperience and other cultures. The performed ethnography seeks to have the ability to resonate on a personal level across cultural borders. Ethnography and performance, when situated together, seek to
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recreate cultural forms in order for the spectators to reflect upon their own experiences of the world. Performance and ethnography offer a coevalness (Conquergood: 2002), the experiences are shared with an audience in the same space and at the same time. Coupling ethnography and performance may allow spectators to develop a heightened sensitivity to their own culture or alternative cultures that they would otherwise be othered from. traveling to someones world is a way of identifying with themwe can understand what it is like to be them and what it is to be ourselves in their eyes. (Lugones: 1994: 637 in Madison: 2012: 125) The theatrical based performer becomes the mediator in sharing the ethnographic research across borders and this of course raises ethical concerns which I will discuss later on in the body of this essay. Mike Pearsons performance Bubbling Tom (2000) takes place in a village in Lincolnshire, where he grew up. The site-specific performance takes the audience on a tour of Hibaldstow as Pearson recalls specific memories he has relating to childhood haunts. Of course this work resonates on a cultural level; people who have also grown up under similar circumstances in the area are familiar with the experiences, references and memories that Pearson relates to. The memories Pearson shares provoke the viewers to develop their own versions of the tour, associating the place to self. Spectators can recognise elements of the self in Pearsons weaving of history, geography, genealogy, memoir and autobiography and including anecdotes, travellers tales, poetry, forensic data, quotations, lies, jokes, improvised asides, physical re-enactments, impersonations and intimate reflections. (Pearson: 2000: 175-176) Pearson discovered, (within the performance, rather that afterwards) other peoples vignettes, anecdotes and memoirs in relation to the village of Hibaldstow, Lincolnshire. He suggests that this was made possible by the site-specifity of the work outside the confines of a normative theatrical space. The spectators continually added more layers to the performance which Pearson did not anticipate happening in the live structure of events. Spectators will also continue to add layers to the event as they continue to discuss the performance years after the live guided tour. The performance Bubbling Tom can be related to by people who have been brought up in the surroundings, they may have shared similar experiences to the ones highlighted in the performance, or may have their own stories to tell in regards to the place.
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Deidre Heddon, a performer and academic, but also an outsider related to the documentation of the performance Bubbling Tom. By outsider I mean Heddon was neither brought up in the surrounding areas, she did not witness Pearsons live performance and she has no relationship with the space of Hibalstow. Heddon experienced the performance event of Bubbling Tom through the documentation of the performance. In her article Performing the Archive: Following the Footsteps (2002) Heddon seeks to recreate Pearsons performance, exactly two years after the initial event, through her own re-interpretation of the performance. She suggests that by doing so she is adding yet another creative interpretive process to the existing layers of Pearsons performance. In the re-documentation of the event Heddon outlines her methods as a starting point for re-interpreting the performance. She uses an ethnographic approach, in the first step, as she seeks to meet and interview spectators who witnessed Pearsons event. In her ethnographic research she includes people who are from the village and people who are not from the village in order to gain a varied response for her research. As Heddon suggests this activity will not only document what was spoken, but will also document the process of forgetting, a testimony to the transitory nature of performance. (Heddon: 2002) Additionally she interviews Pearson himself. She also adopts, from ethnography, an observational stance as she listens and observes happenings and goings on around the village. Heddon attempts to place herself in the shoes of both Mike Pearson and the witnesses to Pearsons performance, as well as considering her own possible experiences which may occur if she returned to her own place of upbringing. Heddons methodology for re-creating and re-documenting Pearsons performance results in another set of layers and translations which can be added to the initial event. Additionally Heddon also proves that although she was not present at the original performance, nor did she initially have a relationship with the space, it is possible to relate her experiences of childhood in a re-writing of the space. She documents quite a few of his reminiscences were mine (Heddon: 2002). Heddon then goes on to discuss how her own tour around Pearsons village evoked the telling of her own memories, both past and present. On the map, I marked the wrong wall, remembering my own wall. The two women who brought the school offer Rachel and me a guided tour. I imagine my small desk, the egg-timer round Miss Riddles neck, Hiawatha films, tales of Tarantulas (Heddon: 2002)

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Revisiting Pearsons childhood haunts triggered Heddons own reflections of similar places which she relates to Pearsons performance route in Hibaldstow. In her documentation, which re-documents Pearsons performance, Heddon uses varying fonts. Although she doesnt state her reasons for this I think the varying font sizes seek to portray all the layers of memory which have been fragmented and layered in order to re-document the performance. Heddon goes on to conclude Pearsons guided tour was remembered, written over, added to, forgotten, extended, transformed, recontextualized, reinvented, as space and place were shared, contested, and, for the outsider borrowedPearson discovered, our interactions with place (alongside our various experiences of childhood) are often not as individual as we might imagine. (Heddon: 2002) Although we consider our personal experiences to be individual Heddon suggests that people have similar experiences which differ slightly. The discussion and sharing of our experiences, therefore, can trigger the often similar experiences of others. The sharing of stories also provokes the listener/ viewer/ spectator to divulge their own memories and experiences.

Layers of representation and re-representation Performance ethnography is defined by Bryant as the staged re-enactment of ethnographically derived notes. (in Denzin & Lincoln: 2005: 411) Bryant suggests a collation of ethnographically derived research which is then, often, reconstructed for the purpose of a performance narrative. As a method both ethnography and performance are heavily based upon representation and re-representation contributing toward many layers of translations. First and foremost experience is relayed on behalf of the field research participant as they represent their experiences through a cultural exchange between themselves and the ethnographer. This experience is then re-represented by the ethnographer for the purpose of ethnographically derived research and then re-constructed into a performance narrative. We represent people, places, cultures through writing (this way we represent) illustrates values, beliefs, biases and perspectives held by the writer. (Spry: 2011: 60) Ethnographers hold the responsibility of representing this research, representing the culture and representing the participants. Maguire and Mohtar (1994) highlight this representation when discussing
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their ethnographically derived work with sufferers of domestic violence and their reconstructions of those narratives based upon the interviews of women in those circumstances. They say no matter how much we privilege the voices of the centre, our voices asked the questions, our pens cut the transcripts and our imaginations created the structure for their expressions (1994: 248) As we can see the performance ethnographer holds the responsibility to represent the bodies of knowledge that informed the research and often the accuracy of this representation is placed into question because of this re-representation. The ethnographic research has already been subject to layers of interpretations and the performance ethnographers interpretation of the field research participants character adds another layer to these multiple interpretations. Again this interpretation can raise ethical concerns and I aim to discuss these later on in the essay. Furthermore the performance, in the theatrical sense of the term, adds another layer to the translation. The validity of ethnographic research is placed into question due to the multiple layers of translations it bases itself upon and of course with layers of translations come re-representations. Tami Spry elaborates further on the complexities ethnography and performances are continually faced with. Spry likens ethnographic performance practice and the research it concerns itself with to the multiple transferences of the somatic into the semantic. Speaking particularly about autoethnography she adds that it allows us to move deeper into the body-language-body-language praxis. (Spry: 2011: 183) The somatic knowledge, also known as the experience of the body, is transferred through language or semantics. Applying this knowledge to ethnographic performance in simplistic terms; the somatic is the original experience of the interviewee, the actual happening. The experience is then transferred into a story of an experience as it is relayed onto the ethnographer via vis a vis interaction thus returning the research back to the semantic. This transference of experience from participant to ethnographer can also be described as a performance in its own right as Langellier and Peterson elaborate the telling of the story is a performance. As a human communication practice, performing narrative combines the performative doing of storytelling with what is done in the performance of a story. (Langellier and Peterson: 2004)

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Thirdly the experience is reinterpreted by the ethnographer in the context of language (semantic) and further reinterpreted into a theatrical performance context which returns the area of research back to the somatic. The layers of translations could also continue to be added to when we consider the spectators of the performance event, their reinterpretations and the documentation of the event. Pollock adds liveness means articulating the multiple layers of translations and draft that make up (for) memory. (Pollock: 2005: 11) Of course memory also adds another layer of questionability to the validity of ethnographic research and performance and I aim to return to this later on. Despite the focus on the layers and layers of translations that both ethnography and performance base themselves upon it is interesting to note here the differences in performance ethnography and scientific research outcomes. Scientific research often anchors itself in a repeatable research experiment to prove the outcomes. On the other hand ethnographic research is unrepeatable as a research experiment. The ethnographic experience of the field and the conducting of research is a difficult method to repeat with the same or even similar outcomes. Once complete the field research can of course be repeated but it is more than likely that the outcomes of the ethnographic research will be different in comparison to the first study. This unrepeatable element of ethnography can also be considered alongside performance.

Performance discourse, particularly that of Peggy Phelan, (1993) argues that live theatrical based performance changes and differs each time it is re-performed. When we consider the pair as unrepeatable experiences we meet a common ground associated with both of the methodologies, ethnography in its field research and performance in a live context. The field research is unrepeatable as is the performance to a certain extent. The rift between performance practice and ethnographic practice lies in the separate methods the two have in representing outcomes of research. Performance ethnography seeks to express elements of research that are difficult to express through ethnographic written discourses. I would like to suggest that these elements include the application of emotions, multi-sensory experiences and visual aesthetics. Conquergood discusses performance as a representation of ethnography and the importance of these performance elements when he says
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Symbols instill beliefs and shape attitudes that underpin social structures. The binding force of culture, by and large, is a web of symbols that enables people to control and make sense out of experience in patterns waysimages and symbolic representations drive public policy. (Conquergood: 1998: 11) Interestingly, on the other hand, ethnographic research is often represented through discourse. Ethnography as a text based method often only hints toward elements that are considered vital to theatrical performance such as aesthetics and visual scenography. Primarily ethnography is considered a written method. Its focuses lie in field research and in the outcome, which normatively takes the form of written text and thus disregards visual imagery. Peggy Phelan suggests that writing for performance is an inquiry into the limits and possibilities of the intersections between speech and writing. (Phelan: 1998: 13: quoted in Denzin: 2003: 94) Performance, then, exists in the liminal space between speech and writing; it is neither entirely speech nor entirely written text. Performance seeks to find the common ground between the two through its collation of ethnographic based research, writing and then live theatrically based performance. This also brings me back to Conquergoods (1991) five areas of performance studies in which he raises questions relating to performance and ethnographic field research. Conquergood questions the differences between reading an analysis of fieldwork data, and hearing the voices from the field interpretively filtered through the voice of the researcher? (1991: 190) I propose that the vocalised research offers a shared coevalness (Conquergood: 2002) in which empathy through a shared understanding is prominent. The researcher is present in the work and their experiences are thus easier to relate to due to this added presence. Performance offers real bodies in real time exchanging real knowledges. The performance represents ethnographically related experience and provides a mise-enscene of interpretation based upon field research. Richard Schechner (2002) further adds to this argument when he considers the decline of literary writing. He suggests that people are increasingly body literate, aurally literate, visually literate and so on (Schechner: 2002: 4) This is possibly due to an increasing reliance on modern technologies such as film and television. Live performance provides a visual, aural, body which can be highlighted as more accessible across cultural borders than for instance a literary text would be.

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The Ethical Concerns. As I have already outlined performance and ethnography route themselves in the representations of culture and individual experiences. Ethics primarily focuses on what is right and wrong. The representation of cultures and individual experiences can often implement ethical complexities. As a performance ethnographer sustaining ethical concerns is challenging and as a method of reference I would like to consider Conquergoods essay Performing as a Moral act: Ethical Dimensions of the Ethnography of Performance. (1982) In this discourse Conquergood provides five performative stances (1982: 6-10) in relationship to ethical concerns. The first is The Custodians Rip Off which likens the purpose of the ethnographic research to finding some good performance material. This suggests a disregarding of ethical concerns and the ethical well-being of the field research participant. The ethnographers prime concern within this stance is generating good research material. Conquergood labels the second stance as The Enthusiasts Infatuation. This stance suggests a superficiality which, unethically, categorises the field research participants under the same umbrella. It suggests a sameness of human experiences whilst brushing past the deep and individual meanings. The third stance is The Curators Exhibitionism and suggests a fascination with the research participants and the culture which they are othered from. This fascination restricts the ethnographers deep understanding of the culture inhabited by the research participants. The fourth stance suggests a distanced ethnographic researcher who detaches themselves from the culture. The ethical implications of this stance suggest an unengaged ethnographer. Conquergood labels this final stance The Sceptics Cop-Out. He presents these four ethical concerns in a diagram and suggests that the correct ethical balance is somewhere in the middle, in between these four concerns. He labels the centre of the diagram Dialogical Performance which suggests that when implicated correctly, in-between the four stances, ethnography and performance are tools which have the ability to trigger conversational dialogue across borders. The aim of dialogical performance is to bring the self and the other together so that they can question, debate and challenge one another. (pp10) What Conquergood provides for performance ethnographers, in his mapping of ethical concerns, is a referral point which aids the discovery of ethical balance in creative practice. The five separate stances
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are clear modes to consider when developing an ethnographically based research study. When we consider ethnography in relationship to Conquergoods ethical model, as Glassie does; interaction (and) collaboration, (quoted in Conquergood: 1982: 10) we can see the relationship ethnography shares with performance. Often performance seeks to motivate these dialogical exchanges in the aftermath, encouraging discussion and debate amongst the spectators regarding what they have seen. The happening of a live theatrical performance event can provide a platform for the meeting of two cultures and for conversations to occur across those cultural borders. As Smith suggests, performance gathers these relationships of the unlikely (and) plan(s) to help us assemble our obvious differences (Smith: 1993: xxix)

Memory: Remembering and re-remembering Ethnography also relies heavily on the regurgitation of experiences which are related to memory and remembering. Viewing memory as truth is also questionable when considered alongside the realm of cognitive memory structures. Speaking of memory Denzin asserts (memory) is a fractured, revisionist, personal history, an attempt at a personal mythology (Denzin: 2007: 298) Here Denzin not only places question over memory but also on how we display the self when recalling memory. The perception of self is an important factor when considering the validity of ethnographic research. Ethnography provides room for the self to be restructured in line with self-perception and views of the self within society. The way I remember my personal past partly depends on the kind of person I take myself to be, and my memories sometimes alter on the basis of changes in that self-conception (Ross: 1989 quoted in Wilson and Ross: 2003) The self therefore can influence memory and further place performance based on ethnographical methods further into questionable territory. Furthermore performance material derived from ethnographical methods is often non-linear, repetitive, episodic and fragmented. This structure of ethnographic material mirrors the nature of cognitive memory structures. The notion of memory as an un-solid structure and something that is constantly in a state of change pushes me to question it as a knowledgeable structure. It is likely that many of the memories obtained throughout my own ethnographic based field research have
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become mixed-up, sugar-coated and in line with self-perceptions and this again problematizes the nature of the research. If there are inaccuracies in the recalling of memory then how can we constitute it as a valid knowledge for sharing across cultural borders? Alessandro Portelli (1979) argued that the very inaccuracies of memory and oral histories were in actual fact also the strengths; they sustain a view of how we remember the past and how we manipulate memories. He adds Oral sources tell us not just what people did, but what they wanted to do, what they believed they were doing and what they now think they did (Portelli: 1979) Performance understands that the represented ethnographic research has been subject to layers and layers of translations but understands that the material still persists to Compliment the hierarchical realm of facts (Pollock quoted in Riley & Hunter: 2009: 146) Performance often seeks to creatively play with these elements thus using them as an advantage rather than a hindrance.

To Truth or not to truth Truth is defined by the Oxford Everyday Dictionary (2005:1132) as in accordance with what has happened or is real. This definition suggests that the reinterpretation of the experience can still be considered truthful even after the layers of translations have started to be added. Considering the truthfulness of performance ethnography is problematic. Deidre Heddon suggests Assuming an equation between experience and truth is to forget that experience is always already implicated in the structure of language since it is at the level of language that experience is interpreted, determining what, specifically, any event is able to mean. (Heddon: 2008: 26) Representations of lived experience are often questionable as truth due to the layers of translations they base themselves upon. Articulating experience already subjects that experience to a layer of translation as Heddon outlines. The translations begin at the very beginning from the moment that the somatic transfers into the semantic. Verbatim, as a performance method of like-for-like representation, could possibly be considered as an ethnographic method which sustains elements of truth from the perspective of the field research participant. As verbatim represents the storied experience word-for-word it is possible to consider it as the closest representation of the truth. We are reminded of Anna Deveara Smiths
17 Kirsty Shipley, MA Performance.

performance Fires in the Mirror which supports a verbatim method in the relaying of ethnography as a performance. Smith uses Verbatim in order to gain a shared truth, across borders, of what happened in the riots. However considering verbatim as truth is problematic. It could be argued that the interviewer, in this case Smith, carefully selects participants and asks carefully constructed field research questions with a pre-conceived answer. In order to sustain Verbatim as a method for ethnographic research, a high level of documentation is required to be sustained throughout the process. The presence of a video-camera or tape recorder could possibly also challenge the behaviour of field research participants. The presence of the camera could force people to behave in dissimilar ways What Smith shows through this performance is that there are often several sides to every story and neither side is considered more truthful than the other, they are all versions of the truth. One can only create out of what one knows to be true and meaningful in the self, then in relation to the world. (Kenny: 1989: 60) My own performance practice based ethnographic research focuses on Grandmotherness in the area of Bridlington where I grew up. The outcomes of this ethnographic research appear to sustain a stereotypical assumption of Grandmotherness which could partially be considered as structured by the cultural environment and surroundings. When we consider this alongside Conquergoods (1982) ethically concerned stances the results and conclusions I draw from my research are in danger of falling into the category of The Enthusiasts Infatuation by drawing attention to the sameness of Grandmothers. Ethnography and performance ethnography can sustain and challenge the normative mechanisms by reproducing and/or transforming these embodied dispositions. As Jones adds Performance offers a new authenticity based on body knowledge, on what audiences and performers share together, on what they mutually construct. As a form of cultural exchange, performance ethnography encourages everyone present to feel themselves as both familiar and strange to see the truths and the gaps in their cross-cultural embodiments. In this exchange we find an authenticity that is intuitive, body centred and richly ambivalent. (Jones: 2002: pp1-15) The experience spoken by the field research participant is further questionable as truth, firstly due to the cognitive science related to memory and secondly to their self-perception. Field research participants can be selective in the experiential information they wish to share. They can omit important details or structure themselves as something they are not in line with their experiences. Again I refer to Smiths
18 Kirsty Shipley, MA Performance.

performance of Fires in the Mirror. The field research participants views on the riots reflected the side of the argument they were on. The Orthodox Jews, for instance, in their version of truthful events would blame the opposite side for the escalated rioting and vice versa. Differing versions of the truth exist and neither version is more valid than the other. The ethnographers performance tale is always allegorical, a symbolic tale, a parable that is not just a record of human experience. This tale is a means of experience. (Denzin: 2003: 118) As suggested by Norman Denzin ethnography and performance are perhaps the closest we can get to reexperiencing an experience. The stories and tales shared by the participants involved in the riots are perhaps the closest access point we have to the actual experience of the riots themselves. For the purpose of performance ethnography we are interested in the power the re-told stories and experiences have to generate empathy, exchange experience and enable the social bonds they mediate. (Jackson: 1998: 180 in Flicke, Kardoff and Steinke: 2004: 86) Whether these experiences sustain a truth or are adapted in line with cognitive scientific memory, layers of translations and authenticity are not particularly important factors in creative performance arts however as I begin to draw my conclusions they are successful tools in the motivation of generating performance material. The pair are married when we consider the process the two suggest when paired; ethnographic field research which is then, in the constraints of a studio played/ experimented with and constructed into the final step of live performance. Forced Entertainments performance Scar Stories (2000) involved members of the company collating audio and video research on the streets of Brussels in order to gain an insight into stories related to accidents and scars. The final performance piece is split into two; the first half is the live theatre based performance in which two performers discuss the alleged scars they have accrued. The documentation from the field research then provides the second part, the edited video of the interviewees discussing their own bodily scars. This performance sits on the borderline of truth and non-truth as the performers play with the stories they have collated and project the scar stories onto themselves as related to their own bodies. Issues of truth and non-truth, although not of particular concern to the performance arts can be used as a creative tool when working with performance and ethnography.

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Ethnographic methods are always going to be difficult to discuss in line with complete authenticity as is performance. The pair route themselves within the representation of experience, they do not seek to authentically replicate the events but to replicate them to the best of their knowledge. As a creative tool, ethnographic performance material can be added to, mixed and mashed up in order to make the material flow in line with the scheme of things. After working with the material it is probably further away from the truth than it initially was but it still sustains elements of truth which still have the potential to appeal to spectators and resonate on a personal level. It is this type of creative play with elements such as authenticity, memory and representation that performance ethnographers often concern themselves with. Rather than questioning the reliability of the research they use the fact that the research is placed in debatable territory by creatively playing with the elements. Conclusion. Performance and ethnography are about the present, a shared coevalness (Conquergood: 1992), a new experience based upon experiences of the past. Performance, when coupled with ethnography, holds the power to evoke emotions and memory, through a reinterpretation of events based upon reality, in order to contribute to a shared cultural understanding of events and perspectives. Although, as methods, performance and ethnography both meet alongside each other in order to collate suitable performance material, they also part soon after the material is gathered as they seek to conform to differing modes of presentation and representation. Ethnography as a creative tool for performance is useful as a field research method, in the gathering of material. This suggests that ethnography in terms of performace practice situates itself as a pre-preparation, the gathering of material to make performance work. They share a sense of culture and experience and both seek to do similar work as the other; they both seek to motivate and evoke the memories and experiences of the spectators they engage with albeit through separate modes of engagement (discourse, theatrical performance). The persisting flaws of ethnographic research are used in a creative way through play. Performers seek to play with the nature of cognitive memory structure, representation and authenticity as they shift the ethnographic material into the performance paradigm. Performance Ethnography is and can be a strategic method of inciting culture.
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(Alexander: 2005: Madison 2012: 165) It is the very connection the two have with culture which makes them relate well to one another aside from this the methods part soon after as performance seeks to engage in a live, shared environment and ethnography generally speaking presents itself through the written word.

21 Kirsty Shipley, MA Performance.

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