In many cultures the origins of theatrical arts can be traced back to early religious rituals. In ancient Greece, for example, the classical tragedies evolved from earlier, powerful rituals performed in honour of the god Dionysos, and the origins of dance in China are both found in ancient shamanistic performances. In the West, as mentioned above, the connection between theatre, dance and religion was broken after the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
In Asia, particularly in South and Southeast Asia, the bond between religion and theatre and dance is very strong even today. This may be at least partly explained by religious attitudes. In the monotheistic religions that originated in the Near East, Judaism, Islam and Christianity, the human body is regarded as something sinful and thus corporal art forms were banished from their rituals. God may be praised through the visual arts, architecture and even singing, but more physical expressions were more or less prohibited in a religious context.
In most of the Asian religions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism, such a strict division between the sinful body and “pure” spirituality has not existed and thus the human body has retained its holiness; it has been accepted as a worthy medium to praise even spirits and gods. Many forms of performance, for example temple dances, are, in fact, regarded as offerings, prayers, gaining merit or a kind of spiritual meditation.
One example of how theatrical practice evolved from rituals is the mudras or symbolic hand gestures, so crucial to Indian dance and theatre traditions. They developed from the age-old sacred gestures used in religious rituals by the Brahman priests.
An abundance of ceremonial elements can still be found in many of the Asian theatrical traditions simply because most of them stem originally from earlier rituals, and actually a dance or theatre performance itself can, in many cases, still be regarded as a ritual.
Trance Rituals and Shamanism
As a broad generalisation, one could say that the rituals connected with trance elements seem to represent a very early stage of ritual performances. They often seem to precede the present institutionalised religions, such as Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism. In many of the Christian and Muslim cultures these early examples of religious expression were forbidden and destroyed. This is not, however, the case in many of the Asian cultures in which later religions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism, did not abandon the earlier layers of belief systems but rather assimilated them into their own ideologies and practices.
Trance indicates a kind of hypnotic or half-conscious state of mind, which can be attained by several means or techniques. They include suggestive, rhythmic music, whirling movements, the control of breathing (hyperventilation) and the use of mind-altering substances such as hallucinogenic drugs.
In this “other” state of mind the performer/performers of the ritual, and sometimes also members of the audience, are able to contact the spirit world. Trance rituals are strongly associated with the early belief system usually called shamanism. The term was earlier related to the so-called Northern Shamanistic Belt, which extended from northern Scandinavia to Siberia, Manchuria, and Korea in the east.
In this form of shamanism the shaman “priest” had various roles. He or she could act
- as a healer, or
- as an oracle, or the shaman could function
- as a mediator between the ancestors or sprits and the community he or she was serving.
This northern form of shamanism has now mainly disappeared with the exception of Korea, where the tradition is still thriving today.
Shamanistic Ritual as a Form of Theatre
Shamanistic rituals often include features which relate them to theatrical performances. During the ceremony the spirit priest often wears clothes which refer to the particular spirit the shaman is getting in touch with. In Nordic countries the shaman often wore animal furs, feathers and horns associated with local sacred animals such as bears, eagles, and deer or elks.
Sometimes a shaman is transformed into a kind of transsexual being, since it has been believed in many cultures that during the trance a male spirit prefers to manifest himself through a female body and female spirit through a male body. These elements, the transforming of the performer with costuming into a kind of stage character and the transformation, through the trance, into “the other”, relate these rituals to theatrical practices.
There is, however, a crucial difference between a shamanistic ritual and a conventional theatrical performance with its “make-believe” agreement. It is a fact that shamanistic ritual has generally been regarded to be true or genuine, not a kind of fictional stage presentation we are usually familiar in the theatre. These kinds of ritual trance performances have generally been regarded as very important for the spiritual life and well-being of the community in which they are performed. They have offered a channel in which to communicate with sprits and ancestors or to grant, for example, a good harvest etc.
Trance rituals can be almost uncontrollable in their spontaneity and power. This creates an element of actual danger for the performer and sometimes for the audience as well. It can actually be a question of life and death, as will be seen later in connection with some Indian and Balinese traditions. This, of course, is a crucial difference between an authentic trance ritual and our conception of a theatrical performance.
Trance Rituals in Asia
Above, some of the characteristics of trance rituals were described with a reference to the kind of shamanism as has appeared in the region of the so-called Northern Shamanistic Belt. If shamanism is slightly more widely defined, as it now tends to be, it is possible to find trance traditions with shamanistic features almost everywhere, in Africa, Central and South America and especially in Asia. As has been pointed out, most of this kind of traditions seems to stem from archaic, mostly animistic belief systems preceding the present institutionalised religions. Later, powerful trance-related traditions from India, Korea and several Southeast Asian countries will be described.
Structurally, the trance rituals are not always strictly divided into a possessed spirit priest and his or her passive spectators. Sometimes there is no clear borderline between the executor of the ritual and its observers. One example of this kind of ritual is the famous kris dance in the so-called Calonarang dance drama of Bali.
One of its main protagonists is a horrendous witch, who has the power to make people turn against themselves. The performance reaches its culmination in the self-stabbing dance, where part of the village audience, incited by blind rage, attack the witch. She, however, is able to hypnotize the villagers so that they start to stab themselves with their daggers. This extremely dangerous dance is controlled by the village priests, who bring the dancers back to normal consciousness.
This kris dance is not only an example of how the borderline between the performer and audience in a trance performance can melt away; it is also an example of how an ancient trance ritual can be assimilated into a later type of performance since the trance section is absorbed into later story material. As mentioned above, many of the Asian religions assimilated the earlier belief systems and their practices. Similarly, the trance element has been assimilated into later theatrical forms, Calonarang being but only one example of this phenomenon.
As in the kris dance, the element of danger is also strongly present in many other trance performances. One example is a certain tradition of the teyyam tradition from Kerala in southwestern India. There a young man is chosen to perform the ritual, before which he meditates and fasts for a longer period. Before the ritual he is dressed with leaves from the trees and elaborate make-up is painted on his face while his eyes and mouth are covered with a kind of silver mask. Torches are added to his costume and they are set on fire when the performance starts. During the ritual the performer whirls around. If he himself catches fire, it is interpreted as a negative sign. If, however, he does not catch fire, it is seen as a sign that the gods are satisfied. The element of danger is alarmingly concrete!
The Actor in Ritual Performances
The role of an “actor” in ritual performances differs from the role of an actor in mainstream western theatre. In western theatre it is common that the actor uses his or her own personality, memories, expressions and particular physiognomy to create a role. This is not the case in most of the archaic ritual performances. In contrast, the performer often tries to “weep out” his or her personality by, for example, fasting and meditating. The performer is often expected not to act the role of the god, spirit or mythological character, but rather to receive it in order to be able to serve as its embodiment.
The embodiment of a sacred being or character is also possible by employing fixed costuming, masks or complicated make-up systems. By these devices, the personality of the performer is dispelled and performers are able to embody the sacred being in a similar way, generation after generation. It is probably because so many Asian theatre and dance traditions have their origins in archaic rituals that the conception of acting in many “classical” traditions also still bears similarities to the actor’s role in archaic rituals. Fixed role categories, costuming, masks or make-up keep stage characters alive for centuries and only an actor-dancer with decades of training is able to add something “new” to the interpretation of the role.