Performance Research
January 2, 2023
C. Akhila Vimal
2 citations
Blood serves as both a visible substance and a meaningful symbol in two ritual-healing performances from Kerala, India: Kodungallur Bharani and Chottanikkara Verpadu. In these practices, participants in trance or possession states engage in real body mutilation, producing a spectacle of bloodiness and pain. One ritual uses blood as a path to divinity, the other toward healing. The paper argues that blood acts as a mask that enables these transformations. These performances challenge dominant cultural norms about acceptable bodily expression and provide space for alternative identities related to caste, gender, and ethnicity. The analysis explores how blood, mutilation, madness, and healing intersect in ritual contexts, questioning the region's refined and aestheticized self-image.
Performance Research
August 18, 2017
Richard Talbot
2 citations
The article describes the play *Give Me Your Love*, part of a trilogy examining innovative mental health therapies, created in response to the first UK trials of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for chronic treatment-resistant PTSD. The play features two Welsh squaddies attempting a homemade version of the trials. The authors reflect on recreating intoxication and the interplay between therapists and clients, as well as between performers and audience. The staging uses a cardboard box and locked-out performer to explore transitions in consciousness. The article considers the performance as a form of public engagement, set against critical responses about whether it is mind-blowing.
Performance Research
August 18, 2017
Jennifer Fisher
1 citation
The article analyzes Jeremy Shaw's 2004 video work "DMT," in which the artist administered the hallucinogen dimethyltryptamine to friends and filmed their experiences. It argues that Shaw curates the psychedelic session as a performance of the drug's agency and aesthetic power, contrasting his approach with clinical settings. Shaw acts as a session guide or caretaker, echoing the etymological meaning of "curating" as caring for souls. The setting uses a neutral "white cube" gallery with close headshots against a white background, enabling intimate examination of euphoric facial expressions, while subtitles from trip reports reveal participants' struggles to verbalize hallucinations. The article notes that DMT induces intense euphoria and hallucinations, has therapeutic uses for PTSD, addiction, and palliative care, and that the aesthetics of setting remain critical in shaping psychedelic experiences.
Performance Research
November 16, 2024
Augusto Corrieri
Stage magic, though secularized and theatrical, retains a link to mystical and shamanic practices by playing with the boundary between life and death. The essay examines UK magician Tommy Cooper's uncanny onstage death during a live television broadcast in 1984, analyzing his variety act for echoes of a mystical ceremony and the possibility of journeying to the afterlife. It also considers Penn & Teller's nail gun stunt, which the magicians reveal as a sham, fostering critical spectatorship that can be read as a form of lucid dreaming. Their antics dissolve the performance and the audience's attachment to reality, aligning with mystics and sages. The instability between life and death, theatre and reality, opens a different understanding of magic as precariously positioned between trickery and conjuring other worlds.