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

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selective inattention
theater, at least, these disruptions and disturbances, these variations –
often brought on by unpredictable interactions with spectators – are
what make this or that particular performance interesting. The process
by means of which a performance grows over a period of time is
analogous to evolution by natural selection working from accidental
genetic variations. Ehrenzweig recognizes these changes:
A performer may readily change the inarticulate micro-elements of his
interpretation from performance to performance. But this instability
does not make them arbitrary. Any change forces the performer to
recast his interpretation of the whole work on the spur of the moment.
This total integration can only be controlled by the empty stare of
unconscious scanning which alone is capable of overcoming the
fragmentation in art’s surface structure.
(Ehrenzweig 1970: 49)
Audiences as well as performers employ unconscious scanning. More
than in “product arts” (painting, sculpting, writing, film) “process
arts” (live performing) are co-created by performers and spectators. A
reader may complete a written text in each reading, but only during
live performances do artists and audiences co-create together in exactly the
same time/space.
This relaxed unconscious scanning – selective inattention – is
nowhere more clearly seen than in observing people at a performance
of noh. Noh is the exquisitely articulated masked theater of Japan that
“developed from a variety of sacred rituals and festival entertainment
arts . . . brought to a state of refinement and maturity during the
Muromachi period (1336–1568)” (Komparu 1983: xv). The Japanese
say that the proper way to “watch” noh is in a hypnagogic state
between waking and sleeping. Among the noh audience are many
whose eyes are closed, or heavy-lidded. These experts are “paying
attention” by relaxing their consciousness, allowing material to stream
upward from their unconscious to meet the sounds/images streaming
outward from the noh stage. In this state of porous receptive inattention
each individual spectator is carried along in noh’s dreamlike
rhythms. Often images and sounds are shared by shite (leading actor),
chorus, musicians, and spectators so that the principal character is