4 from ritual to theater and back: the efficacy ... - AAAARG.ORG

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from ritual to theater and back
only a charade of power can be displayed at theatrical performances; or
the actual changes played through by performance artists affect very
few people. When artists, or their audiences, recognize that these
staged “rituals” are mostly symbolic activities masquerading as effective
acts, a feeling of helplessness overcomes them. So-called “real
events” are revealed as metaphors. Governments can organize largescale
displays – parades of military hardware, for example – but far
from effecting change these rituals are designed to forestall change.
At Kurumugl the transformation of debtors into creditors was not
simply the occasion for a celebratory performance (as a birthday party
celebrates but does not effect a change in age). The performance at
Kurumugl makes happen what it celebrates. It opens up enough time in
the right place for the exchange to take, be made: it is liminal, a fluid
mid-point between two fixed structures. This mid-point occurs when
for a brief time the two groups merge into one dancing circle. During
this liminal time/place communitas is possible – that leveling of all differences
in an ecstasy that so often characterizes performing (see Victor
Turner 1969, 1974, 1982, and 1985). Then and only then can the
exchange take place (figure 4.3). The transformations above the line
convert dangerous encounters into less dangerous aesthetic and social
enactments. Those below the line effect changes from one actuality
into another. It is only because the transformations above the line
happen that those below the line can take place in peace. All the transformations
– aesthetic and social as well as actual – are temporary. The
meat will be eaten, the costumes doffed, the dance ended. The single
group will divide again according to known divisions; today’s debtors
Figure 4.3
war parties . . . transformed into . . . dancing groups
human victims pig meat
battledress costumes
combat dancing
two groups one group
debtors creditors
creditors debtors