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

an overall theory of flavor as it pertains to performance, what I
call “rasaesthetics.”
Rasa is flavor, taste, the sensation one gets when food is perceived,
brought within reach, touched, taken into the mouth, chewed, mixed,
savored, and swallowed. The eyes and ears perceive the food on its way
– the presentation of the dishes, the sizzling. At the same time, or very
shortly after, the nose gets involved. The mouth waters in anticipation.
Smell and taste dissolve into each other. The hands convey the food to
the mouth – either directly as in the traditional Indian way of eating
with the fingers or somewhat indirectly by means of utensils (a latecomer
everywhere). The whole snout is engaged. In the snout all the
senses are well-represented. The lower part of the face contains the
mouth, in the center is the nose, above are the eyes. The ears are sidecenter,
but focused forward.
Rasa also means “juice,” the stuff that conveys the flavor, the
medium of tasting. The juices of eating originate both in the food and
from the body. Saliva not only moistens food, it distributes flavors. Rasa
is sensuous, proximate, experiential. Rasa is aromatic. Rasa fills space,
joining the outside to the inside. Food is actively taken into the body,
becomes part of the body, works from the inside. What was outside is
transformed into what is inside. An aesthetic founded on rasa is fundamentally
different than one founded on the “theatron,” the rationally
ordered, analytically distanced panoptic.
ETYMOLOGIES AND DISTANCED KNOWING
rasaesthetics 337
Before more on rasaesthetics, something on western notions of theater.
The word “theater” is cognate with “theorem,” “theory,” “theorist,”
and such, all from the Greek theatron, itself from thea, “a sight”; and from
theasthai, “to view”; related to thauma, “a thing compelling the gaze, a
wonder”; and theorein, “to look at” (Partridge 1966: 710). Theorein is
related to theorema, “spectacle” and/or “speculation” (Shipley
1984: 69). These words are thought to be related to the Indo-European
root dheu or dhau, “to look at” (Partridge 1966: 710). The Indo-
European root of “Thespis” – the legendary founder of Greek theater –
is seku, a “remark” or “saying,” but with the implication of a divine
vision; and from seku derive such English words as “see,” “sight,” and