6. Ritual as performance

Mapping Intimacies ◽

10.1093/actrade/9780199943524.003.0007 ◽

2015 ◽

Author(s):

Barry Stephenson

Keyword(s):

Performance Studies ◽

Zen Buddhism ◽

Performance Theory ◽

Ritual Studies ◽

Ritual Action ◽

Performance Events ◽

And Performance ◽

Bodily Movements

Cross-culturally, ritual typically includes elements commonly associated with performance events: music or rhythmic accompaniment; dance or other stylized bodily movements; and masking, costuming, and makeup. ‘Ritual as performance’ considers performance theory and performance studies and some of the work of significant theorists in these fields: J. L. Austin and Richard Schechner. By looking at the kōan tradition of Zen Buddhism, Schechner's approach to ritual can be better understood. Schechner places performance on a continuum that runs from efficacy to entertainment. The notions of embodiment and inscription in ritual studies are also considered along with the noetic implications of ritual action, such as pilgrimage.

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Introduction

Theatre Research International ◽

10.1017/s0307883307002763 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 32 (2) ◽

pp. 103-105

Author(s):

KRISTINA HAGSTRÖM STÅHL

Keyword(s):

Gender Studies ◽

Performance Studies ◽

Performance Theory ◽

Future Directions ◽

Critical Step ◽

Self Evaluation ◽

The Past ◽

To Come ◽

And Performance ◽

And Gender

In the past decade and a half, feminism and gender studies have undergone a process of critical self-scrutiny and re-assessment. Presently, the fields of theatre and performance studies are undertaking a similar project of self-evaluation, as evidenced by recent calls to assess the ‘state of the field’ as well as its future directions. Elaine Aston and Geraldine Harrison suggest in their recent co-edited volume, Feminist Futures? Theatre, Performance, Theory, that any attempt to envision the future must begin by examining the present, which in turn entails looking to, and reflecting on, the legacies and remains of the past. In her article for this issue of TRI, ‘A Critical Step to the Side: Performing the Loss of the Mother’, Aston does precisely this, asking, ‘in what ways it might be critically productive to come back to the maternal as a subject for feminism’.

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Two Masterpieces of Kūṭiyāṭṭam

10.1093/oso/9780199483594.001.0001 ◽

2019 ◽

Keyword(s):

Performance Studies ◽

Empty Space ◽

Ritual Studies ◽

Indian Culture ◽

Art Form ◽

South Indian ◽

Hebrew University ◽

And Performance ◽

The University

Kūṭiyāṭṭam, India’s only living traditional Sanskrit theatre, has been continually performed in Kerala for at least a thousand years. The actors and drummers create an entire world in the empty space of the stage by using spectacular costumes and make-up and by an immensely rich interplay of words, rhythms, mime, and gestures. This volume focuses on Mantrāṅkam and Aṅgulīyāṅkam, the two great masterpieces of Kūṭiyāṭṭam. It provides fundamental general remarks and relates them to pan-Indian reflections on aesthetics, philology, ritual studies, and history. Authored by scholars and active Kūṭiyāṭṭam performers, this is the first attempt to bring together a set of sustained, multi-faceted interpretations of these masterpieces-in-performance. With an aim to open up this ancient art form to readers interested in South Indian culture, religion, theatre and performance studies, philology, as well as literature, this volume offers a new way to access a major art form of pre-modern and modern Kerala. The University of Tuebingen in Germany and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel were partners in a long-term project studying and documenting Kūṭiyāṭṭam performances, including initiating full-scale performances of major works in the classical repertoire. We have been, in particular, focusing on the study of the two major, complex and ancient works, Mantrāṅkam and Aṅgulīyāṅkam, both of which we have seen and recorded in full. The articles in this volume are one of the results. They are supplemented with video-clips of lecture demonstrations provided online.

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Uprooting the Garden: Thoughts around ‘The Prometheus Project’

New Theatre Quarterly ◽

10.1017/s0266464x00001858 ◽

1986 ◽

Vol 2 (5) ◽

pp. 3-11

Author(s):

Richard Schechner

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

Performance Studies ◽

Performance Theory ◽

New York University ◽

Academic Journal ◽

Work In Progress ◽

Performance Group ◽

To Come ◽

And Performance

Richard Schechner is presently working towards a production of his The Prometheus Project, planned to open at the Performing Garage in New York before the appearance of this issue. Simultaneously, he is trying to come to terms with his own failures of communication with his eighty-year-old father. Personal preoccupations, theatrical work-in-progress, and performance theory mesh together in what amounts to the overview offered here of an avant-grade confronted by the prospect of global genocide – and, more specifically. Schechner offers an explanation of the tone of parody which seems increasingly to have characterized performance work. Richard Schechner took The Drama Review from its origins as a small academic journal to a lively forum for theatrical debate during his editorship from 1962 to 1969, by which time he was already directing the Performance Group, whose opening production was the controversial Dionysus in 69. He has been a Professor of Performance Studies at New York University since 1967, and resumed the editorship of TDR in 1985.

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Cultural Labour

10.1093/oso/9780199490813.001.0001 ◽

2019 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Brahma Prakash

Keyword(s):

Conceptual Framework ◽

Performance Studies ◽

Life Experience ◽

Social Hierarchies ◽

Folk Performance ◽

And Performance ◽

The Relationship

Folk performances reflect the life-worlds of a vast section of subaltern communities in India. What is the philosophy that drives these performances, the vision that enables as well as enslaves these communities to present what they feel, think, imagine, and want to see? Can such performances challenge social hierarchies and ensure justice in a caste-ridden society? In Cultural Labour, the author studies bhuiyan puja (land worship), bidesia (theatre of migrant labourers), Reshma-Chuharmal (Dalit ballads), dugola (singing duels) from Bihar, and the songs and performances of Gaddar, who was associated with Jana Natya Mandali, Telangana: he examines various ways in which meanings and behaviour are engendered in communities through rituals, theatre, and enactments. Focusing on various motifs of landscape, materiality, and performance, the author looks at the relationship between culture and labour in its immediate contexts. Based on an extensive ethnography and the author’s own life experience as a member of such a community, the book offers a new conceptual framework to understand the politics and aesthetics of folk performance in the light of contemporary theories of theatre and performance studies.

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Cultural History, Ritual and Performance: George L. Mosse in Context

Journal of Contemporary History ◽

10.1177/0022009420940033 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 002200942094003

Author(s):

Peter Burke

Keyword(s):

Political Culture ◽

Early Modern ◽

Cultural History ◽

Performance Studies ◽

Early Modern Europe ◽

History Of ◽

Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries ◽

Modern Europe ◽

And Performance ◽

Cultural Turn

George L. Mosse took a ‘cultural turn’ in the latter part of his career, but still early enough to make a pioneering contribution to the study of political culture and in particular what he called political ‘liturgy’, including marches, processions, and practices of commemoration. He adapted to the study of nationalism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the approach to the history of ritual developed by historians of medieval and early modern Europe, among them his friend Ernst Kantorowicz. More recently, the concept of ritual, whether religious or secular, has been criticized by some cultural historians on the grounds that it implies a fixed ‘script’ in situations that were actually marked by fluidity and improvisation. In this respect cultural historians have been part of a wider trend that includes sociologists and anthropologists as well as theatre scholars and has been institutionalized as Performance Studies. Some recent studies of contemporary nationalism in Tanzania, Venezuela and elsewhere have adopted this perspective, emphasizing that the same performance may have different meanings for different sections of the audience. It is only to be regretted that Mosse did not live long enough to respond to these studies and that their authors seem unaware of his work.

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