New Understandings

Just recently this week i presented a few of my works to my Language and Culture Anthropology class. I realized my professor Dr. Lisa Gezon wanted to place me in a situation that would further back up my understanding of my current research paper. After studying abroad and becoming exposed to the Parisian Jazz clubs i wondered why English was used as a Language of performance. My paper would be why English was validated as a language of performance regardless of the negative ideologies of it. The part that i was stuck on was the relationship between competence and performance. In order to be a competent singer there has to be concrete understanding of the language used, and performance is using that language in a action. The audience is the sole motivator for competent use because they critique the performance and determine if the performer was a competent communicator. Then i started to think if the responsibility is all on the performer but the judgement call is made by the audience ,why shouldn't the audience be responsible for competence in performance. What if they don't know or understand the performance though they chose to be there, and made the wrong call?

Which was my situation when presenting to the anthropology class although ,their mind was open to understanding which encouraged me greatly. I realized that from creating art to talking about it artists go through a linguistic code-switching, using terms relevant to the audience at the time. Between this transfer meaning gets lost , interpretations are interjected and the piece takes on something new. I guess what I'm wondering is if artists are competent in the language of art? or interpretation or broad understanding ? of language and worlds outside of our own?