Jane Chon

• In the west we experience theatricality through seeing and hearing whereas in other cultural traditions it is experienced through the route in the enteric nervous system (also known as the snout-to-belly-to-bowel).

The Poetics and the Natyasastra

• Aristotle’s Poetics and Bharata-muni’s Natyasastra both contain performance theories through which European and Indian art performances are practiced.
• Both are similar yet different
• The NS is a sacred text written by the gods while the Poetics is secular, based on logical thinking to describe the structure of drama.
• The Poetics is based on rationality and historical examples while the NS is a compound of myths and performance knowledge.
• Unlike the Poetics, the NS projects its importance through ideas and practice, not through reading.
• The NS is more danced than read.
• The biggest difference is that the NS reveals much more in detail regarding gestures and movements to convey emotions, role play, theatre architecture, music, etc.
• It integrates drama, dance and music into one performance.

Rasa, First Take

• The NS says, “Rasa is the cumulative result of stimulus, involuntary reaction and voluntary reaction” (Schecner 29).
• The author compares rasa to the experience of tasting and enjoying food with various senses.
• Rasa is also the juice, the medium of tasting.
• It is about engaging all your senses to gain a true experience of pleasure.

The Pleasures of Rasic Performance

• The purpose of rasic performance is to achieve endless pleasure
• Rasic performance is similar to that of cooking where various elements are combined to achieve an intensification of flavors.
• It allows one to experience the sthyai bhavas (emotions)
• There are 8 sthyai bhavas, but shanta (bliss) is added to complete the picture.
• In the rasic system, “performed emotions” are differentiated from “feelings”.
• Emotions are objective while feelings (what the partaker and performer feels) are subjective.
• Therefore rasas are regarded as feelings while sthyai bhavas are emotions.
• The success of a performance depends upon the participation of the partakers.
• The more knowledgable the partaker, the better.

Oral Pleasures, Rascially

• The pleasures of a rasic performance are achieved through the snout and the belly (again the notion of the snout-to-belly-to-bowel).
• The performance arts stem from religious ceremonies (feasts) that included performing, eating, and worshipping.
• It incorporates several different elements such as theatre, dance, music, good and religious devotion to enhance overall spectrum.

Ben Gordon

In his article entitled “Rasaesthetics”, Richard Schechner asserts that theatricality is not merely a sensory experience of the eyes and ears. Rather, the emotions that one experiences are directly related to the gut. Schechner describes theatricality as being located within the enteric nervous system, which controls the gastrointestinal system – a location that he calls the “snout-to-belly-to-bowel” (Schechner 27). It is here where theatricality intensely affects us.

The term “rasa” is derived from Indian origin. It refers to the sensations of flavour and taste, as well as the “juices” that bring pleasure to the body. Rasic performance seeks to invoke these bodily pleasures through theatrical presentations by allowing a sharing of emotion between both the performers and partakers. In other words, these raw emotions are meant to be felt by all who participate in the rasaesthetic performance. Schechner mentions that the more that the crowd participates, the greater the impact the performance has. For example, the Rasabox (which Schechner provides the instructions for) is a theatrical exercise in which participants must step into boxes that represent eight different emotions. Without thinking, they then create a pose on the spot which expresses that emotion.

The core of Schechner’s argument stems from the fact that the gut contains more neurons than the spinal cord, and therefore acts as its own nervous system that is not fully controlled by the brain but instead operates on its own accord. Personally, I feel that this is a unique way in both approaching and examining theatrical art forms. It allows one to delve into his or her most primal emotions. Schechner’s article is helpful in that gives us a new perspective of how art effects the body.

Questions: Are we not sometimes able to repress or ignore the emotions that develop from our enteric nervous system? Do rasaesthetics hinder the validity of our sensory experiences? Should we pay more attention to these raw emotions or not?

Jordan Howard

Natyasastra

This article documents Bhara-muni’s ‘Natyasastra’, a Sanskrit manual of performance and performance theory.

Bharata-muni is a mythical historical figure and the name of the author or compiler of religious-mythic origins and practices of Natya, a Sanskrit that reduces to dance-theatre music.

The Natyasastra is a Sastra, a sacred text composed by the gods full of myth and detailed instructions of performers. The Natyasastra is meant more as an embodied set of ideas and practices than as a written text. It is a hybrid of myth and down-to-earth performance knowledge. It deals in detail with performance: emotional expression as conveyed by specific gestures and movements, role and character types, theatre architecture, music.

Natyasastra tradition is active, oral and corporeal. It is present in performers their teachers and their performances. Forms the core of a multiplicity of genres such as: Kathak, kathakali, odissi, and bharatanatyam, which taken together comprise Indian Classical theatre-dance.

As a contrast, Poetics was written by Aristotle nearly a century after Greek’s tragedy’s heyday. According to Schechner these writings lack descriptions of actual performances, focusing on one play: Oedipus. A play that Aristotle offers as a model about for the correct way to write plays. Framed as ‘rational’, ‘historical’, Poetics is not regarded as sacred, although it has been, and remains influential.

Rasa

Rasa is the cumulative result of vibhava (stimulus), anubhava (involuntary reaction) and vyabhicari bhava (voluntary reaction). Also along with the different bhavas (emotions) the sthayibhava (permanent motions experienced ‘inside’) becomes a Rasa.

Nine rasas

The experience of:

• Sringara — desire, love
• Hasya — humour, laughter
• Karuna — pity, grief
• Raudra — anger
• Vira — energy, vigor
• Bhayanaka — fear, shame
• Bibhasta — disgust
• Adbhuta — surprise, wonder
• Shanta — bliss (a balance, or perfect mix of all rasas)

According to Schechner one way to describe idea of Rasa is if it is enjoyably tasted, it is called Rasa. People, who eat prepared food mixed with different condiments and sauces, enjoy the different tastes and then feel pleasure. Like-wise, spectators, after enjoying the various emotions expressed by the actors through words gestures and feelings feel pleasure. This feeling by the spectators is explained as the rasas of natya. Rasa is described as sensuous, proximate, experiential, aromatic, fills space, joining the outside to the inside. What was outside is transformed into what is inside.

Children learn early to see something, focus, reach for it, grasp, and bring it to the mouth, replacing the eyes of the ‘outer’ world with the mouth of the ‘inner’ world. The mouth is pathway to the digestive system and embodies a sense of touch, taste and smell. The sweetness in a ripe plum is the sthayi bhava; the experience of tasting the sweet is Rasa. The means of getting the taste across, preparing it, presenting it is abhinaya.

Schechner describes Rasic performance encourages extending pleasure as in an endless banquet or an always-deferred ‘almost’ sexual orgasm. It values immediacy over distance, savoring over judgment. A perfect performance would not express shanta, but allow shanta to be experienced by performers and partakers. Rasic system includes artistically performed emotions, which are separate from the feelings of experience of performer. Making sure that each partaker receives the emotions and that these emotions are specific and controlled. Blending of theatre, dance, music, food, and religious devotion is to many participants a full satisfying and pleasurable experience that cannot be reduced to any single category – religious, aesthetic, personal, gustatory.

Rasaesthetics is an experience felt in the ‘gut’ engaging the enteric nervous system.

The gut-esophagus, stomach, intestines, and bowels-has its own nervous system. This system does not replace or preempt the brain. Rather it operates alongside the brain, or ‘before’ or ‘underneath’ the brain.

The nabhi mula (root of the navel) is a source of readiness, balance, reception, feeling and movement, firmness of spirit and feelings connected with the body.

Rasic performers will both express the emotions of a character and be moved to her own feelings about those emotions experiencing the in the enteric nervous system.

What are some moments where you have experienced Rasa within yourself and/or as a spectator?

Is there another emotional experience that you would add to the list of nine rasas?

Cara Johnson

It is very unsure of who wrote the Natyasastra, but it has been claimed that someone named Bharata-muni wrote the NS. Schechner states that the NS is a sastra, which is a sacred text that has been approved by the gods and is full of detailed instructions for performers. Richard Schechner compares the NS and Poetics by Aristotle, he believes that the NS is shown through “performance practice and as a series of interpretations. (p 132)” He believes that the Poetics do not include much descriptions of performances, it focuses on one play, on drama not theatre. He feels that the NS has hybrid of myth and has very detailed performance knowledge. He claims that the most significant difference between the two texts is that the NS deals with the ways in which emotional expression is shown with specific gestures, movement, theatre architecture and music and the Poetics does not.

• Rasa is the result of vibhava (stimulus), anubhava (involuntary reaction), and vyabhicari (voluntary reaction)

• Bhavas are emotions and sthayi bhava are the permnament emotions experienced

• “Rasa is sensuous, proximate, experimental. Rasa is aromatic. Rasa fills space, joining the outside to the inside.(Rasaesthetics, 29)”

• shayi bhavas are the permanent emotions that can be evoked by abhinaya, good acting.

• The eight rasas are:

Rasa	Sthayi Bhava	English
Sringara	rati	desire, love
Hasya	hasa	humour, laughter
Karuna	soka	pity, grief
Raudra	krodha	anger
Vira	utsaha	energy, vigor
Hayanaka	bhaya	fear, shame
Bibhasta	jugupsra	disgust
Adbhuta	vismaya	surprise, wonder

* A ninth Rasa was added, shanta, meaning bliss

• When using Rasa in a performance, it must be sure that the “partaker” feels the emotions and those emotions are specific and controlled

Sean Kelly

• The article talks about experiencing theatricality through that mouth rather than the eye.

• Most specifically, the article talks about Rasa, as described in Bharata-muni’s Natayasastra.

• Rasa is the sensation one gets while food is touched, taken into the mouth, chewed, savored, and swallowed.

• The Natayasastra lists 8 Rasas: stringara (desire, love), hasya (humour, laughter), karuna (pity, grief), raudra (anger), vira (energy, vigor), bhayanaka (fear, shame), bibhasta (disgust) and adbhuta (surprise, wonder). A ninth rasa, Shanta (bliss), was later added by Abhinavagupta.

• The attainment of pleasure in rasic performance is oral.

• The rasic system of response works directly with the Enteric Nervous System, which is a nervous system found in the gut.

• The author describes a rasabox exercise he developed, in which 9 boxes are drawn on the floor for each rasa and people in the boxes essentially have to “act out” that rasa.

• While using rasaesthetics in performance, when the performer is moved by her performance, he is moved as a partaker, rather than a character.

• The author concludes by inviting to experience theatricality as orality, digestion, and excretion, rather than purely something you see and hear.

Question: Do you experience Rasa in your everyday life?

Cameron MacLaren

Theatricality is experienced visually and sonically and requires the process of seeing and knowing in some cultures. In other cultures, theatricality represents the snout-to-belly-to-bowel process which signifies the acts of taste, digestion, and excretion.

Natyasastra (NS)

• natya — dance-theatre-music
  sastra — a sacred text comprised of narration, myths, and instructions for performers.
• is Indian and written by Bharata-muni.
• its tradition is oral, active and physical.
• it is present in performers, their teachers, and their performances.
• it expresses emotions through gestures and movements, role and character types, theatre architecture, and music.
• a hybrid of myth and down-to-earth performance knowledge

Poetics

• refers to the structure of drama and focuses on well written plays.
• is European and written by Aristotle’s students.
• is secular and therefore dependent of author’s thoughts and intelligence.

Rasa is the emotional experience a person feels in there body which results in stimulus, voluntary and involuntary reactions. It is the sensations felt during the snout-to-belly-to-bowel process and it creates awareness for all the senses.

The etymology behind Western style theatre reveals its combination of Greek theatre with European epistemology and seeing. This creates the distance knowing theory that what you see is what you know. Western narrative bases its roots around this theory.

The pleasures of rasic performances are meant to be an individual experience of emotional pleasure by the partaker. They receive the emotions through the performance based on their feelings and experience during the performance. The better the performance of the actor, the more feelings and emotions the partaker will have. In order for the partaker to have a meaningful response, they must be knowledgeable in that discipline. The same emotions can be felt orally as opposed to theatrically for example when the rasic performance of consuming food is being performed. The partaker, or person consuming the food, feels the satisfaction of the flavours and feeling inside their stomach.

The rasic system of response directly and strongly acts off the visual and sonic performance as a projected, energized, and living form between the actor and partaker.

Rasaesthetics is the experience inside the body where the enteric nervous system is stimulated. This is the nervous system located in the esophagus, stomach, intestines and bowel.

In Western theatre the audience responds to the narrative sympathetically while in rasic theatre the partakers respond empathetically which allows them to enact in the story. The partaker does not see what is going to happen they experience what the actor performs. Performances that create this sharing experience between performer and partaker try to evoke terror or celebration to make the performance more personal and less private.

Rasaesthetics, in my opinion, can be used to create a personal relationship between the characters in the performance and the partaker. People often get bad feelings when introduced to someone new. This can be related to a performance, as in when a performer is introduced your initial rasaesthetic feeling can create a personal relationship between the character and partaker. Rasaesthetics, in short, are the emotions experienced in the throat, stomach, and bowel of the partaker towards a performance.

Therefore this leads me to conclude with a final thought. Are we able to feel the rasaesthetic experience from viewing any visual performance? Is it limited to just a theatrical performance or can it come from a filmed performance?

Aleksander Ristic

Rasaesthetics generally talks about the difference of theatricality between western theatre and eastern theatre. With both side, there are texts describing the fundamentals of each theatre style. In terms of western theatre there is The Poetics by Aristotle, in terms of eastern theatre there is the Natyasastra. Each of the texts provides different ways of describing different theatre. While The Poetics takes on a more analytical approach to the theatre by providing a formula for what theatre should be, the Natyasastra is more of a sacred text that is for the actors dealing with their performances. While the texts differ greatly in style and subject matter each of them has relevance in their own culture.

The Natyasastra talks about something called Rasa. Rasa is the combination of stimulus, involuntary reaction and voluntary reaction. Rasa is very in sync to the metaphor of food. Numerous times in the article Rasa is described as being “flavour”, “taste”, and “the sensation one gets when food is perceived”. Rasa deals more with the instinctive rather than the intellectual, it relies heavily on the “gut feeling” of the actor which is an experience that takes place in the enteric nervous system.

The ENS is the nervous system located in the stomach. It is a relatively separate entity than the brain even though it relies on the brain like all body parts. The ENS is the system of neurons in the gut that controls the involuntary action that deal with digestion. For example, vomiting, burping, diarrhea etc. It also provides us with that instinctive “gut feeling”. In terms of acting the Rasa depends on the ENS for the actors to use their gut feelings on stage.

The belief is that when a Rasic performer uses his “gut feeling”, he is able to become a part of the audience and truly enjoy the performance. When that happens the actor can truly appreciate the dramatic situation and the true “feeling of the character” is experienced. When that happens, the actor will truly express the emotions of the character and will thereby be moved to his own feelings about those emotions. These feelings of true awareness of character are located in the gut and more specifically in the ENS thus truly enacting the dramatic situation. When the other audience members see this experience they are doubly affected by the actor’s reaction to his own performance. This experience is said to be remarkable.

As a theatre student I found this article rather interesting. I learned that there is actually a sensory system in the stomach. The idea of a Rasic performance is not a relatively new idea as I am sure than anybody who has ever acted has felt that feeling of truly experiencing character. However, I did find it fascinating to find the origins of that feeling. Nevertheless this article was well written and the Rasabox was a new a practical way of experiencing the material being delivered on paper.

Don Wilkinson

Richard Schechner’s article titled “Rasaesthetics” is essentially an outlet for him to discuss the differences between Western theatre and Indian theatre performance, focusing on the latter and he does this by explaining what is and what is not each distinct type of theatrical art.

Schechner defines Western theatre as being an eye and ear experience while Indian theatre relies on the senses involved in the tasting of food, the processing of it and the removal of it from your body. He constantly makes reference to two ancient texts, Aristotle’s Poetics which emphasizes theoretical structure and thought processes and Bharata-muni’s Natyasastra which talks heavily about performance and theory. Schechner does this to help clarify the differences between the two theatre styles. Rasa is the Indian style of theatrics that is being examined and it first requires mastery of the Rasabox exercise, which consists of an unlimited amount of time spent stepping into a box divided into areas which mark different emotions and learning to create frozen postures that fully represent each emotion for the particular artist in training. Being able to perform Rasa requires an intimate knowledge of the actions being enacted wether it is consuming wine or eating bread it goes back to the indian tradition of the hand connecting right to the mouth without relying on any utensils or middle object in between. This intimate knowledge within the actor allows the audiences who can relate to the situation to be that much more connected.

Rasa along with Indian music called raga are performed together as one. A main difference between Western and Indian theatre is that the performer is the audience as well, they are the first one to react to the actions. They start off by watching their own hands and the rest of the performance flows out from the resulting actions. Therefore it is dynamic and certainly not linear. After this point the audience my finally fit hierarchically into the performance wether they experience it intimately by having deep knowledge of the action or not.

I believe that Schechner spends too much time considering what Rasa is not and he is far too worried about the differences between the two theatrical styles. It is alright to just explain something without having to clarify over and over again that it is competely separate and distinct from another. Schechner is too worried about labels and seems to be on a mission to separate Western and Indian Theatre. I believe he could be a little more open minded and he needs boundaries to construct his realities, what do you think?