From rs4@acf5.nyu.edu Mon Feb 2 21:06:30 1998 Date: Mon, 02 Feb 1998 16:21:13 -0500 (EST) DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT THOUGHTS ON RASAESTHETICS Richard Schechner The question I want to take up is not actually simply an historical one: what the 5th century BCE Greeks thought or practiced or what the Indians of the times of the putative "Bharati-muni"--2nd century BCE to 2nd century CE--thought or practiced, but one of comparative aesthetic processes. A speculation on differing ways of approaching, training for, doing, and evaluating, artistic "works" (in quotation marks, because it is partly the concept of "work" that I will be questioning) that is both historical and contemporary. I am aware, of course, that I myself am speaking from a "position," a definite place in both the historical/cultural sense and a particular artistic practice in the theatre: the personal and peculiar elaboration of whatever it is that I have that is not my own, which is to say, almost everything. In short, what I want to speculate on is the "place" of the aesthetic process, particularly as it might apply to performance: to things done in both time and space, especially in theatre and dance where narration is central in both the Greco-European and Indian-Asiatic traditions. I want to raise questions regarding the location of the aesthetic experience of performance. To do this, I need to talk as much about the metaphors in which performance has been--and here, immediately, I am in trouble selecting a word, because any word or phrase I might choose participates in the very positioning I am engaged in attempting to interrogate--performance has been "described," "analyzed," "theorized," "felt," "experienced," and so on. But let me begin. The Greek idea of tragedy as expressed both in Aristotle's Poetics some years after the fact--Aristotle composed the Poetics sometimes between the 360s and the 320s BCE (Halliwell 1987:1)-- and in the practice of classical Greek theatre in the 5th century BCE--is based on "seeing." The word "theatre"--cognate to such other words as "theorem," "theory," "theorist," and such--is from the Greek theatron, itself from the Greek thea, "a sight," and, especially from the Greek theasthai, "to view," and related to the Greek thauma, "a thing compelling the gaze, a wonder, and the Greek theorein, "to look at" (Partridge 1966:710). Theorein is related to theorema, "spectacle" and/or "speculation" (Shipley 1984:69). These words are thought to be related to the Indo- European root dheu or dhau, "to look at" (Partridge 1966:710). The Indo-European root of "Thespis"--the legendary founder of Greek theatre--is seku, a "remark" or "saying," but with the implication of a divine vision; and from seku derive such English words as "see," "sight," and "say" (Shipley 1984:353). The Greek theatre, then, and all the European-type theatre derived from it, are places of seeing and saying; and I would say more of seeing than saying. What marks theatre (and after it, film and TV) is its visuality, its strategies of "gazing." What these etymologies suggest is the close relation between the Greek theatre, European epistemology, and seeing. This binding together of "knowing" and "seeing" goes beyond word histories to the root metaphors or master narratives of Western thought. If the humans in Plato's cave were ignorant, it was because all they saw of the truth were shadows cast on the wall. True reality was infinitely brighter, brighter even than the sun, so bright that no viewer could regard it directly. What Plato thought could be done through dialectics, scientists since the Renaissance have tried to do by devising finer and finer instruments of visual observation. A single net holds Plato's allegory, Galileo's deductions, the Hubble Space Telescope, electron microscopes, and the super-colliding super-conductor particle accelerator. Seeing occurs only at some distance. As an object is brought too close to the face, one loses focus and finally shape. EXPERIMENT WITH THE THUMB AND THE FACE. And, of course, a person resists taking an object into the eyes; in fact, people defend their eyes not only from objects and dust but from too bright a light. The essence of "objectivity" is expressed by the desire to keep things at a certain distance from the eyes; to see things "in perspective," to "focus on" things. And, of course, the eye, through the very strong and clear optic nerve, leads directly to the brain. This optical method--seeing, observing, and thinking-- takes on the force of a guiding metaphor. Quite a different operation happens with the mouth and its attendant system. EXPERIMENT WITH THE THUMB. From even before birth, people not only need to, but enjoy taking things into their mouths. And the mouth does not lead directly to the brain but opens to the entire digestive system. We shall return to this very simple, but decisive, difference between the eye and the mouth later. For now, let me continue to outline the consequences of an aesthetics based on seeing. The classical Greek theatre was fundamentally a seeing place. Architecturally, as is evident from the theatre at Epidaurus, from ruins, and from other sources and restorations, the Greek theatre was an immense place. Granting that Plato's figure of 30k is an exaggeration, most scholars place the actual audience at the Athenian festivals at between 14k and 17k (PC 1968:263). And although Aristotle--favoring the drama over theatre--emphasized the conceptual side of things: plot, character, and thought--the actual experience of being in a classical Greek theatre strongly includes the theatrical: the spectacle, songs, and speaking. And however much the Greek audience was drawn into the performance, the theatre was a place of competition also, and maybe even primarily so. And in order to compete--as we know from the recent Olympics--standards of judgment must be debated and enacted. A "critical distance" had to be established; there needs to be some people whose job it is to "sit in judgment," to "stand outside," to "review" the event. If the Greek theatre was a "seeing place" for the Athenian citizenry, it was doubly so for the judges. At first, prizes were given only to playwrights, and each formed an ensemble of chorus and actors that he thought could best present his plays. Aeschylus was noted for training his own chorus. But commencing in 449 BCE, prizes were also given for the best actor. From then on, writers were not allowed to select their own protagonists--these were assigned by lot and paid by the archon out of public funds. The lessened the possibility that writers and actors would form teams, but it was certainly a strange regulation from the modern viewpoint because it foreclosed one of the abiding ambitions of 20th century theatre: to form an aesthetically perfected company. But the Greeks clearly wanted to reduce the possibility that the two competitions --one in playwriting the other in acting--although they occurred at the same time and used the same medium and clearly affected one another, would in practice become one. The Greek practice increased the "objectivity" of the theatrical performance; it leads to an aesthetics based on competition, on discriminating between "good" and "bad" art. European aesthetics is, in fact, a function of competition. It is difficult even for someone trained to think in the European way to consider aesthetics as something different than a concern for how well (=how beautifully) a thing is done. Only by closely observing the details of performance--the what and how, and measuring these against a developed canon of what constitutes excellence--could the Greek judges, and any who follow the Greek model, discern winning poets and actors from losers. This process is actually a measurement of differences, an optics of artistic excellence. But of course the "objectivity" of such a system is at best partial. The Greek judges operated much as those who determine the Academy Awards or modern Olympic figure skating do. Their own taste, as moderated over time, determined what constituted the canon. And this question of "taste"--that which cannot be determined objectively, which can't be measured precisely, which, finally, is not controlled by the eye--but by what is "felt" or "experienced" or "savored" opens the door to my second text. Bharata-muni's Natyasastra was compiled between the 2nd century BCE and the 2nd century CE. It is almost certainly not the work of a single author; on that basis, it cannot be compared to Aristotle's Poetics. The NS is a long text full of many detailed descriptions of theatrical movements, emotions, gestures. The NS begins with a narration not only of the origin of theatre but of its own origination. "O, Brahmin," ask some wise men approaching the sage Bharata, "how did originate the Natyaveda similar to the Vedas, which you have properly composed? And for whom is it meant, how many limbs [parts] does it possess, what is its extent, and how is it to be applied? Please speak to us in detail about it" (NS 1, 5). Comparing the NS to the vedas is a traditional way of importing great authority to the ensuing text. Bharata responds to the sages by describing how drama came into existence. The god Brahma created it so that all people, of whatever varna (predecessor to caste), could learn about life and proper behavior. Bharata learned it from Brahma who in turn taught it to his 100 sons (all of whom are named in the first chapter of the NS). Having done this, Brahma approached Bharata and asked him and his sons to prepare a theatre piece to celebrate the god Indra's victory in battle over some terrible demons. Bharata's play was "an imitation of the situation in which the Daityas [demons] were defeated by the gods" (NS 1, 55- 58). Everyone was happy with the performance, and Bharata began to recite exactly what theatre was. In it there is no exclusive representation of you or of the gods; for the drama is a representation of the States of the three worlds. [...] It gives diversion to kings and firmness of mind to those afflicted with sorrow and hints about how to acquire money to those who want to earn it and it brings composure to persons agitated in mind. The drama as I have devised, is a mimicry of actions and conducts of people, which is rich in various emotions, and which depicts different situations. This will relate to actions of men good, bad, and indifferent, and will give courage, amusement, and happiness as well as counsel to them all. [...] There is no wise maxim, no learning, no art or craft, no device, no action that is not found in the drama (NS 1, 106-16). And so on. According to the NS, the theatre is much more expansive than according to Aristotle. The rules which Bharata- muni explores are those guiding the details of how a performance is represented--from what the performers do to theatre architecture, construction of various kinds of plots or stories, music, and dance. But the underlying conviction of the NS is that nothing cannot be represented in theatre; that no person is to be excluded from its audience. Much much more could be said about the underlying approach of the NS, of how it is regarded and used in contemporary Indian performance (where, like The Poetics, it sometimes is wielded like a club to knock down perceived heterodoxy). But for the present, I must move on to a central proposition of the NS: the assertion that taste and flavor are the essence of theatre. Bharata favors the mouth over the eye; and this has immense consequences for composing and understanding performances. In chapter 6 of the NS, Bharata begins discussing "rasa," a word that is difficult to translate. Bharata says: [...] I shall first of all explain rasa. No meaning is possible without rasa. Now rasa is produced from a combination [samyoga] of causes [vibhava], results [anubhava], and complementary psychological states [vyabhicari-bhava]. [...] As taste [rasa] results from a combination of various spices, vegetables, and other articles, and as tastes are produced by things such as raw sugar or spices or vegetables, so the permanent psychological states [sthayibhava], when they come together with various other psychological states, attain the quality of a rasa. Now one asks, "What is the meaning of the word rasa?" It is said in replay, [that rasa] is so called because it is capable of being tasted [asvadyate]. How is rasa tasted? Just as well disposed persons while eating food cooked with many kind of spice, enjoy [asadayanti] enjoy its tastes, and attain pleasure and satisfaction, so the cultured people taste the permanent psychological states while they see them represented by an expression of the various psychological states with words, gestures, and the sattva, and derive pleasure and satisfaction. [...] Just as the connoisseur of cooked food [bhakta] while eating food which has been prepared from various spices and other articles taste it, so the learned people taste in their heart [manas] the permanent psychological states (such as love, sorrow, etc.) when they are represented by an expression of the psychological states with gestures. Hence these permanent psychological states in a drama are called sentiments (NS 6, 31-33). There is a lot to unpack here. And I shall only have the opportunity to do a little of it here this evening. First, clearly, the object of rasic-theatre is to "attain pleasure and satisfaction." This is something radically different from what is implied in The Poetics and what has informed Greco- based Western theatre throughout its history. Aristotle is always a school-master; and from Plato to the neo-Platonist Church and St. Augustine on down to the present--the attainment of pleasure by seeing or doing theatre has been at best suspect and at worst condemned outright. It remains for popular entertainments (including pornography) to claim pleasure and satisfaction as their function. Fundamentally, the attainment of pleasure and satisfaction is oral--through the mouth, by combining various flavors and tastes. Rasa, in fact, etymologically means "juice." Some scholars believe that rasa is the juice of the soma plant, the probably hallucinogenic agent central to Vedic ceremony. Of course, the Indian theatre is presented visually and sonically (though there is lots of evidence that food-sharing, feasting, and burning incense also were part of the theatre-experience). But Bharata wants the "psychological states" mixed as flavors are mixed--the theatre is not to be experienced "from a distance" or its excellence "measured" by canons of "objective judgement," but is to be enjoyed as taste, in a manner much more difficult to quantify. There is no history in the Indian theatre of judges such as those who sat in the front rows of the Athenian theatre. Rasa can be represented visually, but it is not the visuality of perspective--which is quite literally depicting everything in its place. The Indian painting and sculpting of the period of the great Sanskrit drama--about 400 years after the composition of the NS-- especially the caves at Ajanta and the sculptural groups at Mahabalipuram--are, in Richard Lannoy's words, "synaesthesic": The Ajanta style approaches as near as it is likely for an artist to get to a felicitous rendering of tactile sensations normally experienced subconsciously. These are felt rather than seen when the eye is subordinate to a total receptivity of all the senses. [...] The seated queen with the floating hand is drawn so that we obtain information which cannot be had by looking at her from a single, fixed viewpoint. [...] the logic of this style demands that movements and gestures can only be described in terms of the area or space in which they occur; we cannot identify a figure except by comparing its position with others around it. [...] It could be said that the Ajanta artist is concerned with the order of sensuousness, as distinct from the order of reason (1971: 48-49). Lannoy argues that the Sanskrit drama--some form of which is described and theorized in the NS--is analogous to the Ajanta style of painting. "The structure and ornamentation of the caves were deliberately designed to induce total participation during ritual circumambulation. The acoustics of one Ajanta vihara, or assembly hall (Cave VI), are such that any sound long continues to echo round the walls. This whole structure seems to have been tuned like a drum" (1971:43). This tuning was not fortuitous. The Ajanta caves are human-made, excavated and carved out of a solid mountain. Lannoy continues: In both cases [the caves, the theatre] total participation of the viewer was ensured by a skillful combination of sensory experience. The "wrap-around" effect [of] the caves was conveyed on the stage by adapting the technically brilliant virtuosity of Vedic incantation and phonetic science to the needs of the world's most richly textured style of poetic drama (1971:54). What the NS supplies are the concrete details of that style which is at its core not literary but theatrical; that is not plot driven (though quite capable of telling stories--but not committed to beginning them at the start or finishing them; much more a kind of "open narration," a banquet of many courses not all of which need be eaten at a sitting). Even today, in such popular forms as Ramlila, Raslila, and bhajan-singing/dancing there is circumambulation, trance dancing, sharing of food, and wrap-around staging. There are phases of the performance where partakers (I dare not call them "spectators") stand back and watch or listen and other phases where they participate. This blending of theatre, dance, music, eating, and religious devotion is to many participants a full and satisfyingly pleasurable experience. An experience that dissolves--if only temporarily-- differentiation; and an experience that is hard to "measure" from the inside or observe from the outside. And it is the particular interiority of the theatrical experience that most distinguishes rasaesthetics from Greek aesthetics. Bharata names 8 rasas, each of them the performative expression of a bhava, a "permanent psychological state." The 8 are: sringara: erotic; hasya: comic; karuna: pathos; raudra: rage; vira: heroic; bhayanaka: fearful; bibhatsa: disgusting; adbhuta: surprise. The 10th century Buddhist commentator on the NS, Abhinavagupta, added a 9th rasa, shanta: bliss. Unlike Western performer training which assumes that emotions are epiphenomenal, the result of performing the proper actions within the right "given circumstances," Bharata believes that emotions are primary, fundamental. That these 8, or 9, rasas are the basic flavors of human experience; that what performer training does is give performers the means to directly experience themselves and convey to their partakers that experience. The classic Indian performer not only performs for her audience, but also for herself. In watching a performance of bharatanatyam, odissi, or kathakali, one can see that the performer is often looking at his own hands. This self-regard is not narcissism in the Western sense. It is the recognition that by using the proper abhinaya-- gestures and expressions--the performer will herself be drawn into her own performance. She will be both preparer and partaker. And what her audience experiences is her own experience of the story, and its particular enactment, they are sharing.For the moment, let's return to the basic rasic metaphor: preparing, cooking, eating, savoring, and being satisfied. A physiological cycle is implied here. At the risk of being too literal, let me lay out the stages of this cycle: Preparatory: Gathering the "raw" stuff Preparing it for cooking Cooking: making the raw stuff into a meal Displaying and serving the meal And in a feast it is necessary to have food in excess, to be non-parsimonious, to show abundance Consummatory: Stuff is seen, smelled; appetite further aroused Stuff is grasped and taken to the mouth: active participation of the partaker; only infants and invalids are fed Stuff enters the mouth where it is Chewed, mixes with saliva, forms different flavors mouth, tongue, teeth, and nose are engaged Sight is involved, but as a means toward tasting Talking may continue Chewing is a way of combining flavors Stuff is swallowed. Point of no (pleasant) return. Eating continues until satiation or even over-satiation Part regurgitation through belching, sometimes even vomiting Feeding ends in sleepiness; interiority; fantasies Digestion Food is "broken down" in the stomach Nourishment is separated from waste Nourishment goes to all parts of the body Waste is centered in bladder and bowels Elimination Urinating and defecating necessary before new cycle can begin Thus the basic rasic action might be: Preparatory: Preparing more than can be consumed--the open narrative Preparers offer many rasic combinations, many possible flavors Consummatory: Partakers, more than in the visually focused theatre, determine what is to be consumed, how to combine the elements offered. There is no austere narrative driving forward; there is much "selective inattention." The performance is both swallowed by the partaker and swallows the partaker. That is, the performance has an extension in time and space that engulfs or includes the partaker. Performance is "accepted" (taken in) or "rejected" (vomited out) rather than evaluated or judged. As long as the performance gives pleasure, it is savored; when it no longer gives pleasure, the partaker stops consuming. I really have not yet figured out how--if at all--the digestive and elimination phases of the eating-cycle relate to rasaesthetics. I shall leave those considerations, if they are taken up at all, for the discussion later Again, were there time I cold say something about how the analogy and metaphor I am developing might relate to some contemporary trends in performance in the West: a move toward "experienced" rather than "judged" performance--and the difficulty orthodox critics have with performances that do not value virtuosity; the appetite for visceral performance; for "believed-in" performances both in organized religion and among the followers of New Age religions; for the festive; and for extremely personal, body-oriented performances (whether celebratory as with Annie Sprinkle or "disgusting" as with Karen Finley). It is my belief that by using "rasaesthetics" rather than or at least as a supplement to traditional Aristotle-based Greek aesthetics, we might be able to better understand performances that have little to do with the canons of "high art." I am talking about an aesthetics that would include a range of performative activities including, but not limited to, popular entertainments, performance art, and certain new and traditional religious and civic rituals and ceremonies. Performances that are cyclical, "close" in terms of the body, of intimate subject matter, of getting "inside." Performances that value experience rather than virtuosity; performances that are participatory and based on sharing rather than distancing and based on observation. Richard Schechner