Trance As Artefact: De-Othering Transformative States with Reference to Examples from Contemporary Dance in Canada
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Trance as Artefact: De-Othering transformative states with reference to examples from contemporary dance in Canada Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Dance Studies, University of Surrey August 1st, 2007 Bridget E. Cauthery © by Bridget E. Cauthery (2007) ABSTRACT Reflecting on his fieldwork among the Malagasy speakers of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean, Canadian anthropologist Michael Lambek questions why the West has a “blind spot” when it comes to the human activity of trance. Immersed in his subject’s trance practices, he questions why such a fundamental aspect of the Malagasy culture, and many other cultures he has studied around the world, is absent from his own. This research addresses the West’s preoccupation with trance in ethnographic research and simultaneous disinclination to attribute or situate trance within its own indigenous dance practices. From a Western perspective, the practice and application of research suggests a paradigm that locates trance according to an imperialist West/non-West agenda. If the accumulated knowledge and data about trance is a by-product of the colonialist project, then trance may be perceived as an attribute or characteristic of the Other. As a means of investigating this imbalance, I propose that trance could be reconceived as an attribute or characteristic of the Self, as exemplified by dancers engaged in Western dance practices within traditional anthropology’s “own backyard.” In doing so, I examine the degree to which trance can be a meaningful construct within the cultural analysis of contemporary dance creation and performance. Through case studies with four dancer/choreographers active in Canada, Margie Gillis, Zab Maboungou, Brian Webb and Vincent Sekwati Mantsoe, this research explores the cultural parameters and framing of transformative states in contemporary dance. I argue that trance functions discursively and is rooted in a cultural and rhetorical context which is collaboratively constructed as both an embodied state or process, and as an artefact. As a discourse, trance problematizes issues of multiculturalism, decolonization, migration, embodiment, authenticity, neo- expressionism and the commodification of trance practice in a post- modern, transnational, economically globalized world. The West’s bias exists due to its investment in maintaining philosophical authority over the non-West and its attachment to notions of “high” culture. By expanding the range of possible sites for trance experience and by investing in previously unapplied theories such as flow, the potential exists to situate and to regard trance as other than Other to the West. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION The West’s blind spot………………………………...………. 1 Notes …..………………………………...…………….. 37 PART I: Locating Trance CHAPTER ONE Trance, Semantics and Polysemy ……………………….……. 39 1.1 Semantics ………………………………………….....…… 39 1.2 Wittgenstein & Polysemy ……………………...………… 47 1.3 Charts: Language Games in linear form (figure 1a, 1b,1c)……………………………….… 59 Flow/flow/Trance (figure 1d) …………..………... 60 Family Resemblances (figure 1e) ……………… 61 Trance as a cluster of practices (figure 1f).…… 62 Notes …..………………………………...……………..... 63 CHAPTER TWO Trance and dance in the West: Manias, Shakerism, new age ecstatic dance rituals and rave…………………………………. 65 2.1 Dance manias: Tarantism & St. Vitus’ Dance ……….… 66 2.2 Shakerism ……………………………………….………… 69 2.3 New age ecstatic dance rituals …………………………. 73 2.4 Rave Culture………………………………...……..……… 78 Notes …..……………………………..…….……………… 86 CHAPTER THREE Trance, anthropology and post-colonial theory………………. 87 3.1 Western cultural anthropology………………….......…… 88 3.2 Post-colonial theory ………………………………...….… 93 3.3 Dance Anthropology and Ethnology ……………….…… 103 3.4 Dancers’ testimonies & body therapies ………..….…… 114 Notes …..………………………………………….……….. 118 PART II: Trance as Artefact INTRODUCTION Mapping the Field: A brief overview of the development of modern dance in Canada ………………………………………. 120 Notes …..……………...…………………………..……… 127 iii CHAPTER FOUR Trance as Artefact: Zab Maboungou and Performing Difference……………………………………..………….…… 129 Charts: Clifford’s semiotic square (figure 4a)……….……… 139 Incommensurability (figure 4b)………………….….. 156 Hybridity (figure 4c)………………………......……… 157 Notes .………………………………………..…...…………… 160 CHAPTER FIVE Margie Gillis: Reflections of Trance and Expressionism…. 162 Notes…..………………………………….…………………… 197 CHAPTER SIX Brian Webb, Transformation and Authentic Movement …. 199 Notes …..……………………………………………………… 234 CHAPTER SEVEN Vincent Sekwati Mantsoe: Trance as a Cultural Commodity……………………………………………………. 237 CHAPTER EIGHT Applying Csikszentmihalyi & Laban’s concepts of Flow…... 268 Charts: Flow and incommensurability (figure 8a)……….…. 290 Flow as a bridging discourse (figure 8b)……….….. 291 CONCLUSION The Social Life of Trance …………………………………..… 296 BIBLIOGRAPHY ……………………………………………………..……….…… 312 APPENDIX DVD: Excerpts of choreography by case study subjects Permissions ……………………………………………………. 347 1) Nsamu (2003) Choreography: Zab Maboungou Performer: Zab Maboungou Musicians: Diolkidi, Dominic Kofi Donkor Music composed by: Zab Maboungou Set designer: Chryso Bashonga Lighting: François O'Hara Costume for Zab Maboungou: Denis Lavoie Costume for the musicians: Guylaine Tolemyo 2) A Complex Simplicity of Love (2003) Choreography: Margie Gillis Performer: Margie Gillis Music: George Frideric Handel - interpreted by Suzie LeBlanc iv Costume Designer: Denis Gagnon Lighting: Pierre Lavoie 3) a love story (2006) Choreography: Brian Webb Performers: Tania Alvarado, Brian Webb Music: Richard Wagner Tristan et Isolde Poetry: Adriana Davies Lighting: David Fraser 4) Phokwane (1998) Choreography: Vincent Sekwati Mantsoe Performer: Vincent Sekwati Mantsoe Music: Philip Hamilton, Stephen Mecus v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am especially grateful to my advisors, Drs. Janet Lansdale and Jens Giersdorf, for their outstanding guidance and indefatigable encouragement at all stages of this process and on two continents. For Robert Joon-Ho Ock for helping me find the courage to start; and for Edward Alexander Boucher for nurturing the resolve to finish. Special thanks to Megan Andrews for her endless support, midnight editing and for bringing the Max Wyman article to my door; to Sara Porter for never failing to ask penetrating questions; to Christopher House and Jay Rankin for their unwavering flexibility; and to Margie Gillis, Zab Maboungou, Vincent Sekwati Mantsoe and Brian Webb for their time and generosity with this project. To Christina Kostoula, Lorna Sanders, Ioanna Tzartzani and Susan Wiesner – I could not have asked for better friends or wiser colleagues. To Cheryl Lalonde, Stephanie Yankovich, Jennifer Horvath, Sarala Dandekar, Eva Kyzirides and Claire Wooten – for always counselling perseverance and for providing countless years of tea and sympathy. And finally to my parents Barbara and Brian Richardson Cauthery, and my brothers Ian and David Cauthery, for never once suggesting that I should not do just as I pleased. vi This thesis is written in Canadian English. vii INTRODUCTION The West’s blind spot Reflecting on his fieldwork among of the Malagasy speakers of Mayotte in the western Indian Ocean, Canadian anthropologist Michael Lambek questions why the West has such a “blind spot” when it comes to the human activity of trance. Immersed in his subject’s trance practices, he questions why such a fundamental aspect of the Malagasy culture, and many other cultures he has studied around the world, is absent from his own (1981, p 7). Lambek is not the only Western anthropologist to question this potential anomaly: Margaret Thompson Drewal (1975), Kathy Foley (1985), and Faith Simpson (1997) likewise comment directly on the absence of a trance tradition in the West. Drewal in her study of movement and regalia in an Anago-Yoruba ceremony in West Africa states that the trance phenomenon can perhaps be considered comparable to performing artists in Western societies where training ideally produces a very disciplined power of concentration yet acute awareness of the surroundings. To that extent, a performing artist [in the West] may be said to alter his normal state of consciousness on stage. (italics mine) Drewal, 1975, p 18. Foley, in her study of trance dance and theatrical performance in West Java, states, “in Western theatre we talk of actors becoming so enraptured that for a moment or an hour they “live the part.” But on the whole, Western acting is perceived as an elegant mode of artifice. Actors impersonate but never lose perspective on who they themselves are” (Foley, 1981, p 28). Here, both Drewal and Foley draw a comparison between their non-Western subjects and Western actors and performing artists. Taken together, they suggest that training in Western performing arts disciplines may produce a “very disciplined power of concentration” that allows them to “live the part” on stage. It is clear from their assessments that whatever it is that 1 Western performing artists do on stage, it is not the same as and perhaps even inferior to what their subjects are experiencing in the field. Even if the two situations bear sufficient resemblance from which to draw comparison, Drewal and Foley are not prepared to question the inferred binary. Their message is clear: what their subjects in the field do is trance and what performing artists do in the West is not. Lambek provides the jumping-off point for this research into the West’s preoccupation with trance in ethnographic research