Looking at Performance and Collaboration

I have never had the opportunity to read or learn about this time in history, so I found all the readings quite compelling. Having a background in theatre, I thought that Roach’s definition and application of the term “performance” to be an interesting one. In regards to the marketplace, Roach says, “I would interpret the performative space of the exchange as a behavioral vortex of consumption and expenditure, material and symbolic” (54). It seems that the marketplace was like a theatre where people came dressed in their finest to see and be seen and to be entertained, and that the purchasing of goods was a secondary concern. Because the people at this time were accustomed to the daily performance aspects of the slave auctions, such as their dancing and being on display naked, they were not focused on the negative connotations that such acts implied. As Roach points out, “The apparent callousness of such accounts may be in part explained (though not in any way excuse to) by the very normality of the slave trade in the performance of daily life in New Orleans” (53). Perhaps these “normal” yet terrible spectacles could be seen as similar to public executions in Renaissance England or to other forms of public humiliation where human beings were on display. Levine goes on to analyze actual plays that contain similar themes to what is occurring daily. He writes, “By this I do not mean simply the depiction of a general historical and cultural “background” but rather the discovery of intersecting networks of practices, attitudes, actions, and meanings, those that reside in specific cultural conditions and those that become visible by means of performance” (58). As in earlier times, playwrights get many of their ideas for plays from actual events in everyday life. When playgoers see a play, they identify with, disagree with, or are informed about the subject matter. Obviously these performances of everyday life can have an impact on one’s views or interpretations of a cultural practice.
In addition to Roach’s topic of performance, I was intrigued by Levine’s chapter on slave songs. He writes, “Slaves often take over entire white hymns and folksongs, as White and Jackson maintained, but altered those significantly in terms of words, musical structure, and especially performance before making them their own. The result was a hybrid with a strong African base” (39). I thought about how most everything is a hybrid of some sort and that everyone builds off of others’ ideas. Even in today’s music world rappers and hip-hop artists borrow from each other and incorporate others’ work as a sign of respect and appreciation. However, a significant difference between re-creating song lyrics, either by the slaves or today’s musicians, and one’s written work based off of another’s thoughts is possession. I find this interesting that writers are so concerned with plagiarism and citing another’s work, but in certain types of music this practice does not seem to be as common. Levine points out, “Slave songs, then, were never static; at no time did Negroes create a “final” version of any spiritual. Always the community felt free to alter and re-create them” (43). Perhaps it is this sense of community that is more important than a sense of ownership. Because the songs were mainly recorded in an oral tradition and there was not a written record, this may account for the lack of concern of ownership, but more than that is this was a way that the slaves could bond together and maintain their sense of identity under horrible circumstances, which is what Levine argues when he states: “Here again slave music confronts us with evidence which indicates that however seriously the slave system may have diminished the strong sense of community that had bound Africans together, it never totally destroyed it were left to the individual atomized and emotionally and psychically defenseless before his white masters” (44). Unlike the whites, who focused on spiritual songs in a specific setting, like church, the slaves’ songs were created as their everyday lives unfolded, during good and bad times, and this was one of the ways they maintained a part of their culture. Kristin