Consciousness, Literature and the Arts

Archive

Volume 2 Number 2, July 2001

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 Theatre - Re-Assessing the Sacred in Actor Training  

by

  Jade McCutcheon

Who are the ‘gods’ in our western theatre?  Who do the actors commune with when carrying out the act of theatre?  In Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction of Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty, the notions of existence, birth and death are peeled back existentially revealing “that there has never been an origin.”[i]  He speaks about the ‘representation’[ii] of life by Western theatre rather than a ‘primordial and privileged site’[iii] where imitation is destroyed and we are once again connected with transcendental principles.  Derrida, via Artaud’s work, is questioning the place of theatre which merely reflects, represents and imitates[iv] life, imprisoning actors and spectators alike in the hands of the text and the ‘author-god.’[v]  Derrida quotes both Artaud and Freud in their references to the power of dream imagery and text as desirable states for the language of the stage,[vi] linking the state of dream to the transcendental.  Within Derrida’s text lie the keys to “the Closure of Representation”[vii] and the redemption of Western theatre. This involves the recreation of the metaphysical and transcendental connections through the remembering of dream states and the penetration of the forces of our origin.[viii]  Antonin Artaud states: 

“The theater is a passionate overflowing

a frightful transfer of forces

       from body

       to body.

This transfer cannot be reproduced twice.

Nothing more impious than the system of the Balinese which consists,

after having produced this transfer one time,

instead of seeking another,

in resorting to a system of particular enchantments

in order to deprive astral photography of the gestures thus obtained.”[ix]

Thus we enter into the realms of dreams, rituals and the place of ‘forces’ within the theatre.  Many notable theorists including Artaud, Jerzy Grotowski and Eugenio Barba have attested to the “irradiation”, “expressive metaphysics”[x] and “a quality of energy”[xi] of eastern or Asian performance presumably as compared with western performance.  When Stanislavsky’s ‘spiritual realism’ was converted to the ‘method’ we lost the chapter on yoga, meditation and ritual as techniques for the training of actors.  As the focus became one more of psychology and emotional archaeology did we lose the interest and perspective of the soul?  Ritual certainly remained an area of interest although not necessarily connected with energies of a higher nature or source.  Could this be the separation Derrida was referring to?  Has the sense of the ‘sacred’ within the ritual of performance been preserved in eastern theatre and removed in western theatre?  It’s useful and perhaps necessary at this point to enter into a discussion of the concepts of  ‘religion’ and the ‘sacred’. 

Mircea Eliade states that the sacred “…. is the experience of a reality and the source of an awareness of existing in the world.”[xii]  Whilst this is a very open interpretation of sacred, it also invites us into the quest for ‘the source of awareness’ which is the quest facing many shamans and spiritual people throughout the world.  Standard academic definitions of religion tend to focus on either the superhuman or sacred features of religious worlds. 

In an approach to defining religion that can be traced back to the nineteenth-century anthropologist, E. B. Tylor,[xiii] religion is essentially an engagement with superhuman transcendence.  In these terms, religion is a set of beliefs and practices in relation to spiritual, supernatural, or superhuman beings that rise above and go beyond the ordinary level of human existence.  In another approach to defining religion, which can be traced back to the work of the sociologist Emile Durkheim,[xiv] religion is a set of beliefs and practices related to a sacred focus that unifies a human community.  From this perspective, religion invests life with sacred meaning and power through beliefs in myths and doctrines, through the practices of ritual and ethics, through personal experience, and through forms of social organisation. 

Mircea Eliade in The Sacred and the Profane[xv] discusses the very elusive qualities of the word ‘sacred’ without however, suggesting a constant definition.  Eliade repeatedly identifies the sacred as the real, yet he states clearly that “the sacred is a structure of human consciousness.”[xvi]  This suggests a social construction of both the sacred and of reality.  Yet the sacred is identified as the source of significance, meaning, power and being, and its manifestations as hierophanies,[xvii] kratophanies,[xviii] or ontophanies accordingly (appearances of the holy, of power, or of being). 

Corresponding to the suggested ambiguity of the sacred itself is the ambiguity of its manifestations.  Eliade does state that believers for whom the hierophany is a revelation of the sacred must be prepared by their experience, including their traditional religious background, before they can apprehend it.  To others the sacred tree, for example, remains simply a tree.  This is an indispensable element of Eliade’s analysis that any phenomenal entity could be perceived as an hierophany with the appropriate preparation.  He argues that in order to become whole or attain the “ideal of humanity”[xix] we construct a ‘superhuman’ level in which, in order to access, we must leave behind “natural humanity”.[xx]  So we need to create these rituals, rites and ordeals in order to become part of ‘divine’ action.[xxi]  The approaches to these acts invariably become sacred because they are part of a journey towards the ‘higher self’ or ‘God.’ 

The connection to theatre and ritual here is an obvious one, further underlining the roots or ‘essence’ of theatre while at the same time revealing its loss.  The fact that the sacred is also often ‘taboo’ to different groups is a more interesting observation raised by Eliade.  The element of power being made manifest as an integral aspect of the sacred being made manifest places the sacred act, ritual or object into an arena where veneration and fear also emerge.[xxii]  In many cultures, what is considered ‘sacred’ is also considered out of bounds or forbidden.  “He longs to go beyond it (his natural profane state) and yet cannot wholly leave it.”[xxiii]  Has theatre forsaken the ‘sacred’ in order to become ‘commercially viable’?  David Tacey addresses the loss of the sacred within Australian culture in his book The Edge of the Sacred,  in which he states:

“We must now respectfully throw off the secular iron mask and move to a new level of development. The sacred lies in wait for our approach.....If the human ego can learn to live in the presence of the sacred without being overwhelmed by it then a genuine spirituality can emerge from the creative interaction of humanity and the sacred.”[xxiv]

By reclaiming the sacred, theatre can embrace a ‘genuine spirituality’ rather than fear of the unknown or ‘taboo ridden’ rituals.  An education towards this way of being has already begun with writers such as Tacey, however to bring the notion of ‘sacred’ within the spiritual back into the theatre we need to address the training of the representatives, the story tellers, the actors.  Tacey addresses the seeming lack of spirituality in our culture, concerned that when ‘religious vision is lost, the people perish’:[xxv]

Eliade’s work also illuminated the idea of an age-long search for meaning where the sacred is more than an idea, it is an experience where the world means something: “it lives and speaks to the religious person.”[xxvi]  He connects the idea of ‘religious man’ to an “infinite series of experiences that could be termed cosmic.”[xxvii]  Although a ‘religious man’ to Eliade included anyone who acknowledged a ‘god’ in their life, this loose definition was still limited to more traditional religions, east and west.  However, Eliade’s ideas on the sacred move us towards a clearer understanding of constructions of meaning via religion as opposed to the existential dilemma of the non-religious.[xxviii]  Within this he suggests that “the ‘irreligious’ still behave religiously”[xxix] without being conscious of the fact that they are conditioned by myths, rituals and taboos from religious ceremonies of other eras. 

All of this serves to support the premise behind the re-development of the sacred in the theatre which is the fact that we, as human beings have constructed our meaning through religious rituals for thousands of years.  If theatre is to remain meaningful to us it must reconsider these roots in the light of today's changing views and interpretations of meaningful religious and spiritual experiences. It would be very difficult to identify these changing views without identifying the challenge to the patriarchal voice by the feminist and indigenous voices.  As David Tacey notes:

“If the human ego can learn to live in the presence of the sacred without being overwhelmed by it, then a genuine spirituality can emerge from the creative interaction of humanity and the sacred.”[xxx]

Tacey  identifies “secular humanism” [xxxi] as a product of the ego which is determined in western society by the “patriarchal hero”.[xxxii]  If the ego is determined by the patriarchal voice then spirituality could be seen to be framed today by the voice of the ‘receptive other’ which includes the indigenous voice with the feminist voice.  In his discussion of the ‘hero’ and the ensuing decline of the patriarchal values, Tacey suggests that:

“As the masculinist pubs, churches, convents and barber shops go broke or close down in Australian cities, new age bookshops and ‘awareness centres’ are popping up everywhere.”[xxxiii]

He addresses the growth of interest by the general public in “non-patriarchal esoteric arts and sciences”[xxxiv] as a sign that the idea of “feminine mystery”[xxxv] is arriving as the “dried out world of patriarchy”[xxxvi] begins its decline.

Performance, Ritual and Altered States

“In the ritual, one has to have participants who are invisible and can actually produce a result that is unexpected. And because we take the risk or the initiative of putting a request to the spirits to intervene in our affairs, their coming turns our activity (ceremony) into a ritual...... The gods themselves will not enact the ritual without us.....So Spirit is our channel through which every gap in life can be filled.”[xxxvii]

The above quote of Patrice Malidomas’ addresses an aspect of ritual often forgotten in the rituals of Western Theatre, the invisible presence of the ‘gods’. Invisible presence is not a concept  embraced in the west outside the established church. For performers to be acknowledging the invisible presence of 'god-like' forces in our theatre, some fairly large areas of  actor training and rehearsal need to be addressed. When considering the rituals that might be carried out by actors of our western theatre before a performance, it’s not hard to see that there are very few involving the ‘sacred’ or ‘spiritual’.  One might well ask at what point in history was western theatre ‘connected’ to the force of its essence?  Schechner in his book Between Theatre & Anthropology  talks about the significance of ritual in both rehearsal and preparation.  “Immediately before going on stage, most performers engage in some ritual.  The Noh actor contemplates his mask, Jatra performers in Bengal worship the gods of the performance, Stanislavsky advised 30 seconds of silent concentration.”[xxxviii]  Although eastern, western and indigenous performers all engage in some aspect of ritual, it appears the western actor rarely acknowledges the presence of a ‘god’, or higher self when acting out the ritual.  There are many ways to define ritual and one was that of Malidoma in the previous quote. For a broader understanding of ritual in the performative sense a comparison of Richard Schechner's five different viewpoints on ritual stated in his introduction to Victor Turner’s book The Anthropology of Performance  and Victor Turner’s definition sheds an interesting light on the subject.  Schechner considers ritual to be:

“1)    As part of the evolutionary development of organisms - including, but not limited to, the development of the brain;

2)      As a structure, something with formal qualities and relationships.

3)      As a performance process, a dynamic system or action.

4)      As experience, as what a person individually or as part of a collective feels.

5)      As a set of operations in human social and religious life.”[xxxix]

Whereas Turner writes that  ‘ritual’ is ‘transformative’[xl] as “the performance of a complex sequence of symbolic acts.”[xli]  A ‘dynamic system’ (Schechner) suggests movement that would transform the performer to some degree, however Turner is using ‘transformative’ to describe a movement that will move the performer to a new status and social position (within the tribe).  Turner suggests further that ritual is transformative as it transforms personal and social life crises such as “birth, initiation, marriage, death, into occasions where symbols and values representing the unity and continuity of the total group”[xlii] are celebrated and reanimated.  Meyer Fortes [xliii] defined ritual as “a procedure for prehending the occult”[xliv] and saw ritual as a way of humankind attempting to connect to or ‘handle’ seemingly unmanageable powers.  Both Turner and Fortes seem to support the notion that rituals are involved with forces beyond our knowing and seeing in attempts to come to understanding of the meaning of the greater events in life, such as, birth and death. Turner and Schechner developed a common interest in the arena of performance and ritual, both acknowledging the cross-over of the process and ‘dynamic systems’ which is possibly why Schechner’s definitions appear to be more anthropological than performative.

The parallels between performance and sacred rituals are fascinating.  Schechner writes at length on this investigation into the sacred and transformative elements of performance.[xlv]  Have we lost the ‘sacred’ in our performance because it’s become a ‘product’?  “When the consumer audience comes in, the ‘spiritual powers’ depart.”[xlvi]  Schechner talks about the focus of a sacred performance of the Yaqui Deer Dance[xlvii] for a very specific audience for which the performance is intrinsically designed and performed.  The moment it is taken out of this context and performed for non-Indian people, the ‘spiritual powers’ are removed.  “Understand that the spiritual benefits of the song are withdrawn if the song is commercialised.”[xlviii]  One might say it is the location, intention, purpose and type of audience that defines the nature of the performance.  Many church services could be considered as ‘sacred’ in the respect of the common aims of audience and performers.  The purpose could be to come closer to ‘god’ and to enter a higher state of self through prayer and singing of religious songs.  How is our mainstream theatre removed from these signifiers?  Our western audience comes to the theatre to witness a story.  One they might know or one they’re curious to know.  They don’t usually know the performers or many others in the audience.  There is no particular approach by the performers to the material or any particular approach to the playing stage as a sacred space or a site of exchange between the ‘gods’ and humans.  This is one comparison between observed anthropological sites of performance and experienced western performance.  Eugenio Barba has developed and founded a school for the study of performance called the School of Theatre Anthropology.  Although incorporating the word anthropology, there is little reference to the nature of the more indigenous performances, particularly those of the shaman.  Barba describes Theatre Anthropology as: 

“the study of the behaviour of the human being when it uses its physical and mental presence in an organised performance situation and according to principles which are different from those used in daily life.”[xlix] 

Nowhere in this description is a mention of forces at work within and around the performer.  It is a very scientific description and serves the purpose of describing a large body of research into performance.  Mostly the descriptions of energy within this work revolve around a balance between the two poles of the ‘anima’ (softness) and ‘animus’ (vigour)[l] as well as acknowledgement of the way performers of the ancient arts like Noh, Commedia and Balinese Dance describe their use of energy.  The dance of the soul is rather overlooked as is the real ‘secret art of the performer’, the ability to commune with the ‘spirits’ on behalf of the people and to act as a medium between these ‘higher forces’ and the audience.

One interesting state of the performer which seemingly transforms the performer and often deeply moves the onlooker is the state of trance.

Trance  

I Wayan Lendra in his article on ‘Bali and Grotowski: Some Parallels’ compares the state of trance to the state of “a powerful actor, whose ‘presence’ deeply affects the spectators.”[li]  Driving the body past its physical boundaries is a known method of creating altered trance-like states.  An actor entering into an altered state does not necessarily connect with a sense or state of ‘god’ or ‘sacred’.  The difference between a ‘Sacred Altered Act’ and an ‘altered actor’ is that of connectedness between the actor and her/his higher self or ‘god’.  The performance of an altered actor is invariably disenabling for the actor and a less connecting experience for the audience as they witness an actor who is unaware of the potential sharing of the journey through the ‘higher self’.  Richard Schechner differentiates between “transformation” and “transportation”[lii] when dealing with the altered states of the actor.  The “transportation performance” is one where the actor moves from the ordinary world to the ‘performative world’ and is transformed in that journey but when the performance is over, the actor returns to the starting place not permanently altered or transformed.  Whereas the “transformation performance” actually achieves a transformation in the actor which is relatively permanent.[liii]  One example given by Schechner of a transformation performance is an initiation rite which in itself is “the means by which persons achieve their new selves.”[liv]  Similarly, Barba states that “Actors of the classical Asian theatres.....possess a quality of energy which stimulates the spectators’ attention....they have a core of energy, an unpremeditated knowing and suggestive irradiation, which captures our senses.”[lv]  I Wayan Lendra writes that in Bali after intense rituals of purification, the performer is finally ready to seek taksu: “the ultimate spiritual power that allows the performer to present his or her art in its truest form.”[lvi]  Balinese consider the arts as a “tool for bringing out the expression of the inner spirit, our true nature.”[lvii]  Is the “expression of the ‘inner spirit’ the ‘force of its essence?”  Lendra’s article highlights the depth of the spiritual rituals of the Balinese performers, citing examples of the cultural beliefs in the presence of other entities or spirits and the responsibility of the artist to become a medium for the audience.[lviii]  In both kinds of performance the actor is altered but we could say that it is the “transformation performance” which is closer to the Sacred Altered Act as opposed to the performance of an altered actor. 

Schechner writing on the effect of Grotowski’s training methods on his actors notes that “ex-Grotowskiites have been surprisingly unsuccessful in starting their own theatres or feeding what they’ve done with Grotowski into their own theatre work.”[lix]  Grotowski was a field researcher of performance rituals, denying the spiritual and religious.  “He (Grotowski) intentionally prevented it from knitting in with any social, aesthetic or religious system.”[lx]  Is the denial of the spiritual or ‘receptive other’ responsible for the final ‘separating’ and ‘stripping down’[lxi] of Grotowski’s actors resulting in a ‘disabled act’ for the actors and audience?  The separation of mind and soul is what has occurred in our western theatre.  Somehow the rites of the shaman have been lost to us, despite the attempts of Stanislavsky, Chekhov and in a different light, Grotowski.  What can we learn from shamanism in the light of a search for a more connecting theatre?  As Richard Schechner observes:

“Among primitive peoples the creative condition is identical with trances, dances, ecstasies: in short Shamanism.”[lxii] 

The ability to consciously move beyond the physical body is the particular speciality of the traditional shaman.  These journeys of soul may take the shaman into the nether realms, higher levels of existence or to parallel physical worlds or other regions of this world.  Shamanic Flight is in most instances, an experience not of an inner imaginary landscape, but is reported to be the shaman’s flight beyond the limitations of the physical body.[lxiii]  It is important to note that shamanism is  a method, not a religion.  A method which is often associated with the religion known as Animism, but distinct from it...Animism is basically the belief in spirits.  Spirits are defined in Shamanism as “those things or beings which are normally not seen by people in ordinary states of consciousness, but are seen by the Shaman in the Shamanic state of consciousness.”[lxiv] 

Shamanism is classified by anthropologists as an archaic magico-religious phenomenon in which the shaman is the great master of ecstasy.  Shamanism itself was defined by the late Mircea Eliade as a technique of ecstasy.[lxv]  During the state of ecstasy, often a trance condition, the shaman leaves his/her body and makes contact with the spirit world while retaining consciousness.  Ecstasy comes from the Latin root ex statis, to stand outside oneself.  Interestingly, one of the earliest researchers into aboriginal shamanism was Mary Antoinette Crispine Czaplicka in 1914.  Her work on shamanism, mostly in a publication entitled Aboriginal Siberia,[lxvi] was used by Mircea Eliade for his publication “Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy”.[lxvii]  Shamans are mostly healers who are in contact with and work creatively with the supernatural forces which aid them in their work.  In all Tungus languages this term (saman/shaman) refers to persons of both sexes who have mastered spirits, who at their will can introduce these spirits into themselves and use their power over the spirits.[lxviii]  Shamanism is “a method, a psychic technique”[lxix] with origins traced back to the Alpine Palaeolithic period, 30,000 to 50,000 years ago.  There are many possible interpretations as to what constitutes a shaman: 

“Shamans know about energy and how it works both in the environment and the human body...They know about the spirit body and how to communicate with it.”[lxx]

A shaman may exhibit a particular magical speciality (such as control over fire, wind or magical flight).  The distinguishing characteristic of shamanism is its focus on an ecstatic trance state in which the soul of the shaman is believed to leave the body and ascend to the sky (heavens) or descend into the earth(underworld).[lxxi]  The shaman makes use of spirit helpers, with whom she or he communicates, all the while retaining control over his or her own consciousness (examples of possession occur, but are the exception, rather than the rule).  The ability to consciously move beyond the physical body is the particular speciality of the traditional shaman.  It is this quality of shamanism that could hold a key for the actor,  to consciously move beyond the physical.  Many religions, new age practices and ancient rituals involve this quality, seeing it as a desirable state where communication between one reality and another imagined or dreamt can take place. 

Trance States

Dr. Jeanne Achterberg, noted author and educator [lxxii]  states in her article entitled The Shaman: Master healer in the Imaginary Realm:

“The shaman is plugging into a data bank that can'‘ be known in the normal, waking state of consciousness.”[lxxiii]

Achterberg also writes that:

“Medical historian, Gordon Risse (1972) claims that in the state of consciousness used in shamanism, mental resources are employed which modern persons either no longer have access to or are not interested in using.”[lxxiv]

In order to journey to the other dimensions of existence a shaman induces an altered state of consciousness in herself similar to a state of self-hypnosis. While in this shamanic trance she is in complete control; able to take her consciousness and subtle bodies into non-physical reality where she visits the heavens and hells of existence, communicates with and controls spirits, gains information, retrieves souls, and makes subtle changes in reality which may affect the physical world. [lxxv]

A classical, and fairly accurate descriptive definition of hypnosis is “a condition or state of selective hypersuggestibility brought about in an individual through the use of certain specific psychological or physical manipulations of the individual.”[lxxvi]  The key words here are “selective hypersuggestibility”.  A hypnotherapist uses that selective hypersuggestibility in order to help bring about desired changes in an individual.  On the other hand a person practising shamanic techniques uses that state in order to fine tune her senses in order to see, feel, hear, and smell more vividly while travelling in the other worlds.

One interesting example of accessing shamanic journey states is a series of experiments conducted by Felicitas Goodman in 1977 with graduate students from Ohio State University.[lxxvii]  Goodman was investigating the relationship between controlled posture and trance experiences. The exercise involved asking the students to adopt the positions of “selected body postures where the religious context seemed self evident.”[lxxviii]  Each posture was drawn from different meditative disciplines including shamanic and aboriginal art.[lxxix]  Apart from the discovery by Goodman and the students that many of the postures released specific energies within the body, they also found that most of the postures were conducive to shamanic journeys where other realities were consciously entered and experienced.  The reports of these journeys are very similar to the journeys experienced by the student and professional actors using the Shamanic Meditational Journeying[lxxx] exercise to find their character.  For example, the following accounts are from three completely different people in very different situations and countries who experienced forms of shamanic trance and journeying. 

1. “I felt that I was rising up right away and saw some spirits dancing. I saw a river flowing downward toward a mountain, so I entered it, became a fish and followed its flow. I arrived in a misty forest, I left the river and started walking among the trees.  Suddenly I saw a black wolf.  It had a white spot.  I merged with the wolf and then became part of the mist.”[lxxxi] 

2. “I looked around and saw a monkey who stared at me then pointed at a snake who was just about to strike.  It bit me and as the poison went into my system I felt immense heat.  It passed through me and I was myself again.  Next to me swam a fish that showed me its family and invited me to join them.  I felt that the fish was telling me ‘all is one, I am the same as you’.”[lxxxii] 

3. “I am entering a wet, muddy land, it is a faraway place.  I have never been here before.  I am becoming the earth, it swallows me, in a huge sucking action, I am gone, underneath the soil - then I am spat out.  Now I see my character, in the distance, she dances, she is covered in mud.  All that is clearly visible is her vibrant orange hair.  Her movement is wild and frenetic one minute and then soft and controlled the next.  A deer nudges me and tells me it is time to leave now....”[lxxxiii] 

•  Shamanic Meditation Journeying

These are exercises based on shamanic trance rituals which alter the individuals’ energy states whilst maintaining an awareness.  Various exercises were created involving a type of creative visualisation shamanic meditation for the actor who journeys to discover and meet their character.  For instance, after entering a state of relaxation through whatever methods are appropriate,[lxxxiv] an actor would enter into a world constructed by another part of their mind on behalf of the character; i.e. not a pre-designed space but one that arrives spontaneously for the character to exist in.  As they enter into this space through the trunk of a tree, their character is waiting there for them.  The character either enters the actor or takes them by the hand and leads the actor through the landscape of the world of the play.  This is a space where the character will teach the actor about themselves and other characters in the play.  The actor is called back after 30 -40 minutes and immediately writes down the information they received. They then share some of their story with the rest of the group.  Often information gained in this way is incorporated into the production.

To shamanically ‘visit’ the sites of the play and to feel the environment assists the actor in the creation of another reality.  The actors smell the aromas of the kitchen, the dusty surrounds, the lack of water.  They feel what it’s like to be afraid of the well so that when they all have to visit the well in Act 3 their senses are tuned to the state of fear and the consequent revelation and release.  The meditation journey  on ‘Fear in the Well’ went as follows:

          Relax your body.

          Let the body breathe by itself, not consciously.

          Observe your body breathing.

          Bring the character up on an imaginary screen in front of you.  Note the age.

          Tell your character (mentally) you’re taking her on a journey, tell her its ‘below’.

          Take her by the hands and pull her into your body.

          Become her, breathe her.

          Walk backwards to the sound of drumming, you are alone and going to the well.

          It’s cold, the path is receding.

          Hot breath on the back of your neck as you’re standing at the edge of the well.

          You begin your descent into the well down the ladder rung by rung.

          It’s getting colder and darker, you look up and see the entrance, it’s very small.

          You reach the bottom, there’s something down there.....

From this point on, the actors all experienced varying degrees of fear as they explored the well in their imagination.  As a result of  this journey , an enormous amount of material was generated as background information,  given circumstances, for the characters who feared the well. 

The importance of ritual and ceremony is highlighted for the actor as well as connecting with the earth via the rituals.  This links the actor’s energy to the energy of the earth and provides profound material for the work the actor is engaged in.

Actors using the Shamanic Journey technique to journey to the world of the play  experienced the landscape clearly and often had powerful ‘experiences’ with their characters.  Steve Mizrach writes in his article ‘Ayahuasca, Shamanism, and Curanderismo in the Andes’:

“Many claim their ‘soul flight’ takes them to familiar locations which are close-by, and that they navigate among landscapes using recognisable landmarks.”[lxxxv]

Mizrach discusses at length the use of Yage (also known as ‘the visionary vine’) by Andean shaman.  Mizrach identifies the affects of Yage as:

“The experience that the Yage plant confers on Western users is so similar to accounts of the Near-Death Experience (NDE) (as noted by would-be shamans such as Alberto Villoldo, Michael Harner, and Terrence McKenna) that some are sure it’s practically a gateway to the spirit world.”[lxxxvi] 

He goes on to say that many Andean shamans using Yage, experience the following: 

“1) the feeling of separation of the soul from the body, and taking flight.

2) visions of jaguars (interpreted as positive), and snakes and other predatory animals (usually thought to be negative).

3) a sense of contact with supernatural agencies (Andean demons and divinities).

4) visions of distant cities and landscapes (thought to be clairvoyance).

5) detailed reenactments of previous events (thought to be retrocognition.)”[lxxxvii] 

Although this altered state of consciousness is accessed or catalysed by the use of a powerful hallucinogen, it seems that the journeys of the Andean shamans and the students not using drugs have several aspects in common.  They are:

Common Elements of Shamanic Journeying

1.      The notion of a journey from one reality to another which appears as real as the one left.

2.      Visions of and encounters with animal entities that either assist or challenge the traveller sometimes resulting in a ‘shamanic death’ where the traveller is reborn by being killed by the animal.

3.      Sensations of flight. Sometimes as a bird, disembodied or in their own body.

4.      All five senses are active in the ‘imagined landscape’.

5.      Retaining of the ‘conscious state’ throughout the journey.

Shamanism has many different meanings in different cultures with no final authority on its interpretation because of its oral traditions, age and cultural spread.

Finding a Voice For the Inarticulate Soul

As we become a global economy with vastly improved systems of communication and travel, the melding of cultural aspects is inevitable.  As a ‘white’ Australian I have relatively little knowledge of the indigenous culture of my own country yet have felt a need to access the ‘spiritual’ life of this land and the forces within and around it.  Much has been published and shared on the American Native Indians, their cultures and their approaches to life.  So has an enormous amount of literature on anthropological studies of shamanism throughout the world.  This information on other cultures has given a voice to a previously inarticulate spirituality within myself.  Quite a few of the actors who worked with elements and ideas from shamanism responded in similar ways which suggests that although not born of our culture, there are aspects of shamanism that we feel ‘at home’ or at one with, spiritually.

Theatre reflects our culture and in doing so, reflects the people in that culture.  The actor is not only our representative but also our mirror.  Training our actors with a sense of ‘spiritual realism’ in mind not only incorporates a necessary part of our culture but also an entire aspect of the self left out by the training systems of the past sixty or so years.  Actors have always sensed energy, from the audience, from each other and within themselves.  One of the struggles of the spiritual approach to acting in the western world is the establishment of the spiritual nature outside the regimes of the church. 

Language is particularly important when attempting to establish new or alternative ways of exploring the inner worlds of self. 

Re-assessing the ‘sacred’ is another way to assist the actor in their search and inner journey.  Finding a language that is accessible to actors and directors with different spiritual or religious beliefs is definitely one of the challenges and can only come about with further exploration and experimentation.  As previously stated, the way we train actors affects their ability to reflect the many dimensions of our humanity and our potential back to us.  The state of the actor reflects the state of the tribe.  One would assume this would naturally include the inner state as well as the outer.  The silent partner of the actor is spirit.  How do we language this place of spirit today? 

The radical feminist voice has perhaps begun this journey, questioning and deconstructing thousands of years of a language that as effectively ‘possessed’ the concept of spirit as one belonging solely to the church.  The ‘receptive other’, the female, the feminine, the indigenous, the pagan, all have been omitted from the dominant discourse.  As Helene Cixous observes:

“Night to his day-that has forever been the fantasy. Black to his white. Shut out of his system’s space, she is the repressed that ensures the system’s functioning.”[lxxxviii]  

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