Performance and Narrative

"Roma Chatterji (1986) has suggested that certain narratives have a built-in formulaic closure (e.g. kahani khatam paisa hajam, i.e. the story has concluded and the penny is digested) which insulate the narratives from events of one's life. She contrasts these with sacred tales (katha) in which the recitation of the story is part of the ritual activity and hence events occuring in the story are also happening in the lives of the people who are listening to it" (Das, On Soap Opera: what kind of anthropological object is it? 181).

Thinking about a culturally removed narrative versus an imbeded performative narrative is quite interesting. This categorization evaluates narrative from the perspective of the spectator. Depending on the cultural position (and also personal disposition) of the spectator, she/he would potentially have different reactions to/interpretations of the same text. A performative narrative would evoke action/reaction whereas a removed narrative would probably evoke speculation and imagination. Thus while indigenous video, for example, often provokes cultural action in indigenous viewers, non-indigenous viewers would be partial to evalution. These lines however can blur depending on the subject matter presented. A documentary video presenting violence against children would probably evoke action and outrage from cross-cultural audiences. Still, the types of action and the way such outrage may be expressed might still differ within varying cultures (with respect to how imbedded or removed such narratives are within a specific culture). It might also be interesting to investigate whether a specific type/genre of narrative is typical for certain types of performances. Or how performative narrative might become removed through succeeding mediations (i.e. performance mediated by narrative mediated by video etc).