[RE: minstrel: feasts and other topics ]

[John Ruble]

That's the first time I've done that!  I meant to reply to the list and I
replied to the sender instead.  Normally it works the other way around...
What I meant to say was:


Tibicen <tibicen at carolingia.org> wrote: 

Are you equating "trading songs and stories with others in close 
proximity" with "performing"? 

It is quite one thing when people at their meat break into song as 
merry company is wont, start telling stories back and forth, or all 
pull out their part books and indulge in that most period of pastimes, 
the singing of madrigals. It is quite another when one presents 
oneself as a performer with a *performance*. 

The difference, I suppose, is whether or not you expect people to shut 
up and listen, and applaud politely when it's over. 

I'll quite agree that swapping stories and songs about the feast 
table, or other form of convivial sharing of music or other art, is 
something to which one has as much right as any other conversation. 
But we were talking about *performance*, about *entertaining*. 

One of these you are doing *with* other people. The other you are 
doing *for* -- or more properly, *to* -- other people. 
--------------------- 

And I reply: 

I cannot differ more in my opinion, I am afraid. I feel that performance is 
not just "on stage". 

A magician may thrill an audience of hundreds, then enter the crowd afterward 
to perform sleight of hand for small pockets of people. This is still 
performance. He will not get applause, just a laugh or a verbal "That was 
slick". But he is still a performer engaged in his art. 

So too with us. I bask in the shouts at the end of a piece in the feast hall 
or court. But I bath in the tears I evoke around campfires with only a few 
people there to hear my song. And when "at board" I regale my comrades with 
tales of heroic Scandinavian endeavours (puncuated with thrusts from my bread 
stick) I am still performing, enlightening their day, transporting them 
elsewhere, and passing on the history. 

We've caroled nearly empty camps with as much fun as the full. When only four 
people show up to dance, the musicians play on. These are all still 
"performances", and just as valid and vital as any other. 

I am a performer. I work with one audience at a time. That's as high as I 
need to count. 

Ulf Gunnarsson 
Barony of Namron, Ansteorra 




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