During the summer of 2008, I took a plane and flew across the ocean to the city of Beijing, China. It was a wonderful summer, I learned a little bit of a new language, met some amazing people, ate some amazing food, and just got to really experience the culture as a whole. The school I was at took us to the tourist spots, which was amazing. I took a lot of pictures, and also video. As we began to talk about participatory and presentational performance I was reminded of when me and one of my classmates decided to go for a walk as there was a big park near our school.
There was a large area where we found a large group of older Chinese that were playing with Chinese Yo-Yos. I was entranced as there were many different sizes and some even made noise. The yo-yo consists of two equally sized discs connected by a long axle. The wielder has two sticks, one in each hand, that are connected by a string and is used to keep the yo-yo in motion. In the above video, the woman is able to control it while it swings almost 10 feet around her. She seemed to be one of the most skilled there.
As I watched the different people, I noticed a lot of discussion and some teaching of tricks. This reminded me of the concepts we have talked about from the Turino book. The majority of what I watched was presentational, even though some were discussing, (at least I thought, based it off of observation of gestures), the majority of those performing were showing their individual skill. There were still others like my friend and I who were on the sidelines watching them. I am sure it was a little odd to see a couple of foreigners watching something that, for them, seemed to be only enjoyed by their culture.
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