Search Results (6)

The “hand-waving sacrifice” is a large-scale sacrificial ceremony with more than 2000 years of history. It was passed down from ancient times by the Tujia ethnic group living in the Wuling Corridor of China, and it integrates religion, sacrifice, dance, drama, and other cultural forms. It primarily consists of two parts: ritual content (inviting gods, offering sacrifices to gods, dancing a hand-waving dance, etc.) and the architectural space that hosts the ritual (hand-waving hall), which together constitute Tujia’s most sacred ritual space and the most representative art and culture symbol. Nonetheless, in existing studies, the hand-waving sacrifice ritual, hand-waving hall architectural space, and hand-waving dance art are often separated as independent research objects, and little attention is paid to the coupling mechanism of the mutual construction of space and ritual in the process of historical development. Moreover, with the acceleration of modernization, the current survival context of the hand-waving sacrifice has undergone drastic changes. On the one hand, the intangible cultural heritage protection policy and the wave of tourism development have pushed it into the public eye and the cultural consumption system. On the other hand, the changes in the social structure of traditional villages have led to the dissolution of the sacredness of ritual space. Therefore, using the interaction of “space-ritual” as a prompt, this research first uses GIS technology to visualize the spatial geographical distribution characteristics and diachronic evolution process of hand-waving halls in six historical periods and then specifically analyzes the sacred construction of hand-waving hall architecture for the hand-waving sacrifice ritual space throughout history, as well as the changing mechanism of the continuous secularization of the hand-waving sacrifice space in contemporary society. Overall, this study reveals a unique path for non-literate ethnic groups to achieve the intergenerational transmission of cultural memory through the collusion of material symbols and physical art practices, as well as the possibility of embedding the hand-waving sacrifice ritual into contemporary spatial practice through symbolic translation and functional extension in the context of social function inheritance and variation. Finally, this study has specific inspirational and reference value for exploring how the traditional culture and art of ethnic minorities can maintain resilience against the tide of modernization. Full article

This article discusses Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s opera Idomeneo: Re di Creta (1781, to a text by Giambattista Varesco) as a Christian parable in the historical context of its genesis. Mozart’s Idomeneo is based on a short episode in François Fénelon’s Télémaque, but also on Antoine Danchet’s adaptation of this episode for the theater in his tragédie lyrique Idoménée (1712; set to music by André Campra). In important aspects, Mozart’s Idomeneo changed the narrative with a marked independence of Fénelon as well as Danchet. In recent scholarship, important new information has come to light concerning Mozart’s composition of the Oracle scene, constituting the dénouement of the music drama. Based partly on these new insights, I attempt to provide a picture of a basic spiritual intention governing Mozart’s composition of the opera for the Carnival season of 1781 at the Munich court. Mozart’s Idomeneo is a Christian sacrifice drama modeled on the Aqedah (the sacrifice of Isaac; Gen 22: 1–14), which, in Christian traditions, is understood typologically as pointing to the Passion of Christ. Oppositely, Fénélon’s and Danchet’s versions rather correspond to the biblical story of Jephthah (Judges 11: 29–30). In a brief concluding section of this article, I also discuss the contemporary cultural importance of reading a classical opera such as Mozart’s Idomeneo as a conscious product of Enlightened Christianity. In modern times, ecclesiastical boundaries and religious doctrines often seem to matter little in the music and theater culture of the Western world; classical opera is often staged more in order to respond to contemporary political or social issues than to communicate the original intentions of its creators (the so-called Regieoper). I argue that Idomeneo, with its historical intention, potentially can have an impact in a cultural theology (or a theologically informed modern worldview), and further, in dialogue with a recent volume discussing the “music of theology”, that such a role for a piece of music must be developed in concrete musical (or music dramatic) contexts, not as a general philosophical contention. Mozart’s Idomeneo may work in a modern cultural context because it functions as a parable, easily understandable also in a modern political or social context, because of its deep human (psychological) insight and the empathy brought to bear on all the characters of the opera. Full article

I introduce a Buddhist god named Jiedi, believed to be a personification of the renowned gate mantra in the Heart Sūtra. I argue for a complex genesis story where the transference of the nāga-taming function and aquatic setting from the rainmaking spell in the Great Cloud Sūtra to the Heart Sūtra Mantra, coupled with its exegetical tradition emphasizing the soteriological metaphor of crossing, created an independent cult of the Jiedi Mantra. In battling chthonic snake spirits demanding virgin sacrifice in Sichuan, a regional variation of a cosmopolitan alchemical theme, the mantra was personified into a god associated with water and warfare. The exorcistic function of the mantra was the motor behind its apotheosis in Middle-period China. While he was elevated from a mere spirit to a vidyārāja (“wisdom king”) in tantric Buddhism, his cult was also disseminated in the Song, witnessing him provide broad deliverance in diverse areas such as industry, agriculture, infrastructure, military, and civil service. In late imperial China, he further imprinted himself on sacred geography, became a special class of warrior god, made inroads into Daoism and local religion, and proliferated in vernacular fiction and drama. An exotic Indian god was born on Chinese soil. Full article

Yingshen saishe or saishe is a general name for all types of temple festivals held to offer sacrifices to deities of local communities. With its roots traceable to ancient shamanic beliefs and practices, saishe demonstrates itself as a closely integrated form of religious ritual performance and musical/theatrical performance and proves to be instrumental in the development of Chinese theatre from ritual to drama. Based on my fieldwork on Jiacun Double-Fourth Temple Festival in May 2016, this paper offers a close examination of Jiacun temple culture and temple theatre with focus on the religious ritual performance and musical/theatrical entertainment presented during the festival. In so doing, this paper provides an enhanced understanding of the highly dynamic, interactive relationships between temple and theatre and between efficacy and entertainment. Full article

This essay engages the experimental playwright Nassim Soleimanpour’s White Rabbit Red Rabbit alongside the theological dramatic theory of Hans Urs von Balthasar. Every Soleimanpour play can only happen once. Actors receive the script as they begin the show; any given actor must perform Soleimanpour’s drama as a cold reading unique in history. I propose “Showtime” to theorize this theatrical temporality, exemplified by White Rabbit Red Rabbit and shared by von Balthasar’s theology, on analogy to stage space. This article further examines the play’s themes of identity, self-sacrifice, free obedience, and writing about time through a “theodramatic structural analysis” keyed to von Balthasar. Soleimanpour expands Balthasarian theodramatics in unexpected and unintended directions. So too did the performance of White Rabbit Red Rabbit I attended in 2016 that featured Wayne Brady as the actor. This essay concludes with analysis of that performance and how it places this essay’s theodramatic structural analysis into contexts of race and the history of anti-Black racism in the United States. Full article

Disgust occupies a particular space in Buddhism where repulsive aspects of the human body are visualized and reflected upon in contemplative practices. The Indian tradition of aesthetics also recognizes disgust as one of the basic human emotions that can be transformed into an aestheticized form, which is experienced when one enjoys drama and poetry. Buddhist literature offers a particularly fertile ground for both religious and literary ideas to manifest, unravel, and entangle in a narrative setting. It is in this context that we find elements of disgust being incorporated into two types of Buddhist narrative: (1) discouragement with worldly objects and renunciation, and (2) courageous act of self-sacrifice. Vidyākara’s anthology of Sanskrit poetry (Subhāṣitaratnakoṣa) and the poetics section of Sa skya Paṇḍita’s introduction to the Indian systems of cultural knowledge (Mkhas pa rnams ’jug pa’i sgo) offer two rare examples of Buddhist engagement with aesthetics of emotions. In addition to some developed views of literary critics, these two Buddhist writers are relied on in this study to provide perspectives on how Buddhists themselves in the final phase of Indian Buddhism might have read Buddhist literature in light of what they learned from the theory of aesthetics. Full article