2: Ethics of Performance
- Page ID
- 251972
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This chapter delves into Dwight Conquergood’s (1985) influential framework presented in Performing as a Moral Act: Ethical Dimensions of the Ethnography of Performance. This framework encourages performers to prioritize dialogical performance—an open, ongoing exchange of voices and perspectives. Conquergood suggests that performance, when done ethically, can be a powerful space for mutual understanding and collaboration across cultural boundaries. However, even well-meaning artists can unintentionally cause harm if they fail to critically examine their intentions, methods, and the power dynamics at play.
To help performers navigate these challenges, Conquergood identifies four common ethical pitfalls: the Custodian’s Rip-Off, where artists appropriate cultural materials for personal gain without understanding or honoring their origins; the Enthusiast’s Infatuation, in which performers romanticize or oversimplify a culture they admire without engaging deeply or responsibly; the Curator’s Exhibitionism, where cultures are presented from an outsider’s perspective without consent, reducing rich traditions to aesthetic displays; and the Skeptic’s Cop-Out, where fear of doing harm leads to total disengagement, cutting off opportunities for growth, learning, and respectful collaboration.
By understanding and reflecting on these four stances, students and performers can better recognize the ethical complexities of representing cultures not their own. Ultimately, this section encourages thoughtful, informed, and dialogical approaches to performance that honor the voices and experiences of others.
- 2.1: Dialogical Performance
- Performers who engage with cultures outside their own must navigate ethical challenges, including the risk of misrepresentation or appropriation, which can lead to fear-based avoidance. Dwight Conquergood’s (1985) concept of Dialogical Performance encourages artists to embrace open, respectful cultural exchange rather than retreating from it. Performers can create work that fosters meaningful cross-cultural dialogue by understanding and avoiding four common ethical pitfalls.
- 2.2: The Custodian's Rip-Off
- This section explores the “Custodian's Rip-Off,” a term from Dwight Conquergood (2003) that warns against exploiting cultural materials for personal gain without proper understanding or respect. The text encourages students to reflect critically on their performance choices, asking whether their work honors or harms the cultures represented. Ethical performance requires awareness, humility, and a commitment to honoring the origins and meaning of cultural expressions.
- 2.3: The Enthusiast's Infatuation
- Conquergood (2003) warns that the Enthusiast’s Infatuation occurs when well-meaning performers, driven by fascination, engage superficially with cultural traditions without fully understanding their context, leading to oversimplification and misrepresentation.
- 2.4: The Curator's Exhibitionism
- The Curator’s Exhibitionism, as defined by Conquergood (2003), describes an ethical pitfall in which individuals present or interpret a culture from an outsider’s perspective without collaboration, often reinforcing power imbalances and objectifying the culture. This stance treats cultural practices as artifacts for display rather than lived experiences, frequently lacking consent, context, or respect for those being represented.
- 2.5: The Skeptic's Cop-Out
- The Skeptic’s Cop-Out, the final quadrant in Conquergood’s (2003) ethical framework, describes the choice to disengage from cross-cultural performance in order to avoid potential harm. While this avoidance may stem from compassion and a desire to be respectful, it can ultimately limit meaningful dialogue, collaboration, and mutual understanding. By stepping away entirely, performers miss the opportunity to contribute ethically and responsibly to shared cultural conversations.
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