This Project is an auto-ethnography and microhistory, drawing together in writing all of my early memories of attendance at performance. This project is my attempt to do what I have asked others to do in the First Gatherings Project.
For myself, the adjective ‘first’ might mean ‘first that I remember’ or ‘first of that kind of performance.’ It will be clear from the scope of what I write that my definition of performance covers a broad range of experience, from ballet and classical theatre to the puppet show and the movie theatre, and from performances at school, on stages and off, to performances at the side of the road, on the street, and in the playground. There is nowhere that can hide from performance, or, at least, that isn’t influenced by the performances we experience.
I hope that this exercise will encourage others to record what they remember, adding to the archive of our shared cultural experiences. This is historical evidence, that collectively we can use to understand our past, our culture–our histories.
I hope that by writing these personal microhistories I can reinforce just how pervasive, and how essential in every respect, performance remains in our experience. Of course, I am also writing these for my own benefit, for further insight into my own relationship with public performance, and therefore with the world.
Stephen Johnson 