David Davies

McGill University

The Compositional Role of Performance

Many performances in the performing arts seem to be performances of an acknowledged artwork of some kind. We can term the former a ‘performed work’. Where we have an artistic practice in which some acknowledged artworks are designed to be performed works, the practice qualifies as what we can term a ‘performance art’, an artistic practice in which our access to, and appreciation of, works (as receivers) is at least in part mediated by performances of those works. Drama, music, and dance are usually taken to be performance arts in this sense.

Philosophical discussion of the performing arts has largely been concerned with performances taking place in the performance arts so conceived, and thus with performances of performed works. Indeed, most philosophical discussion of the performing arts has focused on performances of performed works of classical music, the assumption being that the model seen to apply to such examples - what we may term ‘the classical paradigm’ - also applies, with very few exceptions, to performances in other musical genres and to performances in other performance media. In all of these cases, it has been widely assumed, performances are generally of works, and the work-performance relationship is to be understood on the model of the classical paradigm. Performances not obviously open to such an analysis - free improvisations in music or dance, for example - have been viewed either as limiting cases of the classical paradigm or as of only marginal interest for a philosophical treatment of the performing arts.

The hegemony of the ‘classical paradigm’ in the performing arts has, however, been questioned in the recent literature. In music, much attention has been paid to the role of the recording studio in rock music and the role of improvisation in jazz. In theatre, James Hamilton has argued against the ‘classical paradigm’ and in favour of an ‘ingredients’ model of the relationship between a literary script and the theatrical work. My concern in this paper is with the classical paradigm’s assumption that there is an unproblematic boundary between the compositional activity that results in a performed work and performances of that work. I examine ways in which the activities of performers can themselves play a role in the composition of performed works, and assess how this bears upon the classical paradigm in general.

My interest here is in what can be termed improvisational composition. Here no pre-existing performed work constrains relevant aspects of an improvised performance. However, the improvisation plays, in whole or in part, a compositional role by specifying a set of performance constraints for a performed work. Improvisational composition, I suggest, is possible only if two conditions are met: (i) there is in place a set of conventions that determine what the performed work is, given the performance, and (ii) the performers intend the performance to be an act of composition. It is open to question whether these requirements are met in jazz improvisations, but rehearsals of theatrical and dance performances seem to involve something of this sort. Rehearsal in theatre and dance raises some of the same issues as improvisation in music. In particular, there is an element of both improvisation and composition in rehearsal, and the final form of a theatrical or dance performance - even one that conforms to the ‘classical paradigm’ in striving, among other things, to facilitate the appreciation of a performed work - will usually reflect changes made as a result of innovations introduced in rehearsal. Furthermore, in dance and theatrical practice, improvisations by performers in rehearsal may result in new constraints on subsequent performances. While improvisational composition in contemporary theatre is perhaps unsurprising - indeed, Hamilton documents such phenomena - what is less recognised is its prevalence in classical theatre. I draw here on Tiffany Stern’s work on the compositional role of rehearsal in Shakespearean and restoration drama

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Having examined the compositional roles of improvisation and rehearsal in the performing arts, I ask whether such roles can be accommodated by modifications of the classical paradigm, thereby preserving the idea that theatre and dance, and indeed jazz and rock music, are performance arts in which there are performed works, or whether we should move away from this paradigm to something closer to Hamilton’s ‘ingredients’ model. Is there still a legitimate place for the ‘performed work’ in a model of artistic performance that acknowledges the compositional roles of artistic performances?