Ritual: Live Art or Group Therapy?
Introduction
Philosophers have seen ritual and the arts as closely linked
since early historical times: 2½ thousand years ago, Plato speculated that the
origins of Ancient Greek theatre might have lain in the activities of the
ritual cults which abounded in the classical world.
Although the early Christian Church forbade the depiction of
real objects, so as to avoid the possibility of idolatry, generations of
congregations found this restriction of their ritual environment so unbearable
that by medi-aeval times there were many schools of
cathedral and church art across Europe, the Middle East and Northern Africa.
Islam has a similar restriction, which is still rigidly
adhered to; but this by no means prevented the development of various Islamic
religious styles of abstract decoration.
Late 19th and early 20th Century
interest in anthropology and psychology led the early Bauhaus school into
performances of esoteric rituals, seen as critical for the creative artistic
process, though not necessarily intended for any audience, or related to any
particular works of art.
Ritual has been extensively revisited by various conceptual
artists: Themes such as the involvement of the audience in a work; the
collection of ‘artefacts’ from conceptual happenings; repetitive themes, motifs
and actions; narrative sequences of images/happenings; all these have their
origins in the modern deconstruction of ritual.
More alarming is that a definition of ritual given by the
anthropologist Catherine Bell – that ritual is any social activity that is
non-utilitarian (not practically useful) – is extremely close to the
philosopher Ayn Rand’s definition of art – that Art
is any social activity that is non-utilitarian.
What is Ritual?
Say the word “Ritual” to any ‘average’ citizen, and they
will probably think of one of the following: The film “The Wicker Man”, Druids
at Stonehenge, Catholic Mass, or possibly
“Ritual Child Abuse” … But what is ritual really?
150 years ago, anthropologists were interested in the
parallels between ‘heathen’ religious practice as found around the various
European empires, and home-grown Christian practices. Some set out to bolster
the idea of European supremacy by demonstrating that other religions were
somehow more primitive, while others set out to level Christianity to ‘just
another’ world religion. Whichever side they were on, they were only really
interested in ‘religious’ practices, involving the worship of supernatural
powers.
By the beginning of the 20th Century, the pioneering
psychologist, Sigmund Freud, had noted the similarity of “Obsessive Compulsive
Disorder” to many repetitive religious practices. Anthropologists started to
classify non-religious, but apparently compulsive, social acts as ritualistic –
such as the daily rituals of going to bed and getting up, and the many-times
daily greeting rituals, such as the shaking of hands.
Many contemporary anthropologists suspect that the whole
idea of “ritual” is artificial, and was created by
early anthropologists as a category of behaviour that helped to explain their
own post-enlightenment culture, rather than to explain the practices of other
cultures, most of which have little if any notion of ‘ritual’ as something set
apart from daily life.
However, the anthropologist Catherine Bell has suggested 6
characteristics of activities which make them seem more ritual-like:
Traditionalism, Invariance, Performance, Rule-Governance, Formality and Sacral
Symbolism. The more of these aspects are perceived in an activity, the more
likely ‘ordinary’ people are to see the activity as ritualistic.
I have developed a similar, and closely related,
psychological approach, which looks at techniques for manipulating peoples’
behaviour and expectations. The more of these techniques are used in an
activity, the more likely people are to see the activity as ritualistic. These
techniques include hypnotic-style suggestion (e.g. chanting), identification of
self with a symbol, symbolic acts (which alter expectations), reflection,
catharsis and witnessing.
Ritual as a Context
Ritual is not often seen as a context in its own right. Most
art commentators prefer to see “Religion” and “Religious Buildings”
as contexts for art. Insofar as ritual is considered, it is simply an activity
that takes place within a religious context.
From the Angels of Dragan Andjelic displayed in St. Paul’s
Cathedral in 2002, to the iconic images decorating the Fireflies ashram in Bangalore, by the
contemporary artist Caroline Mackenzie, religion continues to provide a challenging
meeting point between ancient and modern.
Of course, the opportunities for creative expression extend
far beyond image: new theatre, music, dance, poetry and literature all have a
place in the traditional halls of worship.
However, it must be admitted that our contemporary religious
buildings, be they synagogues, mosques, churches or temples, have been
constructed primarily as places within which ritual can take place.
Consequently, I would contend that religious buildings lie within the context of
ritual, not the other way round.
Further, there are growing ecumenical and inter-faith
movements, where ritual becomes the framework within which dogma, belief and
faith are re-negotiated. These movements provide particularly fertile ground
for new art, and new collaboration.
Neither need Ritual be confined to the realms of
conventional and traditional religions. The new “Earth Worship” religions, such
as the druidic revival, and the various factions of Wicca and Asatru, all provide scope for challenging temporary outdoor
works and happenings, with very different technical demands and audience
requirements. Within many of these “New Religions” ritual becomes primary,
while dogma and belief are often vague and sometimes altogether absent.
With the liberalisation of the marriage laws to include
same-sex partnerships, and the increased demands for flexibility that these
have placed on registry offices, there is now a huge (largely untapped)
potential for creative interventions in humanistic civil ceremonies.
Ritual as Group Therapy
The psychological theory of ritual has focussed mainly on
the roots of ritualisation in the psychological
development of the individual. Freud felt that ‘obsessive compulsive’ ritualisation is a repeating pattern of behaviour attempting
(and repeatedly failing) to absolve the individual from guilt. For Freud, the
ritualistic worship of ‘God the Father’ is a collective attempt to expiate our
guilt for overthrowing our Father (male) or desiring our Father (female).
Other psychological theories, most notably Assagioli’s theory of psychosynthesis,
have been more positive about the origins of, and the potential within, ritual
activity. For Assagioli, ritual is a means for
‘raising consciousness’ into the higher realms of the
unconscious, and making contact with positive psychological forces that may
enhance our lives, and help to heal old wounds. Ritual is often used
therapeutically within the school of psychosynthesis,
where it manifests as a motley collection of rites drawn from around the world,
purporting to stem from ancient traditions such as native
American or Australian.
Such rituals can be interpreted in the traditional school of Group Therapy: Therapy for the
individual, taking place in a group activity.
While psychologists have focussed on the individual,
Anthropologists and Social Scientists have focussed on the collective. Ritual
has been extensively described as a ‘normalising’ process within society,
assisting societies to cope with change and conflict.
Seasonal Rituals can be seen as a means to ‘normalise’
seasonal change, while rites of passage (e.g. manhood rites) normalise
biological change (Van Gennep).
The ritual slaughter of pigs in New Guinnea
(Rappaport) which have the practical effect of
carefully managing a scarce resource, can be seen as normalising the changes in
supply and demand – pig meat is highly valued in times of war, and may only be
eaten by warriors; but at other times, as long as supply remains buoyant,
anyone may partake.
Ritual can also be used to defuse social tension and
communal conflict. Studies in Zambia
(Turner) demonstrate how social crises can be ‘normalised’ using ritual,
resulting in a new social synthesis.
These kinds of ritual give a new meaning to Group Therapy:
No longer therapy for a disturbed individual within a group, but therapy for a
whole disturbed society.
Ritual as Live Art
Ritual could easily be seen as performance art, or even a performing art (e.g. theatre), if only there
was an audience. For in ritual, there are only participants. Everyone is a performer, and a part of the whole, and witness (audience)
all at the same time.
However, it is clear that different kinds of ritual involve
the participants to different degrees.
Catholic Mass, and other Catholic rites, performed in South America, have a very
pronounced ‘audience’/‘performer’ split. While the priest pronounces the sacred
incantations in latin by the altar, some people sit
and watch, many simply get on with their own magical rites in front of the
statues of saints, while a handful hang out near the priest and take the
sacrament.
At the other extreme, and in direct reaction to Catholicism,
the Quaker “Meeting” is totally egalitarian. All participate equally in the
Quaker silence, and anyone who feels moved by the spirit may speak … or move,
dance, sing, or express themselves creatively in any way.
One interesting thing about ritual is that it is inherently
multi-artform. Most rituals involve some form of
movement (even if it’s only standing up, sitting down and kneeling, as in the
less expressive Protestant churches), singing and poetry, in addition to visual
elements.
It may of course be argued that an untrained group of people
singing a 200 year old hymn is hardly a creative process. However, at the other
extreme, I have attended a ritual in which a composer and a poet had
collaborated to produce a 5 part sung piece: During the ceremony, the
participants were taught the piece, and in just 20 minutes had given a
performance in 5 part harmony … with only themselves as audience.
In a more secular setting, I was once invited to attend a rare performance
of a small group calling themselves Essential Theatre (note: there may be more than one group
who go by this name!), who meet each month to improvise theatre and movement. A couple of times a
decade they have performed, but only to an audience selected for their willingness and ability to
join in with the improvised proceedings.
After the 9/11 tragedy, I knew many creative people who were
profoundly disturbed by international events. I organised a ‘ritual’ gathering
to explore the ‘meaning’ of events (whatever that may mean!). Although
structured to a degree both in space and time, the event included large
sections of improvisation – music, poetry and dance, as well as straightforward
discussion. This was by no means religious activity, neither was it
utilitarian; it was certainly not rehearsal, nor a creative brainstorming
session. In its effect of facilitating the participants to interpret their
world, and orientate themselves within it, the event was definitely ‘artistic’,
but with the lack of an audience, was it really Live Art,
or even Art at all?
The idea of Creative Ritual
Two of the chief characteristics of ritual, as defined by
Catharine Bell – Traditionalism and Invariance – mitigate
heavily against Ritual being accepted as an art form in its own right. How can
something essentially tradition-bound and invariant be considered creative?
There is a fundamental paradox here: Activities perceived as traditional are more likely
to be seen as ritual, and activities perceived
as invariant are more likely to be seen as ritual. However, perceptions can be
deceiving.
One poignant example here is the ‘traditional’ pageant
associated with the British Monarchy. Almost anything to do with coronations,
jubilees, royal weddings, etc. is perceived to be archaic and steeped in
‘hundreds of years’ of traditions. Yet most of the pageantry was invented for
Queen Victoria
(the old style of pageant for a mere monarch wasn’t seen as fitting for an
Empress), and even when it was first performed, was still perceived by the
public to be terribly traditional.
Invariance is another misplaced perception. Early
anthropologists, and even learned men like James Frazer and Freud, saw ritual
activity as essentially unchanging. Somehow they had failed to assimilate the
catastrophic changes in European Christian ritual from Catholic to Protestant,
and they similarly seemed blind to the fact that the rituals of the so-called
primitive peoples they liked to observe were changing all the time.
Likewise, participants in a series of rituals become highly
attuned to the similarities between successive performances, and less
consciously aware of the differences.
Consequently I see no fundamental paradox between the ideas
of “creative” and “ritual”, and would advocate the consideration of ‘creative
ritual’ as an artform in its own right.
The reason I take this position is not entirely due to a
tendency (which we all share!) for self-aggrandisement. I have moved over the
years from participating in multi-artform pieces and
events, to organising multi-artform pieces and
events, and over the last 10 years, to designing and organising ‘ritual’
events.
In planning a mutli-artform piece,
I consider very carefully what I am responding to, who the intended audience
are, what prior pieces and historical movements I am building upon, what kind
of effect I am aiming for, the degree to which I will interpret a piece to the
audience, who I will collaborate with, the materials and techniques I will use,
and the place.
Likewise in planning a ritual – I consider what I am
responding to (is it a change in seasons, or a change in a couple’s social
status from single to married, etc.?), who the intended audience are
(traditionalists, creatives, whose friends, whose
family?), what traditions I am building upon (Northern European pre-Christian,
Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, Hindu, contemporary, historical?), what ‘ritual
effect’ is intended, the degree to which I will interpret to the audience, who
I will collaborate with, the materials and techniques (psychological as well as
creative), and the place.
Just the same methods that I’ve always used in my creative
process.
Ritual as a form of Art
In exploring the possibility of considering Ritual as a form
of Art, I’ve referred to many commentators for their thoughts on the crucial
distinctions. The most succinct exposition is put forward by Anna Halprin, a dance and movement artist who also does a lot of
ritual.
Halprin sees three fundamental
properties of Ritual as distinguishing it from Art: 1) In Ritual, the audience
are also the performers; 2) Ritual calls on a higher, &/or supernatural
power; 3) Ritual happens in the context of, and promotes, a particular system
of beliefs.
Distinction 1) has been repeatedly, and successfully,
challenged by innumerable live and interactive art works over the last 30
years, so I don’t think this objection can be seriously considered any more.
Distinction 2) is a serious one, more easily addressed from
the psychological standpoint. Various early psychologists, most notably C. G.
Jung and Assagioli, attempted to encompass spiritual
and supernatural experience into their theories of mind. Broadly, they
substituted the idea of an external ‘god’ with the idea of an internal ‘archetype’,
an essential element of the human psyche.
Whether or not the details of their theories hold up to
scrutiny (which they don’t, really!), they made an important point: that
spiritual experience is possible without recourse to supernatural explanations.
My approach to this problem in designing a ritual is that
I’m very careful simply not to mention supernatural powers. For instance, in a
celebration of death, I refer to summoning ‘memories’ of the dead, rather than
‘spirits’ of the dead, etc. This approach still leaves it open for the
individual to interpret the ritual in terms of the supernatural, but doesn’t
force it. For me, the success of this approach is evidenced by the repeated attendance
of some rationalist atheists at my ceremonies.
Distinction 3) highlights the way in which religious rituals
have been used, and mis-used for thousands of years:
as a method of imprinting the authority of the priesthood, and emperor, onto
the minds of ritual participants. But ritual doesn’t have to be this way.
Ritual can draw symbolism from a range of belief systems, and can encourage
individual participants to explore their own beliefs … it just depends on how
it’s done.
My approach to this final problem is threefold: First, to
construct any given ceremony from a range of traditions, ancient, modern, European,
American, Eastern, etc. For the essential information, I draw heavily on the
anthropological and archaeological literature. In advance of the ceremony, I
always gather the participants together and explain the traditions I have
plundered … and then leave any conclusions to the participants themselves to
draw.
Second, I use symbols and imagery in the ritual space,
poems, songs, myths, etc. which are either abstract, or open-ended in their
interpretation. This encourages participants to draw their own meaning from
their surroundings, and from the ritual process itself.
Third, as far as possible (the smaller the number of
participants, the easier this is), I make a space in the structure of the
ritual for individuals to creatively express themselves. When it’s a group of
artists, this can be an improvised performance (see Sept 11 above), or when
it’s a large gathering of people, can be something more simple like hanging
wishes on a wishing tree.
Thus I feel that Halprin’s 3
distinctions between ritual and art have been dismantled. So given these
conditions – that a ritual makes no appeal to the supernatural, or higher
powers, and that symbolism is abstract, open-ended and to a certain extent
generated by the participants themselves – I can see no distinction between
this ‘creative’ kind of ritual, and art.
Conclusion
So how does ritual relate to the arts? Context,
Art Form, Live Art, Group Therapy? It is all these things, and none. Our
every move, our every gesture, can be interpreted as ritualistic to some
extent; Equally, everything we do can be seen as a
creative expression, an observation from which Gilbert and George have built a
whole career.
For, as quantum scientists noted half a century ago, what we
see depends on how we look at it. If we arrive at a gallery looking for art,
that is what we shall find, but if we arrive at the same place seeking ritual,
we’ll find that in abundance too!
Likewise, when we arrive at a fire set in a dark forest,
surrounded by chanting, dancing performers, we may see either art, ritual or
both. But when we join in the dance and song, these distinctions lose their relevance
– for a few sacred minutes we can lose ourselves in that flow of consciousness,
the fount of madness,
the ultimately mysterious root of inspiration.
