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

very important and well-theorized in various Asian systems of performance,
medicine, and the martial arts – all of which are tightly
related in Asian cultures. Thus, when I say the rasic aesthetic experience
is fundamentally different than the eye-dominant system prevalent in
the west, I am not talking metaphorically.
THE RASABOX EXERCISE
rasaesthetics 351
But if not metaphorically, how? Let me answer first in terms of training,
then in terms of public performances. Over the past five years I and
several of my colleagues at East Coast Artists, 6 especially Michele
Minnick and Paula Murray Cole, have been developing the Rasabox
exercise. For Minnick’s and Cole’s responses to the Rasabox exercise,
see pp. 361 ff. This exercise is an application of some of the ideas in
this essay, a kind of ENS training for artistic use. 7 It is based on the
assumption that emotions are socially constructed while feelings are
individually experienced.
The Rasabox exercise takes many hours to complete; in fact it is
open-ended. It can’t be done in one session. It continues from one day
to the next. The exercise proceeds as an orderly progression of steps:
1. Draw or tape a grid of nine rectangular boxes on the floor. All
rectangles are the same and each ought to be about 6' × 3'.
2. Very roughly “define” each rasa. For example, raudra means anger,
rage, roaring; bibhasta means disgust, spitting up/out, vomiting.
3. In variously colored chalk, write the name of one rasa inside each
rectangle. Use chance methods to determine which rasa goes
where. Write the names in Roman alphabetized Sanskrit. Leave the
center or ninth box empty or clear.
4. Have participants draw and/or describe each rasa inside its box.
That is, ask each person to interpret the Sanskrit word, to associate
feelings and ideas to it. Emphasize that these “definitions” and
associations are not for all time, but just “for now.” Emphasize also
that drawings, abstract configurations, or words can be used. In
moving from one box to another, participants must either “walk
the line” at the edge of the boxes or step outside the Rasabox area
entirely and walk around to the new box. There is no order of