CEREMONIAL SPACES
Ritual Ceremony: Taste, Care, Protection. 2020. Performance.
This series was created out of an investigation into the folklores and superstition that surround my two cultures. The notion of oral story-telling is a necessity within my history, often expressed in ritual traditions. I researched into the personal and specific traditions of my culture and created three separate categories from them: Taste, Care, and Protection.
The section of Taste contains the food and fruits enjoyed within my family. The celebration of food often signals the coming together of various family members with routine dinner dates and weekly Sunday lunches. It is koeksisters and coffee on a Sunday morning, and finding an elaichi in your biryani to signal your full stop.
Within the section of Care is the beauty regimes and standards that have formed into essential rituals in my household. It is the oil in the hair and the swirlkous to tame the curls. The elements found in these traditions surrounding Care, often bond the women within my family.
Protection is the last and most essential section. The need to ward-off evil and purify the space is the foundation for many of the ritual traditions performed. It is the superstition of shoes left on table-tops, the throwing of salt, and the smell of Lennon’s on your skin. Protecting those around you is a must.
I merged these ritualistic elements of Taste, Care, and Protection that were based in reality and I began to fictionalize them, ultimately creating my own ritual ceremonies. These fictionalized ritual ceremonies are rooted in historical and personal specifics, but they also play around with the necessary adaptation and transformation of traditions – especially when one’s full access and documentation to one’s past is lost. The element of fictionalization therefore was the focus. To create rituals that were stories that communicate the past and mold the future. Fictionalization allows those accessible threads to be grasped and woven together with the moments of displacement and distance that sits on my doorstep. The rituals ceremonies are essentially recipes – instructions for a new way of existing.
The series is expressed in digital and traditional paintings, photography, text, and a performance which combines the bits of the fictionalized rituals from each category to create The Ritual Ceremony: Taste, Care, and Protection.
PERFORMANCE INSTRUCTIONS: (to be handed out before the start of the ceremony)
A Guided Reenactment of the Ritual Ceremony: Taste, Care, and Protection.
You will need:
1) A heavy dose of Fictioning – throughout
2) A few tugs from History – once every 20 minutes
3) A dive into the Archives –3 days before the start of the ceremony
4) An exploration of Folklores – the night before
5) A sprinkling of Superstitions – throughout
6) A dusting of Transformation and Adaptation – throughout
7) A lifetime of Displacement and Distance – from beginning to end
8) A little Fantasy – throughout
9) A pinch of Construction – just before starting
10) A trace of Magical realism – in preparation
Newly Essential Elements:
· x2 ceramic bowls of various sizes
· x1 tub of butter
· x1 bag of Marie-biscuits
· x1 bloomed cup of Five-Roses tea
· x1 jar of sea water or tap water
· x1 Mother’s prayer
· x5 hair rollers
· x2 pieces of cotton
· x1 hairbrush
· x1 small bottle of Amla oil
· x1 small tin of spices; preferably masala and turmeric
· x1 golden spoon
· x2 bags of chilies
· x4 handfuls of petals
· x3 1kg bags of salt
· x2 bottles of Lennon’s
· x1 afternoon of African sunlight
If this is to be read only; a handful of salt is essential (keep close to turn between the fingertips throughout)
If this is to be performed; a salted space must be created; entrances and around the ceremonial space (for added protection)
Note: This is a guided reenactment of the ritual – an adjusted ceremonial performance. The performance encompasses storytelling elements that include some background information into the ritual’s existence as well as the vocalization of each step’s process. The ritual can never fully be recreated without my presence and specifics in the space. Without me, its recreation remains superficial as the gravity of tradition would be lost. In sharing this performance, I offer the nostalgia of Taste, the wholesome practice of Care, and the necessary purification of Protection.
Commence with the story of the ritual’s background (see attached script) and Follow on with the 13-step process.
Steps: (13 steps to perform the Ritual Ceremony of Taste, Care, and Protection.)
1) Continue to feed the ground with grains of salt from a few bags to create a boundary of protection. Pour the bags of salt into the earth in a large circling motion around the ceremonial space until the boundary has been built up and is intact.
2) Pick the fruits of your choosing; the ones bought on street corners in blue packets that taste like the tree that grows in the back of your grandmother’s house. Not the fruits that grow on the tree, but the tree itself, with roots that grow underneath the land far and wide and span the memory of all your family’s years. (If these cannot be found, a handful of oranges and exactly four bananas from your local store will do.) Place the fruits on the earth as an offering.
3) Over butter the selection of Marie and Tennis biscuits – prepare these to be dunked in a cup of Five-Roses tea.
4) Add one prayer from your Mother’s mouth, specifically. (To be harnessed a fortnight before the ceremony.) Let the words land in your lap as the African winter sun coats your skin.
5) Take a bottle of blue liquid from the sea, make sure it is loud and longing and holds the archive of lives that were forever changed. Sprinkle droplets throughout the space and onto the skin. (If tap water must be used, ensure that has been spoken upon by the eldest in your household.)
6) Pour the contents from two green Amla oil bottles into a ceramic bowl. Coat the fingertips and massage the liquid into the scalp for 10 seconds.
7) Set the rollers with pieces of cotton around the softest parts of your ears. Sleep this way if you must. (To be done the night before the ceremony.)
8) Tighten the hair around your head in the swirlkous (pantyhose) and pray that the kink disappears – the little tendrils that run across your face that you were taught to hate. (To be done the night after the ceremony.)
9) Combine a few spoonfuls of mixed masala and turmeric to a large marble grinder. Mix together and let the smell remind you of home; a space crafted specifically for your safety.
10) Do not fear the shoes left on table-tops, instead dot the space with petals of every colour and a collection of leaves that hang over the balcony of your childhood bedroom.
11) Rub the mixed contents from the Lennon’s bottle on your body and hope the devil walks away. (Must be done in preparation for the ceremony.)
12) Whisper your tales into the hole in the wall and wait until the next come to hear it. (This can be done either before or after the ritual ceremony.)
13) Lastly, throw some salt over your right shoulder and tell the evil eyes, “not today.”
Performers, to end: Remain in the space for as much time as needed after. Sit in the silence of what was just created.
(Readers, to end: throw the handful of salt over your right shoulder.)
SCRIPT
A Guided Reenactment of the Ritual Ceremony: The Myth of Self (Rituals and Tales)
(to be narrated by the performer: the story must be told in conjunction to the unfolding ritual process.)
Commence: (story) – Begin by salting the entrance and around the ceremonial space as the story is read.
The rituals from my history shifts slightly, adjusting like sand around, between and within the landscape. The rituals are archives of who we are and how we came to be – transformed and constructed by the breeze and seas, migrating and building upon each other like grains of salt that pour out and protect. Within each ritual is a story. It is the specifics of my history that grant it its power, like the whispers spoken by my mother at my bedside before my thoughts descended into dreams.
My grandmother always said one should look upon our actions and take it in. Not to repeat or recreate, but to listen, learn, and observe. A world nearly forgotten, a tradition and culture almost lost like the lands and names of the ones who came before me. Watch and know that the power is still here, lingering in the waves and feel of the wind as it wraps around my skin. I have learnt to fiction it all and to allow those accessible threads to be grasped and woven together with the moments of displacement and distance that sits on my doorstep. This is a collection of recipes – the instructions for a new way of existing.
If you should find yourself outside of it, ease into your new-found obscurity and allow it to match the parts that have naturalized into my being. Now it is time for the prevailing to become passive, even if just for a moment. Let a space be created for this narrative to settle into and breathe.
These Rituals have been passed down from generations throughout my family. They have ebbed and flowed over time, adjusting and transforming where they needed to. They have survived the treacherous voyage across the seas to new lands that did not yet want it. They remained intact when my great-grandmother left her old life in Basotho tribe behind. And they grew into something slightly new with the marriage of my parents, as two different worlds merged together.
Today, the ritual will adjust again. As the world around me now changes, an eerie familiarity begins to unravel. The last time the military patrolled these streets, a woman of my race would not have been afforded the right to bask in this sunlight. I remember my grandmother’s words, of her recalling the many years she spent performing these rituals during Apartheid. For those things out of her reach, the element of nostalgia simply had to be implemented and heighted. And so, the rituals must go on, slightly different but, fundamentally the same. Merged, combined, stripped, and challenged.
Steps: (13 steps to perform the Ritual Ceremony of Taste, Care, and Protection.)
1) Continue to feed the ground with grains of salt from a few bags to create a boundary of protection. Pour the bags of salt into the earth in a large circling motion around the ceremonial space until the boundary has been built up and is intact.
2) Pick the fruits of your choosing; the ones bought on street corners in blue packets that taste like the tree that grows in the back of your grandmother’s house. Not the fruits that grow on the tree, but the tree itself, with roots that grow underneath the land far and wide and span the memory of all your family’s years. (If these cannot be found, a handful of oranges and exactly four bananas from your local store will do.) Place the fruits on the earth as an offering.
3) Over butter the selection of Marie and Tennis biscuits – prepare these to be dunked in a cup of Five-Roses tea.
4) Add one prayer from your Mother’s mouth, specifically. (To be harnessed a fortnight before the ceremony.) Let the words land in your lap as the African winter sun coats your skin.
5) Take a bottle of blue liquid from the sea, make sure it is loud and longing and holds the archive of lives that were forever changed. Sprinkle droplets throughout the space and onto the skin. (If tap water must be used, ensure that has been spoken upon by the eldest in your household.)
6) Pour the contents from two green Amla oil bottles into a ceramic bowl. Coat the fingertips and massage the liquid into the scalp for 10 seconds.
7) Set the hair rollers with pieces of cotton around the softest parts of your ears. Sleep this way if you must. (To be done the night before the ceremony.)
8) Tighten the hair around your head in the swirlkous (pantyhose) and pray that the kink disappears – the little tendrils that run across your face that you were taught to hate. (To be done the night after the ceremony.)
9) Combine a few spoonsful of mixed masala and turmeric to a large marble grinder. Mix together and let the smell remind you of home; a space crafted specifically for your safety.
10) Do not fear the shoes left on table-tops, instead dot the space with petals of every colour and a collection of leaves that hang over the balcony of your childhood bedroom.
11) Rub the mixed contents from the Lennon’s bottle on your body and hope the devil walks away. (Must be done in preparation for the ceremony.)
12) Whisper your tales into the hole in the wall and wait until the next come to hear it. (This can be done either before or after the ritual ceremony.)
13) Lastly, throw some salt over your right shoulder and tell the evil eyes, “not today.”
To end: Remain in the space for as much time as needed after. Sit in the silence of what was just created.