How do we mark births and deaths? How do we make sense of these miraculous events? The coming into and the leaving of existence of life forms is something that has been discussed by religious, humanistic and scientific philosophers. Much of our art on some level responds to the emotional and cognitive challenges that we come across when trying to comprehend the nature of both our existence, and our non-existence.
I've been very influenced in this area by two events. Firstly by reading books by Roger Grainger, a dramatherapist who works with ritual and who has written about the importance of the death ritual - the funeral, and how this is used to make sense of loss. This includes both the loss of our loved ones, and the knowledge of our impending loss of self, as we inevitably move closer towards our own impending cessation. The other event was a naming ceremony that I was invited to some years ago. The parents of the child were christian, however, aware that many of their friends were of different religions, or even of no religion, they called the christening a naming ceremony. There were many elements of christianity in the ceremony, however there was an implicit acknowledgement that the people present, the friends, neighbours and family of the child, were from different backgrounds which were all valid, and this tactful and inclusive approach to a traditionally sectarian ritual was very impressive to me.
Births and deaths are not marked by ceremony for any other reason than that they are extremely important to us as individuals, and as social groups, right across the planet. They are the times when we are struck by the miraculousness of life, and fear the dreadful awesomeness of death.
Ritual, or ceremony, contains these experience. It uses metaphor, repetition, shared understandings in an atmosphere of deep intensity in order to reflect, express and hold our deepest wonderment and terrors. Or at least it should do.
Drama and ritual are inseparable. Ritual is drama, and traditionally, drama is ritual. The use of masks, song, dance, archetypal characters, folk tales and so on, give us a framework, a sense of shared understanding and learning. Being part of the same thing, Safety in numbers.
A christmas tree, an easter egg, a straw man burning on a bonfire. Rituals contain our need for something greater, the hope of new life, and the dread of pain and death.
After a short warm up, the group was divided into two. Each group was told that they were to devise a naming ceremony for a person or thing, that the other group would be invited to take part in. Following this, the groups devised death ceremonies for the person or thing that was named by the other group. I had reasoned that under normal circumstances, it would be unusual for the main people attending or presenting the birth ceremony to be the same as the people attending or presenting a death ceremony. It also meant that there was a richer ceremony, as each group embellished the initiall ideas presented by the other.
We learned several important things
1. A ritual may be performed in all seriousness, but may be experienced as funny. This may be because of nervousness in the part of the participants, or because of ridiculousness, as the actors may take it too seriously, and this may result in visual absurdity.
2. An effective ritual involves the active participation of all present. If the attendees are confident enough, a being able to be creative about their involvement leads to a greater level of engagement.
3. Change of dynamic energy are also good ways of drawing people in to further engagement with the ritual. This can be done by a leader or leaders presenting sounds and gestures that are reflected by the participants, and gradually altered, to bring about a transformative shift.
4. Giving people particular roles or characteristics enables them to enter into the drama with less self consciousness. One group gave each participant and element, earth, air, fire or water, and the element became an object that took focus and self consciousness from the participant, again enabling a greater engagement.
We have one more session this term, and then in January we start looking at the idea of devising a horror production. Horror in this sense, not to be blood, guts, vampires etc, but to contain the elements that we have been working with, and to include pathos, romance, tragedy and comedy. All of the things that give us our lives and dramas meaning.
