Grades generally demonstrate how much knowledge individuals know and whether or not they understand the subject matter. In theater, however, grades are comprised of effort and experience. The amount of effort people put into their practice is reflected in their performance making the experience for the audience either good or bad. In Balinese theater, the relationship or interaction between performers and audience is known as Bhasa and Rhasa. While Bhasa reflects the actor’s inner chi, rhasa reflects the audiences’ experience seeing the performance.
Although I understand how important grades are for William and Mary students, I find it odd that some people did not take into consideration rhasa and bhasa when deciding how to grade the midterm performances. In other classes, exams are graded by professors because the professors are the one’s reading them. In classical Asian theater, however, we perform to the entire class. Therefore, the entire class should be included in the grading process. Moreover, people perceive everything differently. While one person could have gotten a rhasa from the singing, another person could have felt a rhasa based on the dancing. Including these varying perspectives in the grading process could make the grade more holistic. Not only would the grades have more substance, but they would also be representative of the performance itself since balinese performances uphold the practice of bhasa and rhasa.
The fact that Guru and professor Palmer ended up grading the performances, restricts each performance to the experience of two individuals. Although Guru and Professor Palmer are more experienced, the beauty of theater is having an eclectic audience comprised of individuals that don’t necessarily catch every mistake and are learning with every performance.
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