About
RITUAL
Human ritual is of a piece with animal ritual. Rituals are used to manage potential conflicts regarding status, power, space, resources, and sex. Performing rituals helps people get through difficult periods of transition and move from one life status to another. Ritual is also a way for people to connect to a collective, to remember or construct a mythic past, to build social solidarity, and to form or maintain a community. Some rituals exist between or outside daily social life; other rituals are knitted into ordinary living.
Artists of many cultures have long created art for rituals – church music, altar pieces and devotional paintings, stained-glass windows, temple icons, masks, religious dances and dramas, and so on. Some artists have investigated not just specific rituals but the ritual process itself in order to synthesize existing rituals or invent new rituals. Not only artists, but also governments, sports teams, schools, and other entities invent rituals. Although many rituals are long-lasting and protective of the status quo, many others evolve and change – and promote change. The ritual process itself encourages innovation by opening up a space and time for anti-structure, a setting aside of restraints, a suspension of rules or the temporary adherence to an alternative set of rules.
Classroom Activities
PERFORM
- Go to a synagogue, mosque, or church not of your own faith. Insofar as you can without feeling dishonest, participate in the rituals. What effect does this participation have on you? Did you feel you were “playing a role” as in the theatre? Or did you experience something else? If "something else," what?
- Invent a ritual. Then perform it. Then teach it to others and perform it with them. Is what you did “really” a ritual? If so, why; if not, why not?
- Choose a ritual that you are familiar with and adapt it for a formal performance for an audience. Does the ritual have to change to accommodate your audience? How does the meaning of the ritual change?
- Working with at least one other person, create a performance piece around two or more rituals. Try to choose rituals that are different from one another either in a formal way or in function or meaning.
- Because rituals often take place in special, sometimes sequestered places, the very act of entering the “sacred space” has an impact on participants. Create a unique performance or ritual space. How does it feel to enter that space? In what ways do you act differently once in that space? Why?
WRITE ABOUT
- Rituals often adapt in response to other changes in society. Research a ritual such as Mardi Gras in New Orleans or St. Patrick’s Day in New York City. Write about your findings. How have these rituals changed and for what reasons?
- Have you ever experienced spontaneous communitas? Write about the event.
- Take a ritual that you are familiar with—one that you regularly perform—and describe in writing your chosen ritual with as much detail as possible.
- Rituals have often been taken out of their original non-artistic contexts and placed in artistic frames. Research one of the more well-known examples of this (there are several mentioned in Chapter 5, such as Antonin Artaud seeing Balinese dancers at the Colonial Exposition of Paris in 1931). Write about your findings.
Weblinks
- Explore the work of Anna Halprin
- Encyclopedia Brittanica entry on Arnold van Gennep
- Learn more about Carnival in Brazil
- Learn more about animal behaviorist George Schaller
- Learn more about the work of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards
- Visit Philip Glass’s website
- Watch video of Ralph Lemon’s work
- Watch a clip from Ratan Thiyam’s Uttar Priyadarshi
- Browse photographer Pablo Delano’s images of Trinidad Carnival
Sample Discussion Questions
TALK ABOUT
- Consider your day. Describe some ordinary rituals you do. Do you also take part in, or witness, any sacred or official rituals? What are the similarities/differences between these two kinds of rituals? Do you consider both kinds to be “performances”? Why or why not?
- Have you experienced communitas during an event that was not a ritual – for example, a concert, sports event, or party? Would analyzing the event that led to your experiencing communitas “as” a ritual add to your understanding of what you experienced?
- Victor Turner defined the term “liminoid” to account for symbolic actions or leisure activities in modern or postmodern societies that compared to, but were very different from, the concept of the “liminal,” which he reserved for discussion of traditional or pre-modern societies. Discuss what distinguishes the liminoid from the liminal and try to come up with a list of examples of liminoid actions.
- What use of ritual in theatre, dance, and/or music have you experienced, seen, been involved with, etc.? What types of rituals were used and how were they used? In what ways did they change, add to, or create meaning in the performance? Compare your own experiences to others.
- Rituals change and sometimes new rituals are invented. What makes rituals change? What forces create the circumstances for new rituals to be created?
Videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhk-WQ37fTY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dygFtTWyEGM