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Dave is the artistic director of a group called “the Parahumans,” and at our first meeting, he tried to explain what this means. Drawing on its etymological roots, he suggested that the parahuman is something “beyond human,” linking this to altered consciousness, somaticisim, spiritualism, and the angelic. Dave’s interest lies mainly in contemporary dance; like many contemporary artists, he spoke of the inhibitions of traditionalism. I’d like to suggest, though, in traditional dance’s defense, that there’s actually quite a strong link between ritual practice and altered or heightened consciousness, artistic somaticism, and indeed, the image and realization of the parahuman.

To speak of what I know: In the Sri Lankan pahatharata shanthikarmaya ritual repertoire, there is a dance called the Waahala dance; during this dance, the dancer enters (what appears to the observer, at least, and may possibly be for the dancer in actuality) a trance-like state. The idea is that he has been possessed by the spirit of the god Waahala himself – he dances vigorously and ceaselessly, beyond the apparent limits of the human body. Paul Wirz describes something similar of the Iramudun-Samayaama dance of traditional thovil (exorcist) repertoire:

Before the dance begins the yakka-actor has his face perfumed with dummala…and as a result he is transformed into a state of rapture which generally…develops into a complete trance…The original tendency seems indeed to have been that an experienced ẹdura continued his dance until he literally broke down, i.e. was in a complete trance. This state is interpreted as a sign that the yakka has now really taken possession of the ẹdura.

Wirz 91-92

While these dance elements are used as a means of realizing, through altered consciousness, a divine parahuman self, Wirz also suggests that this altered consciousness is enabled precisely through the learned nature of traditionally established movements:

…only the older ẹduro know how to reach [this complete trance], for only many years of exercise and training enable them to attain this condition within a more or less reasonable length of time. The whole way of performing such a dance by an experienced ẹdura is intended to induce a trance.

Wirz 92

Any artist who has extensively practiced a technique – which is to say, a series of movements – is familiar with the way it embeds itself in the muscle’s memory – a point at which the conscious mind could fall asleep because the body has developed a mind of its own. It is something meditative. But, unlike the (largely, in my opinion, westernized) understanding of meditation as an emptying of the self, it is rather a deep – and, I emphasize, deeply disciplined – awareness of the physical self, like focusing on breathing until there is nothing else. So many dancers speak about this state; just today, reading about a choreographer featured in this year’s Fall for Dance North festival, I ran into this:

Strange paradox: when I dance, my body takes over…when that happens, I feel my dancing in its truest, purest form. From time to time, I achieve this state of grace…it is to find those moments of grace that I dance.”

Anne Plamondon

I imagine Anne’s “grace” is not unlike the Waahala dancer’s possession. My point is simply that there are ways in which traditional and contemporary art have something integral in common, a similar aim, function, and product: art, which is an instance of para-humanity. At the same time, I level a gentle criticism at the art world’s elevation of contemporary forms of dance as somehow purer or more authentic than traditional, classical, or ritual practices.