Oral Interpretation: Response #1
Oral communication and interpretation has been around for centuries in both historical and contemporary settings, and therefore gone through a numerous amount of changes since then. After watching “Fat Guy Poetry” by Eric Sequeria at the 2010 IHSA Forensics Poetry State Championship, there are various elements of his performance that fit within the oral performance suggestions in chapter 1 and 2 of Performing Literary Texts: Concepts and Skills. Oral interpretation to me is a dramatic art and is the practice of vocally expressing the meaning of written compositions, most commonly in literature. In Sequeria’s case, he did an oral interpretation of poetry, which included both “Cake” by Todd Colby and “This…show more content… In addition, Sequeria’s performance fits within the oral performance suggestions in a numerous ways, more specially the elements that made up the main ingredients of performance, which include: place, content, audience, and goal (the end or purpose); goals include instruction, pleasure, or a combination of the two. Performance should also be intentional and should have some reformative effect on the audience (Jaffe 2006). As can be seen in this particular performance, Eric keeps in mind the place or the physical setting in which the performance took place (IHSA Forensics Poetry State Championship), content (poetry about wanting cake and weight gain), audience (the judges and members of the crowd), and his goal/purpose (which was to discuss weight). Furthermore, Eric’s performance also fits within the oral performance suggestions in that he kept in mind his intention and goal during the performance, and expressed himself to evoke the audience’s response. Eric’s purpose or goal of his performance was to not only entertain the audience, but to convey that he has learned to…show more content… Firstly, Eric not only is passionate in his performance and pronounced the words clearly (diction), but he kept in mind his audience and incorporated both serious and humorous moments in his oral interpretation performance. Secondly, his used vocal fluctuations in order to emphasize important words so the audience could pick on the purpose of both poems. Next, Eric conveyed the emotional aspects of the poems, including the emotional neglect as if he had experienced what the author had experienced for himself. In other words, his emotion behind the performance was outstanding and authentic. Also, Eric embraced his own size and was not afraid to use his own body to convey the meaning of the poems (which shows courage as a performer). Finally, he emphasized his language and rhythm in order to create a sense of flow to the performance. In other words, Eric speech/performance was not too fast or too slow (he went at a good pace). He also used literacy devices like allegory and consonance (which created an overall sense of harmony to the performance). I do not think that there is anything that Eric could have changed or improved