Tuesday night’s reading was:
Richard Schechner’s Play Chapter from Performance Studies: An Introduction
Yesterday the pleasure was expressed as anticipation
Temporality of play
Evolution of play
Play as connectile tissue between our imaginations and our realities
Play is safe, a core continuous quality is the safe space
Power play
Play always has multiple functions
Flow
Toy ARE MADE IN THE IMAGINATION
Ethologists identify 5 functions:
1. Education and/or practice for the young
2. An escape from stress
3. A source of information about the environment
4. A means for the young to find their place within the group hierarchy
5. Muscular exercise
Gregory Bateson, signifiers of play
THERE A CONTRADICTION
Ethology play is practice for real behaviour
Bateson play is a way of avoiding violence
(maybe more akin to digital games that allow a ‘release’ of emotional build up)
maya-lila
maya = illusion
lila = play
notion of universe as cosmic dice game, a ‘play of signification’
maya-lila
unending cycles of creation/destruction
multiple realities
how the universe is
playing on a par with religion, art
creative-destructive
everywhere
free
for everyone
all the time
fundamental
female-male combined
extremely powerful
celebrates the erotic as divine energy
rationalists
