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

selective inattention 231
constructed by, distributed to, and shared among a number of participants.
As Komparu notes:
the viewer participates in the creation of the play by individual free
association and brings to life internally a drama based on individual
experience filtered through the emotions of the protagonist. The
shared dramatic experience, in other words, is not the viewer’s
adjustment of himself to the protagonist on stage but rather his
creation of a separate personal drama by sharing the play with the
performer. Indeed, he becomes that protagonist.
(Komparu 1983: 18)
Among the Japanese this kind of experiencing, based on Buddhist
principles, is called “detached vision.”
Related to selective inattention is the question of “presence.” What
gives to some performers a special allure, and why do audiences confer
this status and seek out those who have it? It isn’t only a western
phenomenon, this idea of being a star; and it isn’t always related to the
skills of the performer. While watching the thovil ceremony in Sri
Lanka I was told that one of the dancers, a very old man, was the
village’s most powerful “devil dancer,” a kind of exorcist. This aged
person executed a few steps and chanted. His dancing and singing were
poor by western standards of energy, precision, invention, duration.
But he commanded the complete attention of the previously noisy,
socializing crowd. His presence, not his theatrical skills, carried power:
he was an agent, a funnel, a conduit for power, and it was that power,
showing meagerly through him – a brilliant light almost obscured by
obstacles in a long tunnel, that held the audience. Also, as someone told
me, people recalled the old man’s youth when he’d danced some
furious dances, as another young man would do later the same night.
So the crowd’s attention was also due to respect for what this old man
had once been, the memories of the community embodied in him. The
same may be said concerning many of the world’s political or religious
stars. Some may project a powerful figure and great oratory. But others,
for example Emperor Hirohito, command respect by virtue of their
position. Or a feeble-voiced, trembling, and off-key pope presiding at a
Mass brings to the performance the authority and history of his office