This article describes a process-oriented method called cultural performance analysis spheres. This method is designed for researchers to use at three stages of ethnographic studies on public-cultural performances: (1) as preparation before going into the field, (2) by a participant observer during the performance, and (3) as a guide for communicating scholarly discourse that must necessarily give linear form to experiences where there is simultaneous perception of multiple phenomena. This methodology is explained and then demonstrated with an ethnography of a Chinese New Year public-cultural performance in San Francisco.
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