Emotions in Rituals and Performances

South Asian and European Perspectives on Rituals and Performativity

Axel Michaels, Christoph Wulf, Axel Michaels, Christoph Wulf

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781138664821
• eBook ISBN: 9781000059199
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Challenging the idea that rituals are static and emotions irrational, the volume explores the manifold qualities of emotions in ritual practices. Focusing explicitly on the relationship between emotions and rituals, it poses two central questions. First, how and to what extent do emotions shape rituals? Second, in what way are emotions ritualized in and beyond rituals? Strong emotions are generally considered to be more spontaneous and uncontrolled, whereas ritual behaviour is regarded as planned, formalized and stereotyped, and hence less emotional. However, as the volume demonstrates, rituals often reveal strong emotions among participants, are motivated by feelings, or are intended to generate them.

The essays discuss the motivation for rituals; the healing function of emotions; the creation of new emotions through new media; the aspect of mimesis in the generation of feelings; individual, collective, and non-human emotions; the importance of trance and possession; staged emotions and emotions on stage; emotions in the context of martyrdom; emotions in Indian and Western dance traditions; emotions of love, sorrow, fear, aggression, and devotion. Furthermore, aesthetic and sensory dimensions, as well as emic concepts, of emotions in rituals are underscored as relevant in understanding social practice.

Emotions in the Fine and Performing Arts

22
Emotions in Indian Drama and Dances

Fabrizia Baldissera

The rediscovery and reconstruction of the Indian performing arts

At the beginning of the 20th century the Indian traditional performing arts were threatened with extinction. Various foreign political and economic dominations had cut into the power of the former patrons of temples and royal retinues, who by then lacked the means to entertain large troupes of dancers and musicians, whose instruction in the traditional dramas could last from ten to thirty years. From the 19th century onwards, moreover, new circumstances had favored the rise of an Indian urban bourgeois class, who looked at modernity from a Victorian perspective and dismissed traditional performances as old-fashioned or vulgar.

By this time it was as if three traditions, that were historically intertwined, had gradually become independent from each other. These were the composition of dramatic texts, that of dramatic treatises, and actual performance. From at least the first centuries CE there had been a vast literary dramatic production. This was soon accompanied by a highly developed tradition of dramatic lore and criticism. And finally, from ancient times and throughout India, there had been an extremely diversified tradition of performances, both secular and religious, based on dramatic practice.

By the beginning of the 20th century the texts of several dozens old plays were still extant, as well as some classical dramatic treatises, and in many regions of India there was still a number of knowledgeable teachers and performers of the ancient plays and dances. No one of importance, however, seemed to be particularly interested in them or in their ancient art. This was further worsened by the ill repute in which female dancers, including temple dancers, had incurred, starting from at least the 17th century, when due to lack of sustained patronage they had to resort also to prostitution as a means of livelihood.¹

1 Actresses apparently were considered easy women or prostitutes also in more ancient times, as stated already by the great grammarian Pāṇini (fifth or fourth century before CE). In a satire of the eighth century CE, the Kuṭṭanīmata of Dāmodaragupta, a play is enacted in a temple by a troupe of courtesans, dāsī.

Fortunately in the second decade of the 20th century a group of cultivated people from Madras, belonging to the new Indian bourgeoisie, most of whom were of Brahminical extraction, endeavored to restore self-respect and give a new lease of life to the languishing performing arts, in their bid to promote Indian cultural values. Their action was part of the larger nationalistic struggle that ultimately led to Indian independence, and was also favored by the Theosophical Society of Madras. They were later hailed as the pioneers of the “Indian cultural renaissance,” as their work of discovery and classification proved vital for the recovery of the traditional performing arts of Tamil Nadu, and their example then led to the study and preservation of several dramatic forms throughout India. At the same time their changed sensibility “reconstructed” the art of performance in accord with the aesthetic ideals of the time, giving new shape to several aspects of dramatic practice. Some contemporary scholars and performers (FRATAGNOLI 2010; MEDURI 1996, 2005, 2009; and cf. ORR 2000) of Indian dances, in the wake of postcolonial and cultural studies, such as SPIVAK (1988), oppose strongly the pioneers’ reconstruction of the ancient dramatic forms. They maintain that the disrepute attached to professional female dancers had to do mainly with the subaltern rank of most practitioners, often overlooking the historical documents that prove the courtesan status of most ancient dancers (KULKE 1978; cf. MARGLIN 1983; Kuṭṭanīmata below).

Written plays, drama manuals, performance, and dramatic criticism

To try and imagine what an ancient dramatic performance might have looked like, we have on the one hand three types of old written documents, and, on the other hand, the performances of traditional drama and dances enacted in our times. The documents are the written texts of the actual dramas, the prescriptions of the classical dramatic treatises and a few written critiques, usually embedded in a play, left by people who had witnessed, or who appear as to have witnessed actual performances in the past centuries.

As we can not be sure that the performances of our contemporaries, no matter how “traditional” they claim to be, abide by the rules of ancient stage practice, we can try and test some of their elements, by comparing them to what we know about the old practice. One of the formal characteristics of the oldest dramas, for example, was that they were written in both verse and prose. The old dramatic textbooks and the texts on poetics, as well as some stage directions found in the plays, declare that in drama verses were to be sung, and interpreted through expressive mimicry, abhinaya. Verses, composed in a variety of metres, were meant to develop a particular mood in a poetic way, while the prose passages, usually found as dialogues or asides, fulfilled the purpose to further the action.

If we assume that the performance practice of our time is similar to the old one, we can imagine that the verses were sung, and perhaps repeated a few times as a refrain, so that the mimicry could explore all their interpretive possibilities, whereas the prose passages were rendered in plain verbal recitation. We can further “test” our assumption by comparing it with the extant stage directions and old critical notations on actual performances. Often we would find that some of this criticism described the way in which, for instance, an actress sung her lines with perfect pitch and intonation; in this particular case, immediately later, the critic praised her manner of developing the mood through her expressive acting. These remarks are found in the ancient court drama Mālavikāgnimitra of the great writer Kālidāsa, who lived in the fourth or fifth century CE. Here it would appear that there was an important distinction between theory — represented by the śāstras, the technical treatises, in this case the dramatic ones — and the performing practice, called prayoga, as expounded by one of the two court dancing masters (cf. Mālavikāgnimitra, Act I v. 12). In the words of another character, a learned ascetic woman called to judge the dance of the heroine, dramatic art, called nāṭyaśāstram,² is said to be “predominantly practical” (prayogapradhānam). The performance, however, had to be carried out “in accord with [the rules of] dramatic shows” (yathādarśanam) (cf. Mālavikāgnimitra, Act II v. 8) which prescribed also that the performer be constantly aware of the possibilities of building up and enhancing the general mood through sophisticated mimicry.

2 This is also the title of the main treatise on drama. This will be seen in the following discussion.

In the opinions of most critics and scholars of poetics, in fact, the most important element of a good performance was the harmonious development of a sustained mood through the correct representation of the emotions that contributed to its creation. From being spontaneous reactions to certain situations, emotions in drama became ritualized, and shown in a conventional way, through a very specific and lengthy training.

Articulate dramatic forms in ancient India adopted very particular, stylized ways of acting and of dealing with emotions on stage. The most refined dance forms observed a great number of dramatic conventions, which were first orally taught from teacher to pupil, and later preserved in manuals of dramatics. Much was left, however, to the actors’ improvization, and to the imagination of the audience. The stage was usually bare, and props had to be created by illusory mimicry. Music, on the other hand, was most important; it accompanied the whole performance, creating the appropriate mood and emphasizing the salient moments. In all types of dramatic performances emotions had to be portrayed always in keeping with the prescribed, ritualized way of displaying these feelings. Some extreme manifestations of emotion, deemed unsuitable for an audience that could number children, women and old people, were banned from the stage, as already stated in the oldest preserved manual of dramatics, the Nāṭyaśāstra (the treatise, śāstra, on dramatic representation, nāṭya, from now on referred to as NŚ)³ attributed to the mythical sage Bharata. Dramatic conventions in fact enjoined that disturbing actions such as fighting, eating, kissing (as deemed conducive to sex), sleeping, taking a bath and death were not to be shown on stage (cf. NŚ XXIV 285ff., XX 21); they could be verbally described by actors, but were not represented as such by mimicry.

3 Dating from the fourth or fifth century CE but containing much older material.

A peculiar feature of nāṭya is to be both a śravyakāvya, an artistic literary composition (kāvya) meant to be heard, and a dṛśyakāvya, an artistic literary composition meant to be seen. Emotions were conveyed to the audience through the three media of music — both vocal and instrumental — verbal recitation and body language, in a complex pantomime that affected the spectators on multiple sensorial levels.

Emotions connected to the fictional aspect of drama

The fictional aspect of drama, this artificial imitation of the world, was often alluded to within the most complex plays, often by the device of the fiction within the fiction, which at times saw the weaving of the story within and without the scene of a “play within the play,” antarnāṭaka. The old dramas present for instance descriptions of people transported into a fictional world by the particular mood arising from their emotions at witnessing a work of art.

To this particular awareness of fiction contributed also the initial benedic-tory verses of dramas. Usually very elaborate, these hinted at the plot of the play, together with the prologue that had the stage director speak to the main actress and to the actors, to summon them for the performance. In so doing, he reminded the public that they were to look at a work of art, a product of imagination, and were to keep a detached stand in the face of the emotions that would be displayed. In most prologues, beside the novelty of the play and the skill of the playwright, the good qualities of the troup...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Concepts and Theories
• Emotions in Rituals and Festivals
• Emotions in Private and Public Performances
• Emotions in the Fine and Performing Arts
• About the Editors
• Notes on Contributors