Familiar as Strange

Purpose: To Entertain/Inform –  You will practice extemporaneous speaking and employment of imagery while focusing on improving overall delivery. You may use humor, tension-building, conflict, and/or suspense, into their stories as well as fictional quotes, expert testimonies, statistics, interviews, or facts to build and maintain audience interest. You may also employ costumes and props in the telling of your stories.

Objective and Instruction: After completing this activity, you will be able to look critically at an everyday experience, create a story, and performatively re-language this practice. Additionally, you will develop confidence in presentation skills, further enhancing critical thinking and cultural awareness by learning to creatively engage voice, gesture, and performance through “making the familiar strange” within the public speaking classroom.

For this activity, you will be asked to choose an everyday activity, practice, or ritual, considered “normal,” mundane, or taken-for-granted (from your own culture). You should then reflect on your chosen topic as if you are unfamiliar with the practice or custom or are learning about it for the first time. Pretend you are viewing outside cultural traditions. In constructing the familiar as strange, you should problematize the processes, traditions, philosophies, and instruments or equipment, creating a story as if you have no background knowledge of these rituals.

These two examples that illustrate the concept.  

“The Ministry of Silly Walks” and the BBC

Symphony Orchestra’s (2004) performance of John Cage’s

 Creation: You should create a character (traveler, research, reporter, or another identity), a back story, and a setting for their tale. You must be able to explain how they encounter what they witness, what other characteristics are present (appearance, mannerisms, accents, etc.), what type of interactions occur (talk, movement, rituals), what comprises the setting, and what objects, tools, or other artifacts are important to this experience. You must also consider what rules, norms, steps, or explanations are necessary to describe the topic as well as what sensory details and vocal changes, gestures, or movement and use of space will enhance your story delivery. For instance, if a story is focusing on football, then you cannot refer to the actual object as a football, pigskin, or sports equipment. Instead, you should create a new label for it, such as a “magical egg.” Each story should employ descriptive elements that engage the senses, focusing only on the story itself (props can be used as reminders of what you would like to say next, but you should avoid any note cards or written text.)

Turn In – You will turn in a short essay/outline with an explanation of what your speech is about. Submit your outline on the assignment submission page on Canvas.

Length: 3-6 minutes. 10-second grace period.

References:        

 Conqurgood, D. (1985). Performing as a moral act: Ethical dimensions of the ethnography of performance. Literature in Performance, 5, 2, 1-13.

Hughes, P. (1974). The sacred rac. In J.C. Millar (Ed.), Focusing on global poverty and development (pp. 357-358). Washington, D.C.: Overseas Development Council.

Miner, H. (1956). Body ritual among the Nacirema. American Anthropologist, 58,  3, 503-507.