Introduction: the archaeology of performance

World Archaeology ISSN: 0043-8243 (Print) 1470-1375 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rwar20 Introduction: the archaeology of performance Elizabeth DeMarrais To cite this article: Elizabeth DeMarrais (2014) Introduction: the archaeology of performance, World Archaeology, 46:2, 155-163, DOI: 10.1080/00438243.2014.899157 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2014.899157 Published online: 24 Apr 2014. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 441 View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rwar20 Download by: [University of Cambridge] Date: 24 September 2015, At: 06:32 Introduction: the archaeology of performance Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 06:32 24 September 2015 Elizabeth DeMarrais Traces of past performances are abundant in the archaeological record. The events that captured and held the attention of audiences in the past continue to fascinate archaeologists. Performances had significance in political, social and cultural spheres of past societies, full of potential not only to transmit established meanings, but also, through time, to transform them. Excavating the remains of theatres, plazas, stages, masks and costumes, portable objects, as well as investigating a rich iconographic record (depicting past performances), researchers have sought to understand the significance of these dramatic – and often costly – undertakings. Beyond the spectacles of ancient states, the rituals and other face-to-face interactions that characterized smaller-scale societies are also amenable to analysis from a ‘performance’ perspective. The articles in this issue explore the archaeology of performance, broadly defined. Specific aims are 1) to refine existing frameworks for thinking about performance; 2) to consider the relevance of new theoretical directions; and 3) to contribute original case studies that document the diversity of this genre of action in past societies. Understanding performance and ritual Making clear distinctions between ritual and performance1 may be desirable for analytic reasons but it is difficult to do so in practice, since these categories of action overlap. Schechner (1977, 75, 1988, 6–16, 1994) distinguishes theatrical performances, presented to a separate audience, from rituals, which generally involve those in attendance in shared action. In early debates, researchers considered how performances achieve desired ends. Austin (1962) built a cogent case that humans use words to do things; examples of ‘performative utterances’ include: ‘I now pronounce you man and wife’ or ‘I sentence you to five years’. In contrast, Turner (1974, 1982, 1986) directed attention to the psychological effects of ritual, emphasizing liminality and the evocation of the subjunctive mood (the ‘as if’). For him, ritual drew attention to conflicts or contradictions, its generative capacities at the same time supplying the means for their redress. Drawing upon Turner’s work, Schechner observes that Because performances are usually subjunctive, liminal, dangerous, and duplicitous they are often hedged in with conventions and frames: ways of making the places, the participants, World Archaeology Vol. 46(2): 155–163 Archaeology of Performance © 2014 Taylor & Francis ISSN 0043-8243 print/1470-1375 online http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2014.899157 156 Elizabeth DeMarrais Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 06:32 24 September 2015 and the events somewhat safe. In these relatively safe make-believe precincts actions can be carried to extremes, even for fun. (Schechner 1988, xiv) In an edited volume (Moore and Myerhoff 1977), ethnographers investigated ‘secular ritual’, directing attention more fully towards the political dimensions of performance. Contributors explored the ways that performances gave permanence and legitimacy to what were, in reality, ‘evanescent cultural constructs’ (Moore and Myerhoff 1977, 8). Performance communicated an established social order, at the same time serving as a medium for transforming that reality. Viewing a secular ritual as a place for negotiation highlights the ways that the evocative properties of performance facilitate ‘at least an attentive state of mind’ (Moore and Myerhoff 1977, 7). Just as religious rituals can reveal unseen worlds, secular ceremonies clarify relationships of power. As performers act in reference to the social order, they contribute to its objectification. In a real sense, ‘[e]very ceremony is par excellence a dramatic statement against indeterminacy’ (Moore and Myerhoff 1977, 17). Current trends 1: performance as political communication In a recent book, editors Inomata and Coben (2006a, 20–1) and most of their contributors analyse spectacles in archaeological contexts, drawing attention to questions about how such events communicated and in what ways. The high costs of staging the public events associated with archaic states contributed to their social and political impact. A spectacle also disrupts or alters routines, revealing unambiguously the capacities of ritual specialists. As my colleagues and I have argued, these capacities (and the power asymmetries they demonstrate) are difficult to fake2 (DeMarrais, Castillo, and Earle 1996). Additionally, objects and settings associated with spectacles often reflect extraordinary skill, virtuosity or labour inputs (Spielmann 2002). Nonetheless, debate continues over the degree to which elites manipulated ideologies or – alternatively – operated inside them, united by shared values (Abercrombie, Hill, and Turner 1980; Bloch 1986; Inomata and Houston 2001). A strength of archaeology is its focus on the materiality of performances. Particularly relevant is an understanding of a ritual space or theatre and the ways that its layout affected the relationships between performers and an audience (Fogelin 2007). As archaeologists increasingly seek to document the sensory and bodily experiences of people in the past, kinesic studies and analyses of movement, access and flow across landscapes and within buildings or monuments have become more nuanced. Contributors to Inomata and Coben (2006b), for example, discuss the ways that architecture reflects efforts to coordinate the movements of audiences during an event, restricting access to some areas while facilitating the visitor’s experience of viewing and hearing in other locations. Current trends 2: performance and emotions The popularity of practice approaches in archaeology more generally has stimulated research on the archaeology of performance, given optimism that shared action is easier to recover from the Introduction 157 past than shared belief. Inomata (2006, 805) argues further that in the past, since ideas of the state were often not internalized, the experience of attending ceremonies was essential for inculcating awareness of power relations in subjects. Kertzer summarizes this view succinctly, observing that: Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 06:32 24 September 2015 the common reading of Durkheim, that he identified solidarity with value consensus in his interpretation of ritual, misses the strength of his argument. His genius lies in having recognized that ritual builds solidarity without requiring the sharing of beliefs. Solidarity is produced by people acting together, not people thinking together. (Kertzer 1988, 76) Closely associated with this perspective are recent trends in theory that seek to understand emotions in past people not as internal (and therefore immaterial) phenomena, but rather as affective experiences that are embodied in encounters among people (Bell 1992, 1997), and particularly in the encounters of past people with the material world (Harris and Sørensen 2010; DeMarrais 2013). Similarly, Gosden (2004, 38) argues that public events do not simply express emotions; instead they evoke and bring them into being. Sensory and bodily experiences of individuals may be inferred, as, for example, for a person entering a crowded plaza or for individuals joining a procession across the landscape. While it is true that archaeologies of performance are focused upon the abundant remains of the spectacles of ancient states, interest is also shifting towards the (more subtle) traces of these events in smaller-scale societies. Researchers emphasize the solidarity generated in the shared experience of preparing for and staging ceremonies in smaller-scale societies (see Hull, this volume). Kus similarly underscores the importance of shared activity for the ‘cultural crafting and expression of emotions’ (2010, 168) in oral societies, arguing that: speech, gesture, and material object are often melded in dialogic encounters….The fact that powerful tropes of reflective thought in primar(il)y (sic) oral societies are materially grounded in routine and ritual activity, in objects encountered and/or created, in persons, in space, in landscape, and so on might make emotions ‘legible’ in material culture…materiality as trope might be a very exciting entry point into our discussion of emotion in oral societies known only from their archaeological remains. (Kus 2010, 171) Given general agreement that performances can be evocative and dramatic, sometimes spectacular, and often memorable, it seems clear that archaeologists interested in emotions can (and should) continue to contribute significantly to developing and theorizing the archaeology of performance. Current trends 3: performance and relational approaches Still other researchers (e.g. Goffman 1959; Hodder 2006) adopt a wider definition of performance to encompass face-to-face interaction on a smaller scale, the ordinary encounters of daily life. Hodder (2006) critiques a bias towards the spectacular and the public; for him, performance Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 06:32 24 September 2015 158 Elizabeth DeMarrais is just a ‘showing’ and a ‘looking’, visible at a range of scales, including all of the intimate encounters of ordinary life. Goffman’s influential work drew parallels between the roles played by individuals in their day-to-day lives and theatrical performance. Still others define performance broadly to encompass daily routines, the presentation of self, and – more recently – the forging of social and political identities through entanglements with objects. These researchers place particular emphasis on the influence of unconscious routines and dispositions (Bourdieu 1990) that shape social relations, institutions and the processes involved in the building of identities. Defining performance as the citation of iterable, regulatory norms, Butler (1990, 1993) has developed influential ideas about the ‘performativity’ of gender. Drawing upon these ideas, archaeologists have argued that social roles in the past were similarly fluid and contingent, negotiated and re-negotiated over time. A relational approach involves a general concern with the ‘performativity’ of human beings, particularly in terms of ongoing interactions with the things of the material world (Robb 2010). Others frame relational perspectives through reference to alternative ontologies (Alberti and Bray 2009; Alberti et al. 2011). Overall, the trend among these theorists is a shift away from seeking to understand human experiences and actions in terms of abstract concepts, thoughts and beliefs, and away from viewing social structure and the ‘rules of the game’ as fixed constructs. Instead, proponents of a relational perspective emphasize the ways that people and things are mutually constitutive – and constituting – of social worlds. In the words of Barad (2003, 818), agency is ‘not an attribute but [rather] the ongoing reconfigurings [sic] of the world’ (see Angelo 2014). Articles in this issue Kathleen Hull’s article focuses on the possibility of reconstructing performance in smaller-scale societies. Examining mourning rituals among pre-Hispanic Chumash groups inhabiting the southern California coast, she examines the ways that a ‘persistent place’ evoked communal memories over decades or even centuries through a cyclical process of mourning ceremonies. Drawing upon Turner’s definition of ritual as ‘the performance of a complex sequence of symbolic acts’ (1986, 75), Hull analyses mourning rituals as evocative sequences of action that, through time, sustained networks of communication among dispersed groups in the wider region. Hull observes that sounds, objects, foods, textures and smells, together with an awareness of the other participants, were strong sensory and tactile experiences for individuals, evoking memories of the recently deceased. The activity further referenced a longer-term, collective memory of past performances. Drawing extensively on ethnographies, Hull also highlights the extended work involved in constructing the yoba (ritual structure), accumulating personal objects from the deceased, rehearsing and feasting. These sequences of action, and the dense scatters of artefacts and residues they generated, indicate that both ‘cognitive and emotional cues’ were being generated in abundance (Bell 1997, 74–5). Neil Price emphasizes the scale and complexity of funerals as spectacles in Viking Age Scandinavia. Extending the premise that Norse dramas were sacred narratives, intended not only for oral recitation but for actual performances by actors, Price identifies evidence for an ‘almost infinite variation’ of detailed ritual practices within a relatively limited repertoire of outer grave Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 06:32 24 September 2015 Introduction 159 forms. Perhaps, he argues, funerals were complex dramas acted out at the grave site, referencing the dead and their families and their communities, integrating these details with a wider mythology and spirituality. Grave goods, including large objects (furniture, wagons and even ships), were props used in extended and extravagant performances. Investigating sanctuary sites in Sweden and Denmark as ‘places with a purpose’, he uncovered evidence of movement (processions) to the graveside. Observing an organic process of ritual action, by means of which burial contents accumulated, he argues that Viking Age burial was rarely a singular and final act of deposition. Many graves contain multiple occupants, and the ‘sheer strangeness’ of graves that contain animals driven into the pit, pieces of goat or sheep flesh, or boulders rolled into the grave indicate complicated and idiosyncratic sequences of ritual action. In a contribution re-examining late Bronze Age shaft graves at Mycenae, Michael Boyd critiques past research focused primarily on descriptions of tomb architecture and contents. Shifting attention to consider funerals as spectacles, he asks why people developed particular practices of deposition. Analysing the contexts in which these practices developed, he asks what archaeologists can glean of the nature, intentions and meanings of the wider material performance (the gathering of objects, preparing of the corpse and procession to the graveside), of which deposition forms only a part? Observing that ‘[i]n funerary archaeology the nature of action is likely to be exceptional rather than routine, as well as occasional rather than everyday’ (Boyd this issue), he develops an approach informed by relational and material views of agency (Robb 2010), material engagement theory (Renfrew 2001) and the materialisation of culture (DeMarrais 2004). He concludes that the acts of preparing the corpse, collecting objects for inclusion, placing the dead with the objects, leaving the tomb and later returning to rearrange the remains for further burials references an extended sequence of individual and collective agencies, part of a wider historical and material process. Susan Johnston and her co-authors investigate the Iron Age site of Dún Ailinne in Ireland, which has a history of ritual use, including burials, extending over 5000 years. The Iron Age use is among the most conspicuous, when the earthworks and other modifications of the hilltop formed part of a larger ritual and symbolic landscape. Informed by practice theory, the authors view performance as conscious action directed towards communication about hierarchical authority and power relations. In concordance with many archaeologists, the authors envisage large-scale public performances as key tools for political negotiation. The building of the site in stages could itself have constituted a performance, in the sense that workers may have seen it as a job, a service or a burden: ‘[d]ay-to-day activities can take on a ritual quality as they are repeated (performed)’ (Johnston et al. this issue). The authors argue that participants derived meaning not by observing this landscape of power but by being within it, thus referencing visual and kinaesthetic aspects of experience. Through orchestration of movement, control of ceremony and sponsorship of feasting, Iron Age elites could communicate unambiguous messages about the centralized and hierarchical nature of power relations. Katy Soar undertakes a reinterpretation of the iconography of Neopalatial period Minoan society. The dances, bull leaping and boxing depicted in the iconography have frequently been interpreted as religious activities. Adopting a performance approach, Soar seeks instead to highlight their political significance. Making reference to new interpretations of Minoan Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 06:32 24 September 2015 160 Elizabeth DeMarrais socio-political organization that emphasize heterarchy, she argues that the iconography depicts factional competition. Both performance and representation of performance, she concludes, were integral to political competition in Minoan society. Leaders of factions displayed their prowess and skills in front of an audience. Performances in Minoan society therefore materialized ideologies, reinforcing the competitive socio-political order, providing arenas for the ongoing negotiation and transformation of power relations. Rune Iversen examines iconographic depictions of acrobatic performances, dances and games associated with elites during the Bronze Age of the eastern Mediterranean. He describes surprising similarities in iconographic representations of acrobats from Denmark (shown leaping over ships) with those found in Egypt (shown performing exercises, perhaps as entertainment at banquets). He demonstrates further that both sets of imagery show further resemblances to the well-known images of bull-leapers of Minoan Crete. Overall, the postures shown for the acrobats, as well as aspects of hairstyles and clothing, are widely shared, linking bronze figurine art from Denmark to Swedish rock carvings and to Minoan terracotta figurines. On the basis of these similarities in iconography, Iversen suggests that acrobatic dancing and music were actual rituals, shared across Bronze Age societies, although the details of the iconography (and probably the ritual itself) varied from place to place. More generally, he proposes that a ‘packet’ of religious ideas and material attributes was shared across the eastern Mediterranean. Ultimately, he concludes, not only goods and objects were widely shared and exchanged across eastern Mediterranean Bronze Age societies; ceremonies and ritual practices also became more homogeneous. Adopting a post-colonial perspective, Lauren Ristvet considers the ways that, in Seleucid Babylonia, cultural institutions including temples and theatres, in their staging of rituals and dramas respectively, may be understood as hybrid forms in a colonial society. As with pottery and figurine styles that reveal creative mixing of elements from diverse traditions, Babylonian temples and Greek theatres appear to have been places of cultural translation. Performances brought together a diverse resident population (Babylonians, Greeks, Macedonians, Jews and others); these audiences were not passive, but rather formed sophisticated, even critical audiences. Political spectacles and festivals sponsored by kings were particularly important arenas for negotiating political relationships and asserting legitimacy. At these events, citizens contributed to ongoing discourses about the maintenance or contestation of hegemony. Hybrid forms of performance were therefore significant in the creation of a new ‘Seleucid world’ that broke down distinctions separating Babylonian from Greek identities and practices. Finally, Dante Angelo advocates an explicitly relational approach to Andean ritual to overcome the limitations of earlier, functionalist views that see ritual action primarily as a way to reinforce an existing social structure. Informed by the work of theorists DeLanda (2006) and Barad (2003), he posits that ritual is better seen as an ‘assemblage at work’, an inherently social and political engagement, by means of which humans and non-humans become jointly enmeshed in contingent and context-dependent relationships, creating new social realities. A further consequence of a relational perspective, as Angelo demonstrates, is the breaking down of analytical distinctions between ‘ritual’ and ‘everyday activity’. From a relational perspective, ritual is inseparable from politics. In a case study, he explores ethnographic evidence for changing attitudes towards cultural heritage in the Quebrada de Humahuaca, Argentina, prompted by the listing of the region as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000. As a consequence of the Introduction 161 designation, inhabitants of the region began to re-value previously denigrated indigenous cultural practices, including a return to the use of adobe bricks for house construction. Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 06:32 24 September 2015 Conclusions The archaeology of performance encompasses human actions ranging from the public spectacles of ancient states to more intimate encounters of ordinary people with the things of the material world. Performance, variously referred to here as ritual, ceremony, secular ritual, spectacle or public event, involves enormous breadth across distinctive forms of human interaction. The materiality of performances, in particular, makes their study particularly inviting to archaeologists. Performance theorists generally agree that performances are evocative, often dramatic and sometimes mysterious in their content and symbolism. These evocative qualities, along with the capacity to disrupt routines and to capture and hold the attention of audiences, mean that performances and spectacles are particularly well-suited for communicating messages about power and hierarchy. Yet, as the articles in this volume also reveal, performances may also be settings where negotiation, competition, contestation or transformation of existing social orders becomes possible. Consensus is less strong when precise definitions of the scope and nature of performance are sought. Some archaeologists focus on large-scale theatrical events for practical reasons, including their visibility in the archaeological record and their importance for understanding politics in many past societies. Others insist that daily life – in all of its manifestations – involves human beings in performance and are critical of an overemphasis on elites. Despite these disagreements, a widespread enthusiasm for practice approaches should mean that archaeologists will continue to develop nuanced and detailed approaches to understanding performances in the past. Additionally, as some archaeologists continue to pursue the archaeology of emotions and others work to refine relational approaches, it seems clear that performance – and performativity – will continue to be exciting areas for further research. University of Cambridge ed226@cam.ac.uk Notes 1 ‘Performance is an inclusive term. Theatre is only one node on a continuum that reaches from the ritualizations of animals (including humans) through performances in everyday life – greetings, displays of emotion, family scenes, professional roles and so on – through to play, sports, theater, dance, ceremonies, rites, and performances of great magnitude’ (Schechner 1988, xiii). 2 Yet power can be hidden from view (Scott 1985; Hodder 2006, 83); different agendas may also operate in parallel, with the consequence that public manifestations rarely reflect the complete picture. 162 Elizabeth DeMarrais References Abercrombie, N., S. Hill, and B. Turner. 1980. The Dominant Ideology Thesis. London: Allen & Unwin. Alberti, B., and T. Bray. 2009. “Introduction to Animating Archaeology.” Cambridge Archaeological Journal 19 (3): 337–41. Alberti, B., S. Fowles, M. Holbraad, Y. Marshall, and C. Witmore. 2011. “‘Worlds Otherwise’: Archaeology, Anthropology, and Ontological Difference.” Current Anthropology 52 (6): 896–912. Angelo, D. 2014. “Assembling Ritual, the Burden of the Everyday: An Exercise in Relational Ontology in Quebrada de Humahuaca, Argentina.” World Archaeology 46 (2). doi:10.1080/00438243.2014.891948 Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 06:32 24 September 2015 Austin, J. L. 1962. How to Do Things with Words, edited by J. O. Urmson and Marina Sbisà. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Barad, K. 2003. “Posthumanist Performativity: Toward an Understanding of How Matter Comes to Matter.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 28 (3): 801–31. Bell, C. 1992. Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bell, C. 1997. Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bloch, M. 1986. From Blessing to Violence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bourdieu, P. 1990. The Logic of Practice. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Butler, J. 1990. Gender Trouble. London: Routledge. Butler, J. 1993. Bodies that Matter. London: Routledge. DeLanda, M. 2006. A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity. London: Continuum. DeMarrais, E. 2004. “The Materialization of Culture.” In Rethinking Materiality, edited by E. DeMarrais, C. Gosden, and C. Renfrew, 11–22. Cambridge: McDonald Institute. DeMarrais, E. 2013. “Art As an Affecting Presence: Infant Funerary Urns in Pre-Hispanic Northwest Argentina.” World Art 3 (1): 110–19. DeMarrais, E., L. J. Castillo, and T. Earle. 1996. “Ideology, Materialization, and Power Strategies.” Current Anthropology 37: 15–31. Fogelin, Lars. 2007. “The Archaeology of Religious Ritual.” Annual Review of Archaeology 36: 55–71. Goffman, E. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City, NJ: Doubleday Anchor. Gosden, C. 2004. “Aesthetics, Intelligence, and Emotions: Implications for Archaeology.” In Rethinking Materiality, edited by E. DeMarrais, C. Gosden, and C. Renfrew, 33–42. Cambridge: McDonald Institute. Harris, O., and T. Sørensen. 2010. “Rethinking Emotion and Material Culture.” Archaeological Dialogues 17 (2): 145–63. Hodder, I. 2006. “The Spectacle of Daily Performance at Çatalhöyük.” In Archaeology of Performance, edited by T. Inomata and L. Coben, 81–102. Lanham, MD: Altamira Press. Inomata, T. 2006. “Plazas, Performers, and Spectators: Political Theaters of the Classic Maya.” Current Anthropology 47 (5): 805–84. Inomata, T., and L. Coben. 2006a. “Overture.” In Archaeology of Performance, edited by T. Inomata and L. Coben, 11–44. Lanham, MD: Altamira Press. Inomata, T., and L. Coben. 2006b. Archaeology of Performance. Lanham, MD: Altamira Press. Inomata, T., and S. Houston. 2001. “Opening the Royal Maya Court.” In Royal Courts of the Ancient Maya, Vol. 1, Theory, Comparison, and Synthesis, edited by T. Inomata and S. Houston, 3–23. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Introduction 163 Kertzer, D. 1988. Ritual, Politics, and Power. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Kus, S. 2010. “The Matter with Emotion (Comment on Rethinking Emotion and Material Culture).” Archaeological Dialogues 17 (2): 167–72. Moore, S. F., and B. Myerhoff. 1977. “Introduction: Secular Ritual: Forms and Meanings.” In Secular Ritual, edited by S. Moore and B. Myerhoff, 3–24. Assen: Van Gorcum. Renfrew, C. 2001. “Symbol before Concept.” In Archaeological Theory Today, edited by I. Hodder, 122–40. Cambridge: Polity Press. Robb, J. 2010. “Beyond Agency.” World Archaeology 42 (4): 493–520. Schechner, R. 1977. Essays on Performance Theory. New York: Drama Book Specialists. Schechner, R. 1988. Performance Theory. London: Routledge. Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 06:32 24 September 2015 Schechner, R. 1994. Environmental Theater. London: Applause. Scott, J. 1985. Weapons of the Weak. New Haven, CA: Yale University Press. Spielmann, K. 2002. “Feasting, Craft Specialization, and the Ritual Mode of Production.” American Anthropologist 104: 195–207. Turner, V. 1974. Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors. London: Cornell University Press. Turner, V. 1982. From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play. New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications. Turner, V. 1986. The Anthropology of Performance. New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications. Elizabeth DeMarrais teaches in the Division of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge. She is also co-director of the Material Culture Laboratory and a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge. Her interests include archaeological theory, ancient art and ideology, material culture studies, political economy and the archaeology of Andean South America, with a particular interest in north-west Argentina.