The Cross-Cultural Performance of Ceremonial Texts: Ritual Theory and Performance as Metonymy
Robert J. Hubbard, Ph.D.
Dept. of Theatre and Speech,
Northwestern College
My friend, I am going to tell you the story of my life. It is the story of all life that is holy and is good to tell, and of us two-leggeds sharing in it with the four-leggeds and the wings of the air and all green things; for these are children of one mother; their father is one Spirit.
Black Elk
from Black Elk Speaks
In hindsight, this ambling preface
from Black Elk, and Oglala Sioux Holy Man, to John Neihardt, an obscure Western
poet, may be read as an open invitation for all members of society to listen
and learn from what Vine Deloria later extolled as “the greatest piece of
theology written this century” (Deloria xiv).
In the current culturally energized climate of Performances Studies, Black
Elk Speaks, and texts of similar origin, hold a position of high
consideration and purpose. Ceremonial
texts, so grounded in the traditions of ritual, afford glimpses into a world
view fundamentally absent in Western thought and education (
And yet, in practice, these laudable benefits may easily fall prey to the opacity of inadequate translation. Rather than experiencing enlightenment and empathy, students attempting to perform texts from a separate and unfamiliar culture will likely experience frustration, embarrassment and eve aggravation resulting from their inability to understand and convey the cultural nuances with and surrounding the performance text. In light of the constant barrage by educators and civic leaders heralding the benefits of cross-cultural empathy as a means of fostering understanding within a troubled climate of racial tension, student apprehensions may be difficult to admit; indeed, many performance Studies practitioners appear to blindly assume that the act of performance, regardless of the overwhelming esoteric and/or culturally specific features of a text, will somehow magically inscribe within the performer insights into a different race and culture. Although transcendence is a pretty thought, can we or should we rely on it as the sole vehicle of enlightenment? Has cross-cultural performance become the trickle down economic plan of Performance Studies?
To be fair, thoughtful and constructive efforts have been made to recognize and alleviate these dilemmas. In his seminal article “Performance as a Moral Act,” Dwight Conquergood introduces the concept of the “dialogical performance.”[1] This approach is absed on a give-and-take relationship existing between the performer’s self and the culture represented by the text. A dialogical performance, states Conquergood, “struggles to bring together different voices, world views, value systems and beliefs so that they can have a conversation with one another.” He goes on to state, “dialogical performance is a way of having intimate conversations with other people and other cultures. Instead of speaking about the, one speak to and with them” (9-10). Conquergood’s ideal for cross-cultural performance rings with clarity and ingenuity; and yet, in some keys areas, it suffers from an ambiguity that threatens its viability as a performance ideal. Ultimately, the point of friction arising from his definition stems from its duality of praxis. The word “dialogical” implies a kind of cultural conversation between the self and Other, an internal dialogue between the performer and the text. This concept does not, however, account for what occurs when these two willing communicants don’t speak the same cultural language. Can there be conversation without common language, a common ground without a common voice?
The purpose of this practical and optimistic essay is to make the cross-cultural performance of ceremonial texts a less intimidating and more illuminating experience for the student performer, the attending teacher, and the observing scholar. Foundationally, I am working from the belief that ceremonial texts, and the cross-cultural performance of them, pose unique challenges to the student performer and therefore require an approach equipped to meet their special characteristics and concerns. Certainly, recent trends in Performance Studies have addressed many of the idiosyncratic natures of various types of performance texts.[2] Similarly, in the next several pages, I introduce a system that combines Western understandings of ritual with theories connected to performance as metonymy. In doing so, I am seeking to introduce a performance methodology designed for the unique characteristics of ceremonial texts, reform classroom discussion, and create alternate performance goals and forms. These alterations in classroom and expectations and practice will arise out of my explication and theoretical orientation to the processes of ritual, metonymy, and cultural understanding.
Step One: Research and ‘Rites of Passage’
When attempting an exercise in cross-cultural performance, the simple act of getting started often produces the most frustration and requires the highest amount of preparation. Conquergood tells us that a student should begin by understanding a healthy blend of cultural research combined with ethnographic field-work (1). In Teaching Culture, H. Ned Seelye submits that a student interested in learning about another culture should begin by reading a minimum of three hundred pages of journal of book entries written by and about members of the target culture before even making contact (191). Since the act of cross-cultural performance is a from of cultural “contact,” Seelye’s quantitative requirements, although admittedly ambitious for the typical undergraduate classroom, represent an ideal for which to strive. Moreover, an investigation grounded in cultural documents written by members of the target culture conforms with the Geertzian necessity of a “thick description” (Geertz 6). Time in the library and, if possible, time in the field are extremely important if the student wishes to gain a palpable sense of the Other.
And yet, illuminating the characteristics unique to ceremonial texts requires more than careful and lengthy research. Present within the framework of Black Elk Speaks, and ceremonial texts in general, are a variety of ritual behaviors (prayer ceremonies, fastings, self-mutilations, animalization, dance) that offer unique challenges to both the researcher and the cross-cultural performer. At the basis of my study, then is the practical need to identify, define and analyze ritual experience so that a student attempting the cross-cultural performance of ceremonial texts will possess the cultural and theoretical foregrounding to guide him or her through the research process preceding performance.
Fortunately, in his book Rites of Passage, Arnold van Gennep lays a framework suitable for just this purpose. The thrust of van Gennep’s argument stems from his belief that for every change of place, state, social position and age, there is a culturally specific rite of passage. He views ritual as a vehicle that can deliver the “ritual subject” from a past stage of life into the one that is to come. The categories of this progression occur in three stages: separation, margin (or liminal), and aggregation. In his landmark book From Ritual to Theatre, Victor Turner expands on van Gennep’s three stage process by adding two divisions to the second stage: crisis and redress. To Turner, the ritual is a redressive act that gives meaning to a social event through a process of restoring the past. He likens this process of ritual behavior to Western theatre a performance of a play essentially accomplishing the same phenomenon (13).[3]
I use the next few pages to provide a brief explanation of how a ceremonial text, in this case Black Elk’s “Ðog Vision,” may be studied within the context of van Gennep’s and Turner’s rites of passage paradigm. This highly compressed examination is not intended to be a full-scale delve into Black Elk’s rite of passage experience; it exists within this study only as a means of clarifying and demonstrating a way in which a student’s research process may be enhanced by a basic understanding of the transformational qualities of ritual based texts. I chose Black Elk’s “Dog Vision” because it provides an excellent illustration of a rites of passage experience in the form of an American Indian Vision Quest. Although this narrative originally appears in Black Elk Speaks (182-187), it is anthologized in Jerome Rothenberg’s Technicians of the Sacred (58061), as well a play version by Christopher Sergel.
The separation phase within Black’s Elk’s “Dog Vision” divides conveniently into two portions: Black Elk’s preparations before entering the site of the vision ad his actions located on the site where the vision actually occurs. In the former, Blakc Elk must be prepared for his vision by someone experienced in such matters. States Black Elk, “when going to lament it is necessary to choose a wise old medicine man, who is quiet and generous, to help” (181). The medicine man Black Elk chooses to assist him though his process of separation is Few Tails. His instructions to Black Elk provide a valuable map plotting Black Elk’s early stage of separation:
“He told me to fast four days, and I could have only water during that time. Then, after he had offered the pipe, I had to purify myself in a sweat lodge, which we made with willow boughs set in the ground and bent down to make a round top; Over this we tied a bison robe. In the middle we put hot stones, and when I was in there, Few Tails poured water on the stones. I sang to the spirits while I was in there being purified. Then the old man rubbed me all over with the sacred sage. He then braided my hair, and I was naked except that I had a bison robe to wrap around me while lamenting in the night, for although the days were warm, the nights were cold. All I carried was the sacred pipe” (181).
The next portion of Black Elk’s separation experience occurs when he is left alone by Few Tails on the highest point of hill near Grass Creek on what is now the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The following narrative recounts the final ritual acts leading Black Elk from his separation to liminal phase. It directly precedes the actual narrative generally anthologized as the “Dog Vision.”
“We went to the highest point of the hill and made the ground there sacred by spreading sage upon it. Then Few Tails set a flowering stick in the middle of the place and on the west, the north, the east, and the south sided of it he placed offerings of red willow bark tied into little bundles with scarlet cloth” (182).
The ritual action contained in the above passages leads to Black Elk’s process separation. The construction and purpose of the sweat lodge, the fragrant use of sage, the circular movements around the flowering stick, the importance of the four directions, and the meaning and motive behind the prayer ribbons represent examples of ritual actions that students must research and explore before attempting an actual performance of the separation stage. Having identified these rituals as part of the separation phase of Black Elk’s “Dog Vision,” students are free to direct their research to investigate the cultural significance behind each of these rituals and examine how their significance aids in Black Elk’s process of separation.
The shift from the separation phase to liminal phase within Black Elk’s “Dog Vision” occurs when Black Elk notices the big storm coming from the West. Immediately following this observation, he states, “a vision broke out of the shouting blackness torn with fire” (184-187). Out of these streaks of fire come the “Thunderbeings.” The liminal phase continues through his encounters with the riders, the appearance of the dogs, their transformation into “Wasichus” (white men), the killing of the Wasichus, the dream about the flowering herb, all the way through the point when Black Elk is awakened by the words, “Make haste! Your people need you!” (186). Recognizing the parameters of the liminal stage enables a student to then research and examine the significance of these symbols, both within the vision and within the context of Lakota culture. This process will eventually yield information leading toward and interpretation of the vision.
Finally, the “Dog Vision” enters its aggregation phase. After Black Elk hears the words, “Make haste! Your people need,” he stand and, for an instant, sees the world ina remarkable, euphoric condition, not as it is, but as it “once was and could be again.” He sees the faces of “the unborn smiling”; he sees and hears nature operating fluidly and beautifully (187). Note that no distinctions are made between Indian and White. The “baby faces” and “men and women” appear to blend as cohesively and amiably into the framework of what Black Elk describes as nature’s sacred hoop.
Shortly after seeing the world in
this way, Black Elk once again drifts to sleep. When he is eventually woken-up
by Few Tails, he apparently reenters the world as it was before his vision
quest began (187). He returns to a world
where his people are still suffering in turmoil. The world is the same, but Black Elk is
different. He now possesses the
knowledge of what the world could be.
Realizing this, he quickly responds by taking his vision to the Heyoka
to be interpreted.[4] Though his dreams of realizing his idyllic
world vision were dashed by the massacre at
As this brief structural analysis shows, examining a ceremonial text within the framework of its separation, liminal, and aggregation stage provides students with the opportunity to gain a more experiential perspective into cultural components of ceremonial texts. Such an approach facilitates what Schechner refers to as the binary connection between the aesthetic theatricality of performance and the preserved and cultural efficacy of ritual (120). Ultimately, an analysis based on ritual progression provides insights into a culture that may not be readily attainable through other, non-ritual descriptive processes.
Step Two: Metonymy and Cross-cultural Performance
An understanding of a culture
through research, field-work and a suitable methodology only satisfies one half
of Conquergood’s dialogical ideal.
Noticeably missing from the equation is the performer’s input. In short, if a student seeks to meld self
with Other, he or she must find ways to negotiate self with the information
pertaining to Other. It is here that the concept of performance as metonym becomes helpful. In order to illustrate metonymy’s unique
powers as a form of dialogical performance, I must first address its more
popular cousin, metaphor. Metaphor, in its standard literary
definition, is “the application of a word or phrase to an object or concept it
does not literally denote, in order to suggest comparison with another object”
(Random House). This definition
translates smoothly into performance terminology because the very act of
performance is usually an attempt to represent life. In their article “Research in Interpretation
and Performance studies,” Strine, Long and
The concept of performance as metaphor for life does, however, hold practical limitations, may of which are well documented by Bruce Wilshire in Role Playing and Identity.[5] Moreover, as a goal for cross-cultural performance, metaphor is particularly inadequate for the needs of dialogical exchange. The primary reason for these limitations stems from the fact that a metaphor seeks to rename the performance in terms of a whole unit rather than a relational combination of parts. A performance strategy based on visualizing the metaphorical value, though useful in many ways, does not privilege the dialogical exchange because a dialogical exchange relies on the presence of at least two entities where as a metaphoric representation seeks to generalize performance into a single, static image. Judy ordon acknowledges these limitations, suggesting that “some performances extend beyond an attempt duplication of what a text says” (400).
Fortunately, performance as metonymy can be used as a means of exploring features of cross-cultural text unsuccessfully described by theatre as metaphor. In A Readers Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory, Ramen Selden emphasizes metonymy’s unique ability to forge connections from one contextual frame to another: “In a broad sense, metonymy involves the shift from one element in a sequence to another, or one element in a context to another: we refer to a cup of something (meaning its contents); the turf (for racing), a fleet of a hundred sails (for ships). Essentially metonymy requires a context for operation” (62).
Metonymy, then, is realized when one word or image is used to represent another with which it is closely associated (Yordon 310). In order to experience any kind of communication within the vacuum of a particular context, a common language must first be established. In this sense, metonyms can act as binary symbols that colorfully create a common dialogue. In the context of a performance, they can serve as bridges connecting the self to Other.
Strine, Long, and
“Metonymy, less well established in the discourse of performance than its companion trope, metaphor, is also of practical and theoretical use. When performance is considered metonymically, its meaning emerges as relational rather than representational. The performance is contiguous to; it is partial, thus opening the study to a wide range of associations or affiliations—part of a biography, part of another text, part of an institution, part of a social reality, and so on. The performed text achieves meaning in terms of its relations, some near, some remote, and all somehow different from the literary work” (185).
In concordance with Strine, Long
and
Similarly, the goal of a dialogical cross-cultural performance of Black Elk’s “Dog Vision” would be greatly enhanced by a metonymic approach. Where as performance as metaphor would seek to recreate Black Elk on-stage, a metonymical performance would be concerned with the issues raised when a young, white female performs the same narrative. In short, such an approach attempts to find metonyms capable of privileging Self in order to better understand Other. In an attempt to make these concepts more accessible and applicable to both the performer and theorist, I have divided the remainder of this paper into a discussion of the physical and psychological implications of performance as metonymy. I also address some of the overriding ethical considerations connected with the cross-cultural performance of ceremonial texts.
In Performance: Texts and Context, Stern and
“Performance of these ceremonies do afford a more bodily encounter with the kind of experience that lies at the heart of ritual. You may not be able to know the experiences of religious transcendence of people from another culture, but the attempt to step into and feel with and through the body as it undergoes such rituals can add dimensions of understanding that cannot be provided by critical, nonperformative means” (125).
When viewed metonymically, the potential benefits of physicalizing ritual activity extend far beyond Stern and Henderson’s vague description of a “bodily encounter.” In short, students would be encouraged to seek out physical behaviors from their own life experience that could then integrated into the fabric of dialogical performance.
Towards this end, a play on words serves as a useful guidepost: habitual to ritual. Though unconnected in their etymology, both words define physical embodiments similar to what Schechner repeatedly refers to as “restored behavior” (36). They are also marked by some striking differences. Random House defines ritual as “an established or prescribed procedure for a religious or other rite” and “the observation of set forms in public worship.” These definitions concur with Turner's emphasis on the intrinsic spirituality of rituals (79). Conversely, the word habit is defined in the same dictionary as “a particular practice, custom or usage” and “part of an individual’s physical constitution” (see Figure 1). The power of comparison is a startling force. An understanding of the differences between these two words might guide a performer to equate, compare and contrast the habitual with the ritual, to discover and evaluate how seemingly mundane and repetitive physical behaviors from his or her life differ from the equally repetitive but hugely significant physicality of rituals experience.
Fig. 1:
Individual Community
Habitual Ritual
For instance, the process of physicalization could then be further carried out to the extent that a performer seeks corollary habitual behaviors from his or her won experience that are metonymically related to the ritual being performed. Such a process would, in a desirable sense, deconstruct the text in the likeness of its new performance context. How, for instance, is the way in which men and women apply cologne and perfume before a special evening relational to Black Elk’s rubbing of himself and his site with sacred sage in the separation stage of his vision quest? How are the many sacred uses and functions of the sacred pipe relational to our often superficial use of the handshake or other pleasantries of casual contact? The guiding benefits behind such a metonymical process would not derive form imitation, as it would from a performance as metaphor exercise, but from comparison and contrast (see Figure 2).
