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 ARTS1121 The Life of
Performance Week 2
Cultural Performance and
Ritual

JK Wedding Dance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-94JhLEiN0
How do we culturally name and mark our life crises or
significant moments of transition and transformation?
Recap:

Last week we understood that the discipline of performance studies is

interested in a broad spectrum approach to the concept of performance
That it looks at, at least eight cultural categories in which performance
occurs (via Schechner)
That it understands that different performances encompass different
assemblages of symbolic or restored behaviour
And that these assemblages result in particular cultural forms that have
particular cultural intentions and effects effects which we will next week
come to call performative
This week our key concepts are:

Cultural performance

Restored Behaviour

Ritual & Liminality

Social drama
Takehome concept #1 Milton Singers (1959) notion of cultural performance:

a definitely limited time span, a beginning and an end, an organized

program of activity, a set of performers, an audience, and a place and
occasion of performance (quoted in Carlson, p16)

Marvin Carlson, The Performance of Culture: Anthropological and Ethnographic Approaches in

Performance: A Critical Introduction [2nd Edition] ((London: Routledge, 2004 [1996])
John Macaloon:

cultural performances are occasions in which as a culture or society we

reflect upon and define ourselves, dramatize our collective myths and
history, present ourselves with alternatives, and eventually change in
some ways while remaining the same in others. (cited in McKenzie,
Perform or Else 31)
Remembering that For Schechner, performance has multiple functions:

to entertain
to make something that is beautiful
to mark or change identity
to make or foster community
to heal
to teach, persuade or convince
to deal with the sacred and/or demonic
For example, what are the functions of this cultural performance?

Kate and William Kiss

Takehome concept #2: Restored Behaviour

Physical or verbal actions that are not-for-the-first time, prepared, or

rehearsed. A person may not be aware that she is performing a strip of
restored behaviour. (22)

Every action, no matter how small or encompassing, consists of twice-

behaved behaviours. (23)

The everydayness of everyday life is precisely its familiarity, its being built
from known bits of behaviour rearranged and shaped in order to suit
specific circumstances. (23)

From Schechner reading for this week

Restored behaviour in the balcony kiss:
Takehome concept #3: life-crisis rituals & rites of passage
(Arnold van Gennep, French folklorist)

rites of separation from an established social order

threshold or liminal rites performed in the transitional space between
roles or orders
rites of reincorporation into an established order

Liminality:
Limen = threshold or margin
Victor Turner (Scottish Anthropologist): Liminality suggests the mood of
the subjunctive, or maybe - as if.
The liminal phase: provides a stage for unique structures of experience
in milieus detached from mundane life and characterised by the presence
of ambiguous ideas, monstrous images, sacred symbols, ordeals,
humiliations, esoteric and paradoxical instructions maskers and clowns,
gender reversals, anonymity, etc [Turner, Are there Universals 11]

The limen: a no mans land between the structural past and the structural
future as anticipated by a societys normative control of biological
development. [11]

For example, Japanese divorce ceremonies:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3kMChJB24o
The shape of Victor Turners Social Drama

(1) Breach: a person or subgroup breaks a rule deliberately or by inward

compulsion, in a public setting.

(2) Crisis: Conflicts between individuals, sections and factions follow the original
breach, revealing hidden clashes of character, interest and ambition.

(3) Redressive public action: seals off the mounting crisis of the groups unity and
its very continuity (often ritualised, undertaken in the name of the law or religion).

(4) Either: restoration of peace and normality or social recognition of

irremediable or irreversible breach
Examples of social drama and redressive ritual

The 18th / 21st birthday party:

Breach
The performer breaks away from aspects of their adolescence in how they
behave, dress, etc. They gain social power through access to money, drivers
license, legal ID.

Crisis
Parents mourn (or celebrate!) the loss of their child (soon to be adult). Tension in
the household over rules, who contributes to the running of the family and home.

Redressive process: ritualised performance

A large drunken party is held (often using dress up costumes) to celebrate the
performers coming of age.

Reintegration
As a newly acknowledged adult, the performer has new rights within the family
(can drive their parents car) but also is asked to pay $50 a week in board to cover
their expenses.

[a shift in identity has taken place]

 John Macaloon:

cultural performances are occasions in which as a culture or society we

reflect upon and define ourselves, dramatize our collective myths and
history, present ourselves with alternatives, and eventually change in
some ways while remaining the same in others. (cited in McKenzie,
Perform or Else 31)

Read this story here for an example of a

ritual invented out of necessity
eg 2005 Cronulla Riots as social drama

Breach
Anglo-identifying surf life savers and Middle-Eastern identifying beach-
goers rupture their previous habits of intercultural, or co-cultural
existence.

Crisis
5000 people mass at the beach and riots ensue with violence occasioned
on both sides. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Cronulla_riots

Redressive public action

Police, media (as redressive or formative of social drama), criminal
prosecutions, theatre works, art practices, public discussions, etc.
e.g. Protests against the riots
e.g. Urban Theatre Projects Stories of Love and Hate

Restoration or permanent schism

Another take on the ritual of the wedding ceremony:

Hannah Gadsby intro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPQPWalxPMA

Wedding: http://www.smh.com.au/video/video-entertainment/video-
entertainment-news/is-this-melbournes-first-same-sex-marriage-20160416-
4dkm3.html (Cue without ads)

Discussion: in the context of how rituals can function as a redressive response

to social dramas
What might be the social drama in this example?
What kind of performance is this?
What function(s) does it have?
Does it involve change of consciousness or identity for either spectators or
performers?
Other contexts of contemporary ritual check these out at home:

Haka for fallen service men

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xI6TRTBZUMM

ABC Radio National Life Matters

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/lifematters/friday-20-june-
2014/5536810 (from about 10 mins)

http://www.victoriaspencecelebrant.com/stories/

First Moon Party http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEcZmT0fiNM

Tender the film http://www.abc.net.au/arts/stories/s4011837.htm

Interview with Lynette Wallworth
http://www.realtimearts.net/feature/realtime_tv/11625
For tutorials

Task: identify a life crisis or social transition point that feels relevant in some
way for you, or for a community that you are aware of.

Dream up a performance ritual that seeks to redress aspects of that crisis

and lead to either reintegration or permanent schism. You will need to decide
on who participates in the performance, where it occurs and what actions it
might involve.

You can be playful (with respect) in your response