Critique of Taylor’s Performance
By Lauren Van Solkema
Critique through perceiving performance as textual study: this
form of critique is how the performer makes sense of an aesthetic text. Taylor wrote
the original text backwards and created a story from it about a moth’s
adventure. This was an extremely creative idea and it’s so interesting how
someone could think of a story backwards from another one. This blew my mind. It’s
such an original idea and shows a little of Taylor’s interest and way of
thinking, which is a part of this view of critique.
Critique performance as an artistic event: this method of
critique represents how the artist is presenting themselves through certain
qualities that trigger certain responses (185). Taylor did a good job of
presenting himself in a calm and soothing way that went along with some of the
content he was reading. The moth story never got too intense or loud, so his
voice fit it perfectly. The way he read about the moth’s adventure set the
steady and calm mood of the story. He read with a good rhythm, articulated
every word well, and projected perfectly. This polished presentation led to
positive feedback from the audience. This view of critique focuses on audience-performer
relationships from what the performer intended to have their audience’s
reactions be and Taylor was real from the way he remembered a poem from a few
years ago and applied it to Tucker’s original text. As far as I know, the
audience’s reaction was what Taylor was expecting from the conversation at the
end.
Critics seeing performance as a communicative act: Taylor
did a good job of explaining what he was about to read to the audience. This is
important for this type of criticism because it’s strictly based off of the
performer-audience relationship and the audience stayed interested during the
whole speech because we knew there was going to be a story behind it since he
explained it. I genuinely understand the story to a certain extent that it was
about a moth going on an adventure, possibly to the moon, and struggled on the
way, but a little more of an explanation after he read the text would’ve been
nice. His explanation was a way to bring the audience into his presentation.
Overall Performance: Taylor did a great job presenting
someone else’s text in his own way by creating his own story through
interpretation. He did a great job presenting his aesthetic text by speaking
with confidence. I know he mentioned afterwards that he gets nervous about
presentations and he was scared the whole time. It did not show for a second. I
was very impressed by that. The only criticism I have is he needs to look up
more. I know it’s hard to look up a lot when the content isn’t memorized and
doesn’t make sense, but if he looked up a few more times I think the
presentation would’ve been that much better. Also, the performance seemed a
little short. Maybe a little more
background on the original text or some more about what exactly the moth’s
adventure was would’ve made it a little better as well. I could’ve thought it
was a little short just because mine was really long so that might not have
even been a problem.
Lastly, I find that Taylor’s piece and performance relates
to politics and ethics by the way the moth had to struggle and was compared,
briefly, to other bugs. In society, this happens. Taylor pointed out, whether
he tried to or not, that no life is easy and ethically, you have to work hard
and struggle through to get what you want which shows a social process.
Great job Taylor!
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