Pelias Performative Inquiry

8/9/2019 Pelias Performative Inquiry

1/9

Performance

PERFORMATTVE

tNQUtRY

Embadiment

and

lts

Challenges

185


2/9

Foundational

in

this perspective

is

the

belief

in the

explanatory

power

of

the life/drama

analogy.

Third,

scholars

have operated

from

the

assumption

that

performance

itself

is a

way

of

knowing.

This

claim,

axiomatic

for

per-

formers,

rests

upon

a

faith

in

embodiment,

in

the power

of giving

voice

and

physicality

to

words,

in

the

body

as

a sire

of

knowl-

edge.

It

is

this

lasr

srance

that

I

hope

to

address

in

this

chapter, for

it insists

upon

a

working

artist

who

engages

in

aesthetic

performances

as

a methodological starting

place.

It finds

its

epistemological

and

onto-

logical

heart

in

performers

enacting

their

own

or

others

words

on

stage.

In

short,

performative

inquiry,

from

this

perspective,

is

an

embodied

practice.

I

proceed

by

discussing

the narure

ofper-

formance

as

an

embodied

practice.

In

doing

so,

I

trace

how embodiment

entails

a

know-

ing,

participarory,

empathic,

and political

body.

Next,

I

turn

to

three

representative

forms

(literature

in performance,

perfor-

mance

ethnography,

and

autobiographical

performance)

to

show

a ange

of

embodied

inquiry

and

to point

toward

their

respective

methodological

demands.

Finally,

I

identify

several

challenges

that

performers

confront

when calling upon embodiment

as

a

method-

ological

tool.

In parricular,

I

will

look

at the

presenting,

lying,

assuming,

and

interven-

ing

body.

t Performance

a.s

Embodied

Practice

To

embody

a

self

on

stage,

the performer

must

develop

a

flexible

and

responsive

body,

a

body

ready

to

function

as

a

methodological

tool.

Just

as mathematicians

increase

their

methodological

competence

as

they

move

from

simple

arithmetic

to

the

highest

forms

of

mathematical

calculation,

performers

expand

their procedural

repertoire

as

they

develop

as artists.

As

the performers

skills

increase,

they

gain

greater

capacity

in

using

the

body

as

an

exploratory

instrument that

probes

and ponders

what

it

encounters.

tJlith

training,

the

performer s

instru-

ment

becomes

increasingly

attuned

and

generates

more

productive

insights.

Over

time,

the

performer

learns

to

trust

what

the

body

teaches.

It

is

useful

to

remember,

however,

that

not

all

bodies

move

through

the

world

in

a

similar

manner.

Some

bodies

possess

limited

agility,

some

not;

some

live

in

constant

pain,

some

not;

some

feel

disas-

sociated

from

a

sense

of self,

some

not;

some

bodies

are labeled

disabled,

some

not.

Regardless

of

the performer s

body,

embod-

ied practice

calls

upon

the performer

to

employ

a

knowing,

participatory,

empathic,

and

political

body.

Each

of

these

bodies

is

necessarily

implicated

in

any

performative

act

and,

hence,

is

fundamental

to performa-

tive

inquiry.

The

performer s

knowing

body

relies

upon

the physical

and

vocal

behaviors

brought

forth

in rehearsal

and

public

pre-

sentation.

The

performer

listens

to

what

the

body

is

saying

and,

based

upon

what

the

body

has

come

to

know,

makes

judgments

about

performance

choices.

More

specifi-

cally,

it

involves

a

process

of

selecting

what

text

to

stage,

playing

with

possible

vocal

and physical

behaviors,

testing

the

various

possibilities

against

the

givens

in

the

text,

choosing

among

the

viable

options

for

the

best

artistic

choice,

repeating

each

choice

so

that

it

becomes

fine

tuned

for

performance,

and presenting the performance before

an

audience (Pelias,

1999).

At

each

step

in

the

process,

the

performer

relies

upon

the

body

as

a location

of

knowledge.

Performers

are

always

trying

to

separate

the good

from

the

bad,

the

magical

from

the

mundane.

The

knowing

body

serves

to

negotiate

the

multiplicity

of

options

a per-

former

faces.

It

helps

the performer

decide

186

a

Genre


3/9

Performatiue

Inquiry

a

187

what

seems

right.

It tells the

performer

what

it knows

about

what

is

being

said and

how

it

is

being

said.

Its

telling

comes

for-

ward

cognitively,

providing the

performer

with

a clear

understanding

of why

a

partic-

ular

decision

might

be

right.

In

such

cases,

the

performer

can

articulate

the

reasons

for

a

given

choice.

The body's

telling

also

comes

forward

affectively,

giving the

per-

former

emotional

knowledge,

offering

a

sense

of

the

attitudes,

sentiments,

and

pas-

sions

of what

is being

performed.

And its

telling

comes

forward intuitively, initiating

a

felt

but

ineffable

sense

of what

appears

true.

The

knowing

body, then,

finds

its

power

in

the cognitive,

affective,

and

intu-

itive

coming

together

to

form a

sense

of

what

it

has

to say.

The

knowing

body

gains

support

from

the

empathic

body.

On the

most

fundamen-

tal

level,

the

empathic

body

recognizes

points of

view

other than

its own.

It under-

stands

that

multiple

perspectives

always

exist.

More

importantly,

the

empathic

body

has

the capacity

to

understand

and

share

in

the

feelings

of

others,

to take

on

another

sen-

sibil

.

This

methodological

skill

helps situ-

ate

performers

to create

characters'

including

their

own

character

in

an

autobiographical

text.

The empathic task,

to

use

Stanislavski's

(1,952)

familiar

terms,

demands

that

the

per-

former take

into

account

the

given circum-

stances

of

a

character

and

employ

the

magic

if : If

I

were

in that

situation,

what

would

I do

and

feel?

In this

construction,

performers

project themselves

into

the

life

circumstances

of

others

and

use

themselves

to

determine

the

nature

of

the

experience.

Alternatively,

as

Parrella

(1'971)

first

pointed

out,

performers

may attempt

to

become

others, adopting

the

characteristics

of

others

as

their

own.

The

question here

is not

how

the

performer

might

feel in a

certain

situa-

tion

but

how

the

other

might

feel.

This

process

of taking

on

others,

of

letting

one's

own

body

be

open

to

others,

provides

performers an

entry,

albeit

always

incom-

plete, into others'

life

worlds.

The empathic

body,

because of

its ability

and

willingness

to

coalesce

with

others,

is

essential

to

embodi-

ment and to

performance

as a

method.

The

participatory body

learns by

doing.

The

performer's task

is

located

in

action.

By

doing

the actions

called

forth

by

a

given

role,

the

performer

comes

to a sense of what

those

actions

entail.

As

suggested

above,

the

performer

tries on

various

actions before

settling

into the

actions

that

seem

right.

It

is,

in part,

the

repetition

of

those

selected

actions

that

is

the

most telling

for the

per-

former.

Living

with

specific

actions

over

an extended

period

of

time

allows

the

per-

former's

body

to

make those

actions

the

performer's own.

This may

require

perform-

ers

to

reach well

beyond

their

typical

ways

of

being

in the world,

and

as they

reach

out,

they

come

to understand

what

it may be

like

to be

another

body.

Performative

inquiry

cannot

be

accomplished

from

an observa-

tional

stance;

it

demands

participation.

It

asks

performers

to

become

others,

to com-

mit to

others'

ways

of

being.

Performers,

of

course,

seldom

forget that

they

are

perform-

ers.

Keeping

in touch

with

their

performing

selves

allows

them

to

do the

work

they

must do on

stage.

Yet

part

of

the

performers'

power

is

the

ability,

to use'Wilshire's

(1982)

helpful

phrasing,

to

stand

in for

others.

Standing

in, as Conquergood

(1'995)

suggests,

may

be

viewed

as

an act

of

mime-

sis

(faking),

poiesis

(making),

or

kinesis

(breaking

and

remaking).

lhether

per-

formers

see

themselves

as

participating

in

order

to

replicate,

construct,

or

provide

alternatives

to

current

constructions,

their

task

remains constant:

They are

to

perform

actions

that

are available

for

others

and

for

themselves

to

read.

And,

in the doing'

they

come

to

know

how

embodiment

reifies,

insinuates,

destabilizes,

interrogates,

and

alters

their

own

and others'

ways

of

seeing

the

world.


4/9

Conquergood's

scheme

is a

reminder

that

in

^ny

act

of

embodiment

there

is

always

a

political

body.

All

performance

is

ideologically

laden.

Performers'

bodies

are

not neutral.

They

carry,

among other

mark-

ers,

their

gender,

sexuality,

ableness,

class,

race,

and

ethnicity

with

them.

They

signal

cultural

biases-beauty

and

blond

hair,

handsome

and

tan,

jolly

and

round,

and

so

on.

Such

claims

imply

that

the

performer's

body

is

always

a

contested

site'

Efforts

at

color-blind

casting,

for

example'

only

demonstrate

that

directors

can

attempt

to

erase issues

of

race

but

cannot

eliminate

how

audiences

might

interpret

what

they

see.

The

identities

that

are

put

on stage

come

with

and

without

cultural

endorse-

ment.

Performers

who

are

interested

in

interventionist

work

find

their

political

bodies

a

rich

methodological

source

for

exploration

and

advocacY.

It would

be

misleading,

however,

to

imply

that

any

body

could

come

on

stage

without

being

a body

of

advocacy.

Bodily

presence

reifies

or argues

against

a

way

of being.

Questions

of

what

bodies

have

access

to

the stage,

what

bodies

are

privi-

leged,

and

what

bodies

are

used

for what

ends

swirl

around

every

performance'

Such

questions

may

remain

implicit,

but

increas-

ingly,

such

issues

have

become

explicit,

sometimes

in textual

form

and

sometimes

in

staging.

Dolan's

(1996)

desire

to

use

per-

formance

for

activist

work

comes'

in

part'

from

its

potential

to display

the

connect-

edness

of

bodies

to

themselves

and

each

other,

the

demonstration

of

bodies

in

rela-

tions

that

are

clearly

political,

deeply

marked

with

power

and

with

danger

(p.12). The

political

body

recognizes

how

power

functions,

dares

to

explore

and

expose

it,

and welcomes the

opportunity to

subvert

it

in the

name

of

social

justice.

Embodiment,

then'

is

an

intensely

sensu-

ous

way of

knowing

(Conquergood,

t99t,

p. 1S0).

The

experiencing

body,

situated

in

culture,

is

its

methodological

center.

Unlike

traditional

scholarship

where

the

body

seems

to

slip

away,

performers

generate

and

pre-

sent

their

insights

through

the

body,

a

know-

ing

body,

dependent

upon

its

participatory

and

empathic

capacities

and

located

in

contested

yet

potentially

liberating

space.

As

Conquergoo

d

(1'9911

puts

it,

performative

inquiry

privileges

particular,

participatory'

dynamic,

intimate,

precarious,

embodied

experience

grounded

in historical

process,

contingency,

and

ideology

(p'

187).

t

Representatiue

Forms

of

P erformatiu

e

In

quirY

Performers

may

focus

their

inquiry

in a

number

of

different

directions,

but

the

three

most

common

sites

for

exploration

are

the

literary,

cultural,

and

personal,

known

generically

as

literature

in

performance'

per-

formance ethnography, and autobiographi-

cal

performance.

These

labels,

of

course,

blur'

crisscross,

leak,

but they

do

point

toward

dis-

tinct

orientations

and

place certain

method-

ological

issues

in

the

foreground.

Staging

literature

(i.e.,

drama,

poems'

prose fiction,

nonfiction)

has

consumed

the

bulk

of

performers'

energies.

Literary

texts,

some

specifically

written

for

presentation

on

stage

and

some

not'

carry their

own

aes-

thetic

dimensions,

situating

the

performer

in

a

position

of either

trying

to

feature

or

to

resist

what

a

given text

asks.

The delicate

negotiation

between

literature's

art

and

the

performer's

art

is an

ongoing

process'

informed

by

the

performer's

motives

for

presenting

a

given work.

For

some

perform-

ers,

their

task

is

to

offer

a credible

render-

ing

of

a

literary text;

for

others'

their

aim

is

to

discover

in literature

places

for

innova-

tion

and

critique.

Not

surprisingly,

these

goals are

in

keeping

with

the

objectives

of

various

literary

and critical

theories-some

1BB

a Genre


5/9

Performatiue

Inquiry a

189

positions,

to use

Booth's

(1'979)

helpful

terms,

encourage

readers to

strive

for

understanding

and

some

for

overstand-

ing

(pp.

23

5:257).4

central

consideration

performers

face

when

working

with

literary

texts

is

their

stance, whether

it

will

be one

of

consent

or

one

of dissent.

Depending

upon

the

stance

the

performer elects,

per-

formative

inquiry

may be

textually

driven

or textually

detached.

For the

performers who

are driven

to

give

consent

to

a

literary work,

their

method-

ological

task

is

to

seek

entry

into

the textual

wodd

and,

in so doing,

come

to

know the

characters

that

live

there. Much

of actor

training

is

involved with

giving performers

the skills

to

gain

access, to

allow others

to

speak

through

them,

and to

inhabit

worlds

other

than their

own.

For

the

performers

who

wish

to

detach

themselves

from textual

dictates,

their

procedural

charge

is

to

dis-

cover

how

to

keep present

a

given

literary

work

while

they

spin away

from or com-

ment

upon

it.

The text,

functioning

as

a

launch

point for what

the

performer wants

to say,

might be

approached

metaphorically

to

establish

a

conceptual

overlay

that

guides

an audience's

reading.

Shakespeare's

plays,

for

instance,

are

often

placed

in

surprising

contexts

(e.g.,Tbe

Merry'Wiues

of Windsor

in

the

United

States

suburbia

in

the

1950s

The Mercltant

of

Venice

in

Nazi

Germany).

Or

a text

might

be

inserted

with the

per-

former's

political conunentary,

encouraging

an

audience

to

reflect

upon

what

is being

said.

Such

postmodern

stagings,

perhaps

most

frequently

associated

with

the'Wooster

Group,

often

interweave

their

own

inter-

textual

observations

and

connections.

Per-

formers

who

elect such

strategies

put

into

play

the

power

of

their

own

readings.

Methodologically,

their embodied

enact-

ments tilt

toward

their

own stamp

upon

a

literary

work.

Performance

ethnography

places cul-

tural

understandings

on stage.

Performers,

following

ethnographic

procedures,

gather

data

from the

field,

but

instead

of

turning

that data

into

a

traditional

written

report,

they script

and stage their

findings.

Informed

by the

early

work of

Turner

(1,9861

and

Schechner

(1993),

performance

ethnogra-

phers

believe

that

the

rich

array

of

cultural

practices can

best be

represented,

not

on the

page,

but

through

embodied

presentation.

By

presenting

cultural

others on

stage,

performers display

living bodies

who

par-

ticipate

in the ongoing

process

of

making

culture.

In

their

representations,

perfor-

mance ethnographers

strive

to avoid

shal-

Iowness

and exploitation,

a

desire

that

is

not

easily accomplished

when

reaching

across

cultures.

Equally tricky

is

how

performance

ethnographers

decide

to script themselves.

In

some shows,

the ethnographer

is implied

but

not embodied

on stage.

In

others,

the

ethnographer

functions

as

a narrator who

provides

an

interpretive

frame

for the

audience.

In

still

others,

the ethnographer

becomes a

central

character,

a

participant

in ongoing cultural

practices.

Another

issue

facing

performance ethnographers

is how

they see

their task.

For some,

the

perfor-

mance

functions

as a

report, an

account of

what

they

found in the

field that

reaches

toward objectivity. For

others, performance

serves

as a

site

of advocacy,

an

opportunity

to

intervene

on

behalf

of cultural

others.

Such

considerations

call

forward different

methodological

procedures

and,

hence,

alter the

nature of

the

performative

inquiry.

Autobiographical

performance

traffics

in

the

details

of

a

particular

life, featuring

either

one's

own

personal life experiences

or another's

autobiographical

tale.

More

often

than

not,

it

features

texts of

excep-

tional

wit,

extraordinary

events,

and/or

oppressed

or

historical

individuals.

As

for

the

performance ethnographer,

the autobi-

ographical

performer

engages

in

a

process

of

selection

and shaping,

of deciding

what


6/9

to share.

Both

are always

making a

rhetor-

ical case, and

in

doing

so,

they

face issues

of

truthfulness:

\lhat

information

can be

buried,

minimized,

or altered?

What

partic-

ulars can

be

dropped

or

added

to

create

aes-

thetic

interest?

llhat

details about

others

can

be

included without their

consent?

The

autobiographer

performer, unlike

the

per-

formance ethnographer,

however,

takes

as the

primary

aim to

create

a

particular

speaker

that tells

of

life lived.

The autobio-

graphical

performer shares

intimacies

and

at

times,

indignities.

The

performer estab-

lishes

a

persona

that

audience

members may

admire

or abhor,

embrace

or

resist,

identify

with or

dismiss.

Such

an

interest leads

performers

to be

keenly aware

that

there are

personal con-

sequences

to

every telling.

Making

public

occurrences

that are

often

kept

private

car-

ries risks.

The man who

in

performance self-

identifies

as

gay,

for example,

may soon

find

himself

in

danger

of

physical

harm

beyond

the site

of

the

performance.

The

woman

who

discloses

her anorexia,

for instance,

may

dis-

cover

that

in

her

social

life she has become

reduced to

that

identity

marker.

The

autobi-

ographical

performer,

then,

is

always

in an

ongoing

negotiation

between

authenticity

and

rhetorical

efficacy,

between

the

desire

for

honesry

and

the

need to

protect.

Sith

autobiographical

performances,

inquiry

maneuvers between

the told and

untold.

Its

strength,

however,

derives

from

telling

the

untold.

As Lockford

(2001)

argues,

it is

often

dirty work,

this digging

into

the

rich soil of

humanity. Digging

into

our

humanity,

we cannot

keep

the soil

out

from

under

our nails, the clay

off

our

faces,

and

the

sand

away from the

folds of

our

skin.

We

write with

humility

about that

which

makes us

remember

our

humanity,

that

which

makes us

humble, that

which

makes

us

human.

(p.

118)

t

Some

Chllenges

for

Performatiue

Inquiry

I

have

been

arguing

that

the

performative

method

is

powerful

and carries

some

partic-

ular

methodological

demands

as

it moves

across

genres.

Like other

methods,

it also

confronts

certain

challenges.

In this

next

section,

I outline

some

risks

that

performers

face

when

embodiment

functions

as

their

method of inquiry.

These risks

might best

be addressed

as

the

presenting,

Iying,

assuming, and

intervening

bodies.

The

per-

former s body

is engaged

in an act

of

live

presentatlon.

Through

physical and vocal

behaviors,

performers attempt

to

put on display

what

they

wish

to communicate.

There

may be,

however, slippage

between

what

the body

knows and

what

it can say

and between

what

the body

says and

what an

audience

can

interpret.

Performers may

have intense

bodily

feelings

but

lack the

competence

to

translate

those

feelings into

meaningful

communicative

acts for either

themselves

or

an audience.

Moreover,

performers and

an

audience

may recognize a

given

act

as

highly

meaningful

but

remain unable

to

articulate

what

it might be

saying.

In

this case,

the

presenting body

is communicative,

speak-

ing through

the

intuitive

and the

felt, but

performers cannot

always

formulate

into

words

the body s

meaning.

In

addition,

per-

formers

may have

difficulty

determining

whether

or

not

what

they

know has come

from bodily

enactment

or from some

other

source

of

insight. Park-Fuller

(1983)

offers

a

rich

explanation

of

these dilemmas:

Because

the

language of

performance

is

a sensual

language,

it

does

not consti-

tute

knowledge

by

naming;

it

consti-

tutes

knowledge by sensing.

Thus, when

called

upon

to describe an

insight

gained

in

the

process

of

production,

the

reporter

190 a

Genre


7/9

Performatiue

Inquiry

a

'191

must

translate

sensed

knowledge

to

con-

ceptual

knowledge

and,

since

any

trans-

lation

involves

change,

the

translation

from sensed

knowledge

to

conceptual

knowledge

changes

the

nature

of

the

insight.

(p.72)

The

presenting

body

sees

the

stage

as

its

site

of

publication.

It

offers

what

it

knows

not

on the

page but

in

live

performance.

But

because

performance

is ephemeral

(once

given, then

lost),

performance

scholars

have

tried

to

document

in print

form what

the

body

knows.

Such

attempts'

more

often

than

not, have

been

frustrating.

Seldom

does a

printed

account

capture

the

feel for

a

performance.

In

recent

years, scholars

(e.g.,

Miller &

Pelias,

2001;

Pollock,

1998)

have

turned

to

performative

writing

as a strategy

for

providing

a

richer

sense

of the

presenting

body.

Recognizing

language's

representa-

tional

limitations,

performative writing

often

deploys

the

poetic

as

the best

strategy

for

entering

into

and

reporting

what

the

body

might

know.

Even

when

doing

so,

print accounts

remain

limited,

a diminished

rendering

of what

occurred

on

stage.

The

lying body

is a

reminder

that

the

body

is

a

habituated

site

that

carries

its

his-

torical

and

cultural markings.

The

fact

that

I

gag

at the

sight

of

mayonnaise

tells

more

about

my unfortunate

encounter

with

some

rancid

mayonnaise

in my childhood

than

it

does

about

the

nature of

mayonnaise.

This

trivial

example

calls

to

mind

examples

of

much

larger

consequence:

the

disgust

the

Nazi

body

may

have

felt

toward

Jews,

the

repulsion

the

straight

body

may

feel when

seeing

fwo

men

kissing,

the

loathing

one

political

party

may feel

for

another

political

party.

As Gingrich-Philbrook

(2001)

notes,

the body

offers

an

opportunity

for

error

as

much

as wisdom

(p.

7l,.

This suggests

that what

the

body

knows

requires

critical

reflection,

a constant

ethical

testing,

a

reflexive turn.

Such

a

move

keeps

bodily

claims

where

they

belong,

connected

to

a

particular

body.

The habit

of

speaking

of the

body

can

obscure

the

fact that

performative

inquiry

always

takes

place

in

an

individual

body,

a

body

enriched

and

scarred

by

its

lifelong

facts.

Rich's

(2001)

call

for

using my

body

over the

body

in her discussion

of

iden-

tity

politics

is

applicable

here:

Perhaps

we

need

a

moratorium

on

say-

ing

the body.

For

it's also

possible to

abstract

the

body.

'\hen

I

write

the

body

I

see

nothing

in

particular.

To

write my

body

plunges

me

into

lived

experience,

particularity....To

say

the

body

lifts

me away

from what

has

given

me a

primary

perspective.

To say

my body

reduces

the

temptation

to

grandiose assertions.

(p.

67)

And

it

reduces

the

potential

confusion

between

what

performing bodies

might

know

and

what

a

particular' situated

body

might assert.

Whatever

lies or truths

our

bodies

might

tell,

they

are

our

own.

The

assuming

body

falls

Prey

to

the

intimacy

of

embodiment.

Coming

to

know

others

by

taking

on

their

physical and

vocal

qualities,

their

attitudes and

circumstances,

and

their

historical

and

cultural

situations

may

lead

performers to

believe

that

they

fully

understand

others.

But

understanding

is

always

partial. Moreover,

in the

belief

of

full

understanding,

they

may

feel an

obligation

to speak

for

others,

particulady

given

their

communicative

skills.

But

a

difference

can

be

drawn

between

speaking

for

and speak-

ing

with.

\hen

speaking

for,

performers

offer

amonologue

on

behalf

of

another'

The

monologue

comes

forward

as a what

is'

\lhen

speaking

with,

performers

engage

in

a

dialogue,

an

ongoing

conversation

between

a

performer

and

another,

even

though

the

performer

may be

the

only

speaker.

Instead

of suggesting

what

isr dialogic

performance


8/9

stages

"what

might be."

The

difference

beNveen

a

performance

that

asserts

"what

is"

and

one

that

poses "what might

be"

becomes

particularly

loaded

when

a

per-

former

wishes

to

"overstand,"

to

offer

a

critique

of

another's

way of

being.

The chal-

lenge

for

performers is

to

recognize

the

nature of what they know,

its

partiality,

its

presumptive

and

political dangers.

The

intervening

body

sees

performance

as

an

opportunity

to

work

for social

justice.

It is politically engaged,

committed

to

pro-

ductive change.

In

its

desire

to

affect social

life,

it

strives

to

reach

constituencies

that

have

a stake

in what

it has to say.

As

Dolan

(2001)

explains,

performance

can be

a

"participatory

forum

in

which

ideas

and

possibilities

for social

equiry

and

justice

are

shared"

(p.456).

Performance can

"offer us

glimpses

of utopia"

(p.

456), "imaginative

territories

that

map themselves

over

the

real"

(p.

457).

This "utopian

performative"

plays

against performance

practices

that

reify cultural

logics and

obstruct

alternative

expressions,

often

by means of

commodifi-

cation

and

control of

resources.

The

intervening

body,

regardless of the

obstacles

it

might

confront,

runs a number of

methodological

risks. In

addition

to

reifying

what

it may hope to

question, the

interven-

ing body

may offer

possibilities

but

no

course

of

action,

or

conversely,

may call

for

action

without

posing

sufficient

possibilities.

In the first case, embodiment

may

propose

so

many speculative

possibilities that

it is

dif-

ficult to

imagine what action to

take.

In

the

second

case,

embodiment

posits

an

action

that appears

to solve

a

problem without

rec-

ognizing

the complexity

of a

situation.

Despite the challenges of the

presenting,

lying,

assuming,

and

intervening

bodies,

performative

inquiry

stands

as a

highly

pro-

ductive

method.

Across

various

forms,

per-

formance

is an

embodied

practice,

dependent

upon

participatory and empathic

skills

and

situated

politically, that trusts the body as

a

site of

knowing.

It

insists that

performers

who

surrender

themselves

to

the

bodily

stance

of others

will come

to

understand

in a

most profound way:

sensuously,

human

to

human, fully

present, open,

ready to

take

in what

others have

to

offer.

t

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