Human life is drenched nowadays with ritual and traditions and Christmas Day comes under that very heavily, it is a greatly celebrated event, especially in our Western society. Naturally, we will adopt restored behaviour and focus into our ‘second reality’.
Schechner’s ‘Performance Studies: An Introduction’ gives an insight to the various concepts and terms that could be connected with Christmas Day.
Christmas Day is a performance in the sense that it follows basic Schechnerian concepts of a performance. Instantly, the idea of ‘showing doing’, the representation of actions within a performance, can relate. This is due to us subconsciously splitting the day into a series of events that we show ‘our audience’. This directly corresponds with Brecht’s Verfremsdungseffekt. We set the performance into labels and break down the continuity of it ‘as’ a performance. We have the present giving, then the dinner, then some families will watch the Queen’s Speech on TV. Everyone has a different routine, but we all have one regardless.
Looking at Christmas ‘as’ a performance insinuates that it is only an event that can change our action and behaviour temporarily …show more content…
Performance Studies at the University of Sydney’, where he talks about the problems of fields without limits. Referring to Christmas as it ‘is’ a performance would be an example of ‘to cast the net wider and wider’. McAuley goes on to say ‘for an activity to be regarded as performance, it must involve the live presence of the performers and those witnessing it’. This statement could connect to Christmas ‘as’ a performance, because our behaviour on the day in relation to ‘Christmas Spirit’ can be a performance for the other family members around