'Frontstage' and 'Backstage' in Heritage Performance: What Ethnography Reveals.

This paper considers how an ethnographer who studies heritage performance, in this case Me´tis fiddling and dancing, grapples with what is presented 'frontstage' in public settings. The author uses the dramaturgical metaphors first offered by Goffman (1959) and that MacCannell (1973, 1976) later expanded in the analysis of touristic spaces. Unlike MacCannell the author does not view such performances as totally contrived in order to cater to an audience's preconceptions. Furthermore, the heritage performances the author studies and the touristic spaces that fed into MacCannell's analysis differ; they include performances for insiders as well as performances offered up to those assumed outside or less familiar with the cultural traditions being performed. The author contends that understanding and interpreting such public discourse requires more than just a semiotic reading of what these performers do and say frontstage. What ethnography ideally reveals is the complexity of local, familial as well as broader socio-political histories and allegiances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]