Goffman defines a performance as any activity or behavior by a participant that is intended to influence others present. He notes that performances take place on specific occasions and involve different participants. A concert is a type of performance where music is the central focus, and the audience traditionally behaves silently. Goffman also discusses the concept of "front," referring to how individuals present themselves through factors like appearance, mannerisms, speech, and environment to define their social role and influence others' perceptions of them. While not everything in life is a literal performance, it can be difficult to specify where performances end and genuine interactions begin.

1. Performance

2. “A ‘performance’ may be defined as all
the activity of a given participant on a
given occasion which serves to
influence in any way any of the other
participants.” – Goffman

3. “A ‘performance’ may be defined as all the
activity of a given participant on a given
occasion which serves to influence in any
way any of the other participants.”
– Goffman
• What activity?
• What occasion?
• Who are the participants?

4. “Concert”
Makes music the center of attention.
Since 1840 used to describe public and non-
theatrical events.
Silent audience became norm in the mid-
19th century.
Since mid-twentieth century, extended to
presentations of jazz, rock and popular
music (as well as European classical).
(Grove Dictionary of Music)

5. Audience and genre
Setting?
Enter? When?
Sit? Where? How?
Talk?
Move?
Dance?
Clap when?
Performer-audience interaction?

6. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life,
Erving Goffman
“Everyone is always and everywhere, more or
less consciously, playing a role…It is in these
roles that we know each other; it is in these
roles that we know ourselves.”
– Robert Park

7. “Front”
“…that part of the individual’s performance
which regularly functions in a general and
fixed fashion to define the situation for those
who observe the performance.
Front…is the expressive equipment of a
standard kind intentionally or unwittingly
employed by the individual during his
performance.” – Goffman

8. “Front”
Setting: furniture, environment, etc.
Personal front: clothing, gender, age, race, speech patterns, facial
expressions, bodily gestures
Appearance: “stimuli which function at the time to tell us of the
performer’s social statuses”
Manner: “stimuli which function at the time to warn us of the interaction
role the performer will expect to play in the oncoming situation”

9. “All the world is not, of
course, a stage, but
the crucial ways in
which it isn’t are not
easy to specify.”
– Goffman

10. “All the world is not, of
course, a stage, but
the crucial ways in
which it isn’t are not
easy to specify.”
– Goffman