The Medium and the Message investigates the incorporation of Afro-Cuban
trance techniques in Western theatrical performance. Through art practice and
research, I am asking two questions: how do performers, trained in Western
theatrical contexts, articulate their experience with Afro-Cuban trance
techniques? And how can my research methodologies illuminate the inherent
intercultural tensions in ways that are productive for performance practitioners
and theorists? To answer these questions, I created four new works of theatrical
performance where I developed a method for performers, utilizing Afro-Cuban
rituals adapted for non-practitioners. Working toward a phenomenological
understanding of what is happening when a performer incorporates a
character, I drew on the ritual knowledge of trance possession in LukumĂ and
Palo Monte in order to examine how ontologies might speak to each other in
artistic practice. I also served as advisor for the creation of a fifth work in order
to test the method outside of my studio. I constructed a studio practice
methodology, called kanga (from the Bantu for tying and untying), using three
methods based on aspects of Afro-Cuban ritual, and modified for performance
contexts: spell, charm, and trance. This methodology enacts and complicates
distinctions between performance and ritual, serving as a contribution to
respectful and responsible intercultural performance practices. My research-led
practice includes autobiographical writing and auto-ethnography under a
phenomenological research methodology that uses three methods for data
collection: formal recorded interviews, video footage of the studio work, and
regular rehearsal debriefings. The overall methodology, bridging theory and
practice, is bricoleur, drawing from ethnography, psychoanalytic theory, and
phenomenology. Both research and studio work led to the articulation of a
state of consciousness in performance that I call hauntological. This borrows
from Derrida (1994: 10) but is redefined to refer to a state of being where
reality is co-constituted by the living and the dead, where ancestral spirits are
invoked to do the work once reserved for characters. Finally, this led to the
construction of a creative artifact called The Ghost Lounge, an art work that
evokes a hauntological state of consciousness in the viewer.
Date of Award | 2017 |
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Original language | English |
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Awarding Institution | |
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Supervisor | Laura Gonzalez (Other Supervisor) |
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- Spirit possession
- Acting
- Performance
- Ontology
- Afro-Cuban religion
- African ritual
- Lacan
- Hauntology
The Medium and the Message: Afro-Cuban Trance and Western Theatrical Peformance
Danowski, C. (Author). 2017
Student thesis: PhD