RITUAL

26.01.17
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Written by Maddy Costa in conversation with and edited by Leo Kay and Anna Smith.

(18/11/15)
Maddy: What is ritual? What is healing, what is transformation?

Leo: Yes, it would be good to define this more clearly. One definition that I think about is repeatable acts that give meaning to your life.

Anna: What about the thing of conjuring something, an energy or an atmosphere?

Leo: Yes, another way I see it is an energised act or an act which has a clear intention in relation to your belief in what it will do.

I guess if you look at past performances there's the ritual of cooking together, the ritual of toasting, the ritual of lighting candles or a candle in celebration of someone, the ritual of playing music together or of sharing song or of sharing movement, the ritual of asking the audience to consider flour/salt/rice as being symbolic and then imbuing them with meaning. A shift for me is moving towards doing more action-intention performance process. Where the final point is not delineated, it's not clear what the performance will create and there's a reality to it -

Anna: – physically you're leaving more space for something unknown –

Leo: – you're leaving more space but you're not repeating an intellectual through-line: it's a visceral act of doing. You are working something out through the process of doing it.

RESPONSIBILITY ← | → SERVICE

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