An ethnographic study explored the critical evaluations of audience members who viewed an ethnographic performance adapted, directed, and performed by a doctoral student in the Speech Communication Department on the campus of Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. The performance was a one-person show consisting of a series of personal narratives by female exotic dancers which were juxtaposed with excerpts from feminist theoretical discourse. By virtue of this juxtaposition, the narratives argued with and against those feminist perspectives. Evaluative responses were received from 17 undergraduate students who were required to attend the performance and write a critique as a class assignment. Responses were also received from graduate students in the performance studies concentration and three performance studies faculty members, all of whom attended a 1-hour oral critique/discussion following the performance. The majority of the evaluative comments made by the faculty and graduate students during the oral critique focused on the performance as a critical act, while informal comments before the performance raised issues about the performance's academic suitability. More than with any other critical context, the undergraduates' evaluations principally focused on the performance as an aesthetic event. The absence of aesthetic considerations from the faculty and graduate student critiques raises concerns about how the speech communication discipline values aesthetics. (Contains 27 references and 7 notes.) (RS)