The act of dying can be seen as somewhat ‘irreal’, as Maurice Blanchot wrote, especially so when it occurs in the context of a magic show. In different ways, the performance of magic plays with the levels of reality of theatre itself, whilst at times conjuring the possibility of an afterlife, and communing with the dead. The essay explores the question of theatre and dying by examining UK...
Undertaking a study on the ritual-healing performances, namely Kodungallur Bharani and Chottanikkara Verpadu, of Keralam, this paper contextualizes blood as a ‘form’ and ‘content’ of the performances. Bleeding bodies of both these practices expose the complex spectacle of real blood and real body mutilation. In both these practices, the mutilated body in a deranged state of trance and...
Give Me Your Love by Jon Haynes and David Woods, Artistic Directors of Ridiculusmus, is the second in a trilogy Dialogue As The Embodiment of Love, to be presented in 2018, a series of plays investigating innovative mental health therapies. Give Me Your Love is a response to the first UK trials of MDMA assisted psychotherapy for chronic treatment resistant PTSD. The work has been made in...
This article examines DMT by Jeremy Shaw, a Berlin-based Canadian artist whose oeuvre has investigated altered states. For this 2004 video work, Shaw administered the hallucinogen dimethyltryptamine to a group of friends and videotaped their experiences. I am interested in how Shaw curates the psychedelic session as a performance of the drug’s agency and aesthetic power. A powerful entheogen...