By means of performance [Ed. Richard Schechner and Willa Appel, 1990]

14. Space and context [Yi-Fu Tuan] P.236-244

Unrehearsed acts

• P.236 Infants do not perform...As they grow older...they have fallen from innocence into culture - into a life of performance.
• P.237 The hospital as theatre? That would seem to be a frivolous (輕薄的) idea. Yet the operating room is often called the theater. Space there is charged with tension and high drama. Who is the spectators and who the actors? In a teaching hospital, the medical students are the spectators;...The doctors and the nurses are the actors...What about the anesthetized (使麻醉) patient? All he has to do is to lie still and breathe. Yet he is the cynosure of attention. Isn't this an actor's ideal - to sway multitudes without seeming to act at all?
• P.238 The sort of things that people do every day are worth watching, provided we can look without being looked at. Hence the popularity of side walk cafes where one can sit and watch the street scene...Because they cannot see us, we who can see them feel like the gods; and what lie open to our gaze are the unguarded and unrehearsed - hence vulnerable and genuine - moments in people's live (Wittgenstein 1980:4-5).

Conscious performance

• P. 238 We are not, however, usually aware of how our bodies form patterns and rhythms, or of how our bodies command space. In ritual and theatre, people are of course far more conscious of their relations.
• As the figure moves, space takes on a fluid and dynamic character. To the individual in action, space is primarily a kinesthetic (動覺的) feeling - a feeling that reaches well beyond the body. To the spectators, space is kinesthetic feeling to the extent that he is able to identify with the performer. But to the spectator, space is also a visual pattern "out there" - a pattern woven by the performing figure. Where several figures appear, their positions and motions define space. Again, compared with performers, spectators are more fully conscious of the overall visual pattern of space: the space of spectators - even while it visibly changes before their eyes - is less packed with tingling energy than the space experienced by performers.
• P.239 Although space and time can be separated for purpose of analytical efficiency, in most of life's activities and in performance they cannot. A still figure is as much as an image of time as of space. A figure that moves swiftly and fluidly across the stage represents quite a different image of time from one that moves slowly or jerkily (忽動忽停地).
  
• Light affects the character of space. In total darkness, space acquires tangibility. We move hesitantly in it as though we expect material resistance. Of course, no performance occurs in total darkness. In semi-darkness, space can still seem as enveloping medium, like mist.
  
• The sun shining high in the sky bleaches out space. Space seems to lack depth. Time seems to stand still. By contrast, twilight gives space that feel of depth and of movement. Shadows, we say, move, lengthen, or crawl.
  
• Bass sound of low frequency has the power to "touch" and surround the listener; it has a dark, directionless quality. The listener does not face the sound but rather feels immersed in it. high notes, by contrast, appear to be bright, sharp, and more precisely located in space.
  

Participation and space

• P.243 During the performance, take a glance at the sea of silent faces submerged in semi-darkness. They look blank as though the souls behind them had departed to mingle with the music or with the stage drama. When the music stops or when the curtain falls there is a moment of silence during which the spectators wait for their souls to return. Separated physically from the object of attention, audience involvement can nevertheless be total, which should encourage us to reevaluate the insight that separation is a precondition for becoming deeply absorbed.

Schechner, Richard, and Willa Appel (ed.). By Means of Performance: Intercultural Studies of Theatre and Ritual. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990.