Acknowledgments
I would like to express deep appreciation for the artists who made important contributions to Later Rain over the five-year period it was developed: Brent Bagwell, Kadeylynn Ballard, Mark Baran, Troy Conn, Matt Cosper, Micah Davidson, Jeremy Fisher, Daniel Flynn, Jessica Lindsey, Rachel Rugh, John Shaughnessy, Alea Tuttle, and Scott Thompson. I am grateful to those who provided critical feedback on drafts of the chapters included in this book—Aili Bresnahan, Thomas DeFrantz, Ann Dils, Kélina Gotman, Norris Frederick, Sarah Griffith, and Anna Pakes—and for Aspen Hochhalter, Diane Mowrey, Stephan Sabo, The Wooster Group, and Paula Court who generously provided photographs. This project was also greatly benefited by Goodyear Arts, an independent arts organization run by artists, which afforded me the opportunity to rehearse, perform, and document early versions of Later Rain—many thanks to Amy Bagwell and Amy Herman for their continued support. Lastly, I am grateful for the inspiring movement artists and educators who encouraged me to seek out new forms of embodied research—Ishmael Houston-Jones, Jesse Zaritt, Paul Matteson, and Saar Harari—and for Joy Davis who listened while I talked about church visits, who shared thoughtful insights and asked critical questions, and who provided dramaturgical feedback on Paw Creek and The Land of Nod.
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Praise for Pragmatist Philosophy and Dance
“In Pragmatist Philosophy and Dance: Dance Research in the American South, Eric Mullis intertwines practical, dramaturgical, and ethnographic investigations to develop an in-depth theoretical account of the evolution of knowledge in the artistic process. This book advances an interdisciplinary approach to an individual artistic journey into ecstatic embodiment and thereby develops a thorough analysis of the relationship between aesthetics and epistemology. This impressive work contributes to the study of knowledge reenactment and to the interdisciplinary endeavor of Performance Philosophy.”
—Dr. Einav Katan-Schmid, core convener for the international network Performance Philosophy and author of Embodied Philosophy in Dance (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).
“An entirely original and carefully crafted exploration of ecstatic embodiment in Appalachian Pentecostalism. Richly nuanced, this remarkable study places Pragmatist philosophy in direct relationship to experimental performance with stunning results. Mullis has created an essential offering for anyone interested in dance, ethnography, philosophy, theology, or the promise of pluralism as a method for engaging interdisciplinary inquiry.”
—Thomas F. DeFrantz is Professor of Dance, Theater Studies, Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies, Computational Media, Arts & Cultures at Duke University. He is the author of Dancing Revelations: Alvin Ailey’s Embodiment of African American Culture (Oxford University Press, 2006) and, with Philipa Rothfield, is an editor of Choreography and Corporeality: Relay in Motion (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).
“This is a fantastically original study of ecstatic Pentecostal spiritualism wrapping Pragmatist philosophy, dance and choreographic theory, dramaturgical considerations and autobiography compellingly into a set of narratives that make a strong case for attending to the borderless friction between trance, possession and folk culture in American Appalachia. A timely book that makes important new inroads in interdisciplinary performance research.”
—Kélina Gotman is Reader in Theatre and Performance Studies at King’s College London and Hölderlin Guest Professor in Comparative Dramaturgy at the Goethe-Universität Frankfurt. She is author of Choreomania: Dance and Disorder (Oxford University Press, 2018).
ix 1 Sources: Beyond the Pale 1 1 Sackcloth ‘n’ Ashes 4 2 Signs Following 7 3 Later Rain 10 4 The Power of the Pentecost in the American South 21 5 Chapter Outline 23 References 31 2 Pragmatist Methods: Experimental Inquiry, Somaesthetics, and Performance Praxis 33 1 Problems and Practices 34 2 Somaesthetics 38 3 Deweyan Art Making 49 4 Marginality 53 References 55 3 Religious History: Spirit Poured Out on All Flesh 59 1 Ecstatic Stirrings in Western Europe and the American Colonies 59 2 Ann Lee and the Early Shakers 66 3 Speaking the Tongues of Others: Charles Fox Parham 72 4 The Touch of Others: William J. Seymour and the American Racial Divide 77 contents
x CONTENTS 5 Something Rushed Through Me Like I Was Under a Faucet 84 6 Interdisciplinarity 89 References 94 4 Dance History: The Rolling Deep 97 1 The Shakers 99 2 Early Shaker Spirituals 101 3 The Zealous Laborers 105 4 Theological Folk Aesthetics 107 References 117 5 Ethnographic Research: Signs Follow Them That Believe 119 1 Draper Valley Pentecostal Holiness Church 119 2 Jesus Christ Full Gospel Church 124 3 Freedom Christian Center 129 4 Todd Bentley and the Secret Place Church 133 5 Ritual Theater 139 6 Edwina Church of God in Jesus’ Name 144 References 147 6 Movement Research: The Most Originally Mine 149 1 Tongues of Fire 151 2 Auto-Affective Becoming 162 3 Beyond the Place of Performance 166 4 Movement and Transcendence 169 References 174 7 Religious Experience: William James, Ecstasy, and Fundamentalism 177 1 Fields within Fields 178 2 An Invisible Hand Grasps My Throat 182 3 Advancing in Its Most Simple Appearing 187 4 Saving the Bible and Bible Civilization 192 5 How We Witness One Another 196 6 Passions as Pagans of the Soul 200 References 203
xi CONTENTS 8 Conclusions: On Pragmatist Per formance Philosophy 207 1 Theoretical Methodologies 208 2 Pragmatic Instrumentalism 215 3 Performance Philosophy 222 4 The Reach of Per formance Philosophy 229 5 Concluding Thoughts 232 References 236 Index 241
list of figures
Fig. 1.1 Later Rain, 2018. Performers: Charlie Trexler, Eric Mullis, Rachel Rugh. (Photo: Diane Mowrey) 17
Fig. 1.2 The Land of Nod, 2018. Performers: John Shaughnessy, Brent Bagwell, Troy Conn, Eric Mullis. (Photo: Diane Mowrey) 19
Fig. 4.1 Early Shaker Spirituals: A record album interpretation. Directed by Kate Valk. Performers pictured (l–r): Modesto Flako Jimenez, Suzzy Roche, Bobby McElver, Bebe Miller, Frances McDormand, Elizabeth LeCompte, Matthew Brown, Cynthia Hedstrom, Andrew Schneider. (Photograph © Paula Court) 102
Fig. 5.1 Later Rain, 2018. Performers: Charlie Trexler, Rachel Rugh, Eric Mullis. (Photo: Stephan Sabo) 142
Fig. 6.1 Later Rain. Performer: Matt Cosper. (Photo: Aspen Hochhalter) 155
Fig. 6.2 Later Rain. Performer: Kadeylynn Ballard. (Photo: Aspen Hochhalter) 157
Fig. 6.3 Later Rain. Performers: Eric Mullis, Matt Cosper, Troy Conn. (Photo: Aspen Hochhalter) 172
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CHAPTER
Sources: Beyond the Pale
I would like to begin by considering Pragmatism’s advocacy of an autobiographical approach to philosophical inquiry and by sharing two personal experiences that provoked this project.
The first generation of American Pragmatist philosophers—Charles Pierce, William James, and John Dewey—did not emphasize autobiographical experience in their professional writings but their biographers have observed that aspects of the founders’ personal lives significantly influenced their philosophical investigations. In turn, this has led some contemporary Pragmatists to argue that Pragmatism is an inherently narrative philosophy (Menand 2002). For example, Richard Rorty (2000) discusses how aspects of his childhood and young adulthood shaped the course of his early philosophical studies, drew him to Dewey’s work, and fueled his developments of Pragmatism, and Richard Shusterman (1997, 1999) at times uses autobiographical writing to advance his work in the field of Pragmatist philosophy he developed—somaesthetics.
One reason for emphasizing autobiography concerns Pragmatism’s stance on theory and practice.
Briefly, Dewey (1958) observed that the traditional separation of theory and practice is rooted in a dualist metaphysics which holds that reality is a static given best disclosed by reason. An account that takes reality as ever-changing, however, holds that philosophy can help negotiate problematic situations which occur in the course of everyday life. On the Pragmatist account, philosophical inquiry functions instrumentally when
© The Author(s) 2019
E. Mullis, Pragmatist Philosophy and Dance, Performance Philosophy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29314-7_1
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it advances nuanced understandings of ethical, socio-political, educational, religious, or artistic problems which emerge when physical or cultural environments change. Autobiography is always relevant because such problems are encountered by unique people in specific cultural contexts and because solutions may affect growth and personal transformation. In this spirit, I offer some autobiographical details that pertain to the performance research project detailed in this book.
When I was an undergraduate, my study of academic philosophy and my physical practices were separate endeavors. While learning about the history of western philosophy in classrooms, I cultivated an interest in Chinese martial arts traditions—Kung-fu (功夫), Daoist Qigong (氣功), Tai Chi Chuan (太極拳), Zen meditation, and Bagua Zhang (八卦掌), a lesser-known internal martial art based on the Daoist divination manual, the I-Ching. I trained these forms in the United States, Taiwan, and mainland China and came to see that they are informed by specific philosophical and religious belief systems. Zen meditation and many martial arts training methods are rooted in Buddhist ethics and philosophy of personal identity, yin-yang theory undergirds Daoist Qigong and Tai Chi solo choreography and partner work, and all the practices mentioned are traditionally taught with a pedagogy informed by Confucian virtue ethics. After studying classical texts of these philosophical traditions, I discovered that martial arts practice can entail an embodied study of specific ontological, epistemological, aesthetic, and ethical concepts. This was also supported by extensive travel in China which allowed me to see how those concepts inform other aspects of Chinese culture, whether art forms such as calligraphy or theater, the practice of religious pilgrimage, fengshui (風水), traditional Chinese medicine, or norms of everyday social interaction. These experiences in turn significantly transformed my martial arts practice. Whereas early on I focused primarily on developing self-defense skills, through time I came to see my practice as an essential part of a philosophical way of life.
After completing graduate studies in philosophy, my scholarly work turned to interdisciplinary questions such as the relevance of classical Confucian virtue ethics in contemporary social contexts and various ways that art and ethics may intersect. Also, over time, I shifted attention away from the martial arts toward theatrical performance, originally by researching how self-defense technique and martial arts choreographies could be developed into dance vocabularies. I studied improvisation techniques such as gaga, William Forsythe’s improvisation technologies, and contact improvisation, techniques which allowed me to move beyond the
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theoretical and practical parameters of martial movement and that supported the development of choreography for performance. More recently, I completed graduate work in dance performance and my scholarship turned to topics such as the intersection of the philosophy of technology and concert dance and the possibilities of political performance. This work grew out specific dance practices such as experimenting with interactive digital technologies or performing in work by choreographers who are personally committed to the idea of dance as a form of political activism.
After discussing political performance with several contemporary dance artists working at semi-professional and professional levels and after reading relevant work by dance historians and theorists, I became interested in the ability of performance to engage local and regional socio-political issues. I currently live and work in the Southeastern United States, a part of the country that continues to struggle with social justice issues, institutionalized racism, and at times blatantly regressive political policies. Several choreographers and performance artists in my current city of Charlotte, North Carolina, developed and presented political performance in response to recent racial violence such as the mass shooting by Dylann Roof at an African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina, and the shooting of Keith Lamont Scott by a Charlotte police officer (which was followed by several days of protests and riots). This led me to investigate the sense of artistic obligation to engage pressing social justice issues and to consider how political performance may address the needs of a particular community (Mullis 2015). Performance with clear socio-political content may create inroads to audiences unfamiliar with contemporary theatrical practices as it speaks to pressing questions about life in the American South.
In turn, some of my own performance work began to examine aspects of local and regional history. For example, one project investigated strikes by textile mill workers in the Southern Piedmont region of the United States that occurred before the Great Depression. This history is important given that many Southeastern cities developed around textile mills to the extent that architecture and urban planning remains expressive of the industry. I was also drawn to the strikes for personal reasons since, like many individuals from the region, I have family members who worked in textile mills in the 1970s and 1980s and who lost their jobs as manufacturing was moved to East Asia (Mullis 2016). For many years, the abandoned mills stood in the center of decaying neighborhoods until revitalization projects and the process of gentrification began.
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I discovered that collaborating with a local historian and a neighborhood association engaged in historical preservation efforts brought new demographics to performances and, through informal post-performance discussions, learned that some audience members’ perceptions of public and private spaces important to the fledgling labor movement of the 1930s were significantly affected.1 Second, it became clear that the aesthetic advanced by the piece’s music, costuming, and scenic design was consistent with the folk aesthetic characteristic of contemporary popular music forms—such as Americana, bluegrass, and country music—and thereby inadvertently supported a romanticized idea of rustic white Appalachian culture (Huber 2008).
While researching the history of the strikes, I also learned about the role religion played on both sides of the struggle for workers’ rights in villages owned and paternalistically operated by the textile mills (Hanchett 1998: 95–100). Whereas churches sanctioned by the mills stressed a hierarchical theology and Protestant work ethic conducive to relational dynamics between management and workers, mill villages were also regularly visited by itinerant preachers who practiced a more decentralized, charismatic, improvisatory, and physical form of Protestant Christianity that appealed to many workers critical of the institution that dominated their way of life (Hall et al. 2012: 220–221). Like musicians of the time, these preachers toured the “kerosene circuit,” traveling from town to town to preach and lead often raucous meetings with stomping, clapping, singing, and shouting on front porches and in living rooms. I would later discover that this decentralized charismatic form of Christianity began in the American Midwest in the late nineteenth century, quickly expanded toward the coasts, and appealed to poor and working-class individuals such as farmers and textile mill workers. At the time, I found the sociopolitical implications of religion in textile mill culture intriguing but, given the piece I was developing could not address all aspects of mill-village life and given its focus on historical labor issues and their bearing on contemporary labor practices in the Southeast, I decided to leave the issue.
1 Sackcloth ‘n’ aSheS
Let me share another story. While studying philosophy in graduate school, I would often go to music concerts performed by local and national touring bands. One evening, some friends and I went to see a band we liked, but we were unfamiliar with the opening act, a group from Denver, Colorado,
4
called Sixteen Horsepower. The concert was held in an expansive brick warehouse in Charlotte, North Carolina, which had been converted into a bar and music venue. The four men of Sixteen Horsepower walked out on the stage wearing simple dress clothes and carrying instruments used in bluegrass and Southern Appalachian music; an upright bass, banjo, acoustic guitar, and Chemnitzer concertina. I expected them to have an alternative country sound that was popular at the time, but the first song featured minor chords, driving repetitive rock rhythms, and lyrics about personal conflicts with others, feelings of guilt associated with moral failure, and the possibility of spiritual redemption. The show also featured a dark theatricality with low lighting, little eye contact among the band members, and no direct engagement with the audience. I listened intently to the lyrics and discovered that they were all religious in nature. The frontman—David Eugene Edwards—was presenting a gothic adaptation of old-time gospel music sung by Protestant evangelical Christians in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but the content of the music was not celebratory or spiritually uplifting in the manner of traditional hymns. It was full of religious imagery about conflict, punishment, and redemption which I took as expressing something of a harsh Calvinist attitude toward weakness of will and of human nature more generally. Whereas traditional hymns usually feature words of encouragement, Edwards’ lyrics were anguished and, at times, quite cynical. For example, the lyrics to “American Wheeze” are as follows:
I’ve grown tired, of the words of the single man
Hangin’ lifeless on his every word, o man
You don’t understand dear man
The little angel held out her hand
Sayin’ father, father I love you
O praise Jesus I got her
Ok yeah billy goat an we’ll play farm
I didn’t mean to spirit stiff you
Nor to do you no harm
You say you’ve got a bone to pick
Well, there’s plenty showin’ on me
Come on up yeah bring your temper boy
We’ll see, we’ll see
Yeah you may be the only one come on son
Bring your blade and your gun
And if I die by your hand
I’ve got a home in glory land
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I was unsure how to interpret the performance. It did not enact conventions of a rock concert—such as lighting cues synchronized with musical rhythms or musicians interacting with audience members—and the aesthetics and lyrics hindered the festive communal atmosphere that concert-goers often seek out.2 The show was not entertaining in a conventional sense because it aesthetically and dramaturgically distorted a musicotheological tradition and expressed weighty religious themes. The musical instrumentation, lyrics, and the frontman’s commanding presence produced the sense that I had stepped back in time to a rural tent revival led by a preacher who was working through a crisis of faith, even while the silent band members stoically continued to play, and bewildered congregation members looked on.
This raised several questions. Did the band believe in a pre-modern form of Protestantism, or was I witnessing a purely theatrical performance aimed at satirizing contemporary evangelical Christianity? If the band members believed in the form of Christianity they presented, did they intend for the audience to believe it as well? That is, was it a form of evangelical witnessing that used powerful music and lyrics to encourage the audience to grapple with their own moral and spiritual failings? Or, if it was satire, what was the reason for the critical attitude? Was it using gothic folk aesthetics to critique popular money-making televangelist empires or mega-churches that advocate for a feel-good form of affluent Christianity? To return to the image of the tent revival, as the viewer, was I being framed as a fellow Christian who expected a more conventional religious service, as a curious agnostic bystander, or as someone who is quite cynical about contemporary Christianity? Both the form and content of Sixteen Horsepower’s performance positioned me, but for what purpose was altogether unclear.3
After later listening to the band’s albums, I realized that the concert was disorienting because several performative layers—each with its own internal tension—powerfully intertwined at any given moment. The fusion of American folk music and dark electrified rock and roll—reminiscent of bands such as Joy Division or Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds—stimulates reflection on the respective musical genres. The music is tensely poised between a pre-modern acoustic past and a postmodern electric present. At the same time, Edwards’ dark approach to Christian hymns is distinct from contemporary gospel music which uses major chords and a pop-music sensibility to support personally uplifting and celebratory lyrical content. When asked about this in an interview, he replied that dark music more powerfully stirs his soul and elicits a personal honesty that he channels into his songwriting and performances.4
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The band’s dramaturgy is also unique. Other interviews reveal that Edwards is a devout evangelical Christian, but he does not address the audience in the manner of a traditional preacher or church service song leader. For example, he does not invite the audience to sing along and does not offer any kind of spiritual guidance. His focus is solely on musically expressing his own personal experience rather than on utilizing rhetorical or psychological techniques which would encourage fellow believers or convert non-believers. Sixteen Horsepower’s aesthetics also starkly differ from those of rural churches and the band performs only at secular rock and roll music venues and festivals. The content of their music is more appropriate for a rural church, but the music that conveys it is more at home in a live music venue. For these reasons, a conventional Protestant evangelical Christian audience would likely find the performance aesthetically and dramaturgically puzzling as would a rock audience for, in either case, expectations about music, entertainment, and traditional modes of musical religious expression are not met.
A last point concerns Edwards’ powerful presence. His strong focus, lyrical conviction, techniques of physical auto-affection, and expression of raw emotion demonstrate that he is having a deeply personal experience. Even if the viewer is not religious or does not agree with the kind of religious experience that is occurring, they may appreciate Edwards’ sincerity and how what he undergoes is framed and enhanced by aesthetic and dramaturgical strategies.
2 SignS Following
Let me share one last story that will further contextualize the one this book will tell. A few years ago, I had an informal conversation with a colleague, Norris Frederick, about his philosophy of religion class. Because we share an interest in Pragmatist philosophy, he told me that he uses William James’ argument about the veridicality of mystical experience— developed in the book The Varieties of Religious Experience—to consider the snake-handling churches of rural Southern Appalachia. Like many of Frederick’s students, I did not know about this fringe sect of ecstatic Protestantism and, after sensing my confusion, he showed me a video clip of a snake-handling church service.
I froze.
Since my family is from Southern Appalachia, I was somewhat familiar with the rustic aesthetic of small rural churches, but my personal experience was with Baptist congregations which are comparatively solemn and
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reserved in their modes of religious worship.5 Emphasis is placed on spiritual, psychological, and bodily control which is viewed as necessary for resisting temptations and sinful behavior. In contrast, the service in Jolo, West Virginia, shown in the video clip featured intense religious fervor that bordered on complete pandemonium.6
The band members use electric guitars, a bass guitar, drum set, and Hammond B3 organ to pump out a blues chord progression and a strong rhythmic shuffle that drives the congregation to clap, stomp, and bounce up and down. As with Sixteen Horsepower, it is not traditional Protestant religious music, nor the way that it is usually physically engaged. The service is more like a rock concert with loud electrified music that fuels passionate embodied expression and thereby flirts with chaos. Some congregants repeatedly spin in place. There is a good deal of touching, with individuals placing reassuring hands on the shoulders and backs of others. One man holds a live flame to his foot and appears to be unharmed; then an older woman spins in place while touching a flame to the underside of her wrist. The group continues to dance, with some holding large poisonous rattlesnakes. A man holds a snake in both hands and looks it in the eye as if to address it. He defiantly stares it down. Later, the preacher vigorously strides around the room as he delivers a passionate sermon and the congregants shout and clap in response.
The viewer unfamiliar with this tradition is left with many questions. Why is the music akin to the rockabilly music that is often played in bars? Why are snakes present in a church and what ritual function do they serve? Why is physical danger an essential part of this practice? More generally, what is the origin of this unique sect? As I stared in disbelief at what I saw, Frederick began to explain the history and theology of snake-handling churches. They are loosely organized, believe in a fundamentalist evangelical theology, and are generally of composed by poor whites. The services are informal, punctuated by loud music, and feature ecstatic states with shouting, stomping, whirling, physical paroxysms, fainting spells, speaking in tongues (glossolalia), and faith healings (Kimbrough 2002). Snakehandlers are biblical literalists who believe that when they are possessed by the Holy Ghost—the third member of the Holy trinity—they will not be harmed if they are bitten by poisonous snakes. Three passages from the New Testament of the Christian Bible support this belief:
And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents;
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and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. (Mark 16: 17–18)
Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing shall by any means hurt you. (Luke 10:19)
And when they were escaped, then they knew that the island was called Melita. And the barbarous people shewed us no little kindness: for they kindled a fire, and received us every one, because of the present rain, and because of the cold. And when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks, and laid them on the fire, there came a viper out of the heat, and fastened on his hand. And when the barbarians saw the venomous beast hang on his hand, they said among themselves, no doubt this man is a martyr, whom, though he hath escaped the sea, yet vengeance suffereth not to live. And he shook off the beast into the fire and felt no harm. Howbeit they looked when he should have swollen, or fallen down dead suddenly, but after they changed their minds, and said that he was a god. (Acts 28: 1–6)
In 1995, author Dennis Covington published Salvation on Sand Mountain (2009), an autobiographical account of his reporting on the trial of Glenn Summerford, a snake-handling church pastor who had been accused of the attempted murder of his wife. Covington also details his experiences attending services at several snake-handling churches during his time in the Deep South. As the story develops, he shifts from a neutral journalistic tone to a more personal one as he describes the friendships he develops with several congregation members. The growing personal connections in turn lead him to ruminate on the exotic nature of the sect, the individuals who are drawn to its theology and embodied form of religious ecstasy, how such individuals are viewed by Christian and non-Christian outsiders, and how broader socio-economic issues contextualize the tradition.
I will say more about the theology that informs snake-handling and other charismatic Pentecostal sects later, but here I want to emphasize the unique interpretive position the outside observer of snake-handling finds themselves in. If one is a more conventional non-charismatic Christian (such as a Southern Baptist), then the practice will appear dangerously misguided and possibly reminiscent of satanic practices. If one is agnostic or atheistic, it may seem bizarre or fascinating, perhaps even carnivalesque. If one has personal experience with ecstatic states, then aspects of the service may seem somewhat familiar. Further, if one is a scholar such as an
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anthropologist or sociologist, the practice may be seen as expressive of fundamental aspects of human experience and, indeed, the dance scholar may call to mind ecstatic practices of other religious traditions such as those of the whirling dervishes of Sufi mysticism (Friedlander 1975), the Haitian Vodou rituals described by Katherine Dunham (1994), or Yvonne Daniel’s (2005) work on diasporic dance religions.
In any case, it is clear that individuals participating in the snake-handling service in Jolo are fully committed to the performance of their theology, for they put their bodies in danger while enacting the ritual that the theology informs. Although there are key differences, in some respects, the snake-handling service is similar to the concert given by Edwards and his band, for both performances significantly diverge from the Christian mainstream in that they use unconventional musical forms to induce intense psycho-somatic states. They also both share a gothic sensibility and at times grotesque physicality that, not unlike some characters in Flannery O’Connor’s or William Faulkner’s literature, significantly raise the stakes of personal redemption.7 The extreme nature of snake-handling religion and Sixteen Horsepower’s music bring into focus a dynamic relationship between folk aesthetics, embodied expression, and rural Southern culture.
3 later rain
Later Rain is a post-dramatic dance theater work that features text, live music, and choreography. It originated as a collaboration between myself, an actor, Matt Cosper, and a guitarist, Troy Conn. I shared my growing interest in snake-handling churches with them and, after some discussion, we came to the conclusion that, because the sect’s practices may play into common negative stereotypes associated with fundamentalist evangelical Christianity and rural Southern culture, the subject matter of ecstatic embodiment is easy to dismiss. Matt then pointed out that there are many churches that practice charismatic Pentecostalism and do not handle snakes, and that focusing on such sects would allow us to investigate the relationship between music, ecstatic embodiment, and the perceptions of outside viewers. We then developed the first version of Later Rain which featured brief text drawn from biblical prophecies often cited by Pentecostals, auto-affective techniques which create brief dissociative states, and the performance of an introspective song—written by Edwards—which I sang while accompanied by Troy on guitar.8 It was performed at an informal work-in-progress showing at Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina, at two live music venues—MotorCo in
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Durham, North Carolina, and the Neighborhood Theatre in Charlotte, North Carolina—and at the {Re}Happening experimental performance festival curated by the Black Mountain College Museum in Black Mountain, North Carolina.
Over time, the cast expanded to include another movement artist— Rachel Rugh—another actor—Kadeylynn Ballard—an electric band with two electric guitars, bass guitar, and drum set, and an acoustic band with upright bass, accordion, and banjo. The evening-length work presents several episodes including musical interludes, prophetic moments in which individuals are moved to share personal testimonies with musical accompaniment, a scene set in a space reminiscent of an old-fashioned radio broadcast studio, choreography in solo, duet, and group formats, and a culminating scene in which the performers work themselves into dissociative states as the electric band plays a driving song by Sixteen Horsepower. The piece is site-adaptive and, although sections may be individually performed on proscenium stages, it is generally performed in rock and roll clubs and other unconventional performance spaces.9 The work continues to develop. More recently, it has done so in a modular fashion, with sections that can be performed as stand-alone pieces. This strategy was developed after realizing that some elements of the evening-length work needed to be investigated further. Also, since it is an independent production and because it can be cost prohibitive to travel extensively with a large cast and equipment, a modular approach has allowed us to present aspects of the work in venues and festivals outside of the Southeastern United States.
I would like to continue by briefly considering two modules in order to give the reader a sense of the work’s choreographic and dramaturgical strategies. Later chapters will more fully demonstrate how various modes of research—including academic research, theoretical reflection, ethnographic field work, and studio practice—informed those strategies.
I have visited charismatic churches in my home state of North Carolina as well as churches in South Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. Some of them are in rural settings with working-class and poor members while others are in suburban areas with lower middle-class congregations. In terms of demographics, some congregations—often the more rural ones—are largely constituted by whites, others primarily by African-Americans, and others are racially mixed. To briefly consider an example, Paw Creek Ministries is led by Pastor Joseph Chambers and has a mixed congregation of working-class blacks and whites. It is charismatic—or “spirit filled”—in that the congregation members believe that
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divine possession regularly occurs during religious services and produces involuntary ecstatic movement, prophecies, faith healings, and speaking in tongues. The church is situated on the outskirts of the city of Charlotte, between the surrounding countryside and a growing metropolis.
Chambers is white and was born in eastern Tennessee in 1936. He received a General Education diploma in 1964 when he was twenty-eight years old, went on to attend Montreat Anderson College, and later received a non-academic Doctor of Divinity Degree from Indiana Christian University. He pastored rural Appalachian churches in North Carolina—in Tabor City, Rockwell, and Black Mountain—in the 1950s and 1960s and founded Paw Creek Ministries in 1968.10 He and his congregation split with their parent organization the Pentecostal Church of God in 1992 over a “charismatic compromise,” a debate about certain biblical prophecies and popular televangelists which Chambers views as false prophets. He remains dedicated to exposing false ministries of church leaders who he believes can confuse congregation members about incontrovertible biblical truths.11 This position is articulated in a video series recorded in the 1980s in which Chambers analyzes the “charismania” that he sees taking place in many popular Pentecostal churches. The series is indicative of Chambers’ use of media technology (including film, audio recordings that can be downloaded for free from the church website, and live streaming of Paw Creek church services) to disseminate his ideas. Text from a lecture in the video series is the foundation for Paw Creek, a solo I developed after watching a great deal of Chambers’ visual media, regularly attending his church, and meeting him in person.12
The work was developed around the distinctive use of voice in Pentecostal preaching. Ashon Crawley (2017) and Anderson Blanton (2015) detail how black and white Pentecostal preachers use distinctive rhythmic phrasing and diction to performatively blur distinctions between breath, voice, body, and movement. At the most basic level, a unique mode of speech is necessary to affect a break with speech patterns used in everyday life. Through tonal exaggeration, rhythmic cadence, and repetitious phrasing, preachers inject language with energetic excesses that simultaneously externally express and internally reinforce their convictions. Chambers uses these and other techniques in his presentation on false prophets as he recites passages from the book of Revelation—the last book of the New Testament of the Christian Bible—and as he associates false prophets with the Antichrist, the satanic figure that the book of
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Revelation claims will appear before the apocalypse in an attempt to confuse and dissuade devout Christians from their faith.
Chambers’ talk is aimed at fellow believers who may have questions about authentic Pentecostal practice and who are concerned about fake ecstatic states. His rapid speech is contrasted by slower phrases that are often spoken after dramatic pauses, a contrast which draws the listener’s attention to the key ideas. Chambers repeats the phrases “false anointing” and “Antichrist” throughout the talk, using the same tonality and syllabic emphasis with each repetition. He also uses a rising tone to emphasize that related phenomena fall within an overarching category (e.g. “prayer … fasting … speaking in tongues”). More generally, because he aims to instill fear in the listener, his tone is cautionary and at times quite harsh. From the perspective of the believer, the spiritual stakes of his argument are extremely high since any confusion may result in wrong choices that lead to eternal damnation.
After selecting key passages from each section of the talk, I put the audio into the music editing and production software Ableton Live and used a program within Live to calculate rhythmic and tonal parameters of his speech. I then transposed those parameters into digital percussion (a glitch high-hat and deep bass drum) and an ambient sound (an altered gamelan tone) which I synchronized with the original text. The final audio track was organized by soloing the modified audio, leaving space for long silences, and simultaneously playing the modified audio along with Chambers’ speaking.
I then began to investigate how to choreograph movement to the track. After experimenting in the dance studio for some time, I decided to memorize the text to develop movement which could at times be precisely synchronized with it. I also developed gestures that physically reiterate particular concepts. For example, “false anointing” is symbolized by touching my right pinky-finger to my forehead and waving my open left hand rapidly in front of my open mouth. Touching the forehead signifies the religious ritual of anointing the skin with oil while waving the open hand figuratively signifies speech, the meaning of which is obscured. In other instances, rhythmic punctuation is used to articulate a choreographic relationship to the text. This is clear in the last section of the solo in which textual repetition is punctuated with loud digital bass hits that accent the first syllable of each spoken phrase. This is anticipated earlier in the solo as specific movements are timed to abruptly stop when Chambers finishes sentences that complete a thought central to
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his argument. In general, my goal became to let Chambers’ voice into my body memorizing text and by repeatedly executing choreography built around specific details of his speech patterns. Indeed, I am like Crawley and Blanton in that I have, through detailed analysis, developed conscious awareness of preacherly vocal techniques that, because they are habitual and a normal part of Pentecostal ritual (which they performatively articulate and reinforce), Chambers and his congregation likely take as givens.
Subjectively, Paw Creek functions as an experiential frame for a dissociative state which will be more fully analyzed in later chapters. Here it can be noted that, as the piece begins, I execute a slow phrase in three different locations of the performance space. While doing so, the ambient melodic version of Chambers’ voice repeats a phrase from his speech, the unaltered version of which will be played later in the performance (e.g. “and I beheld another beast”). Since the movement phrase and the melody have a dreamlike quality, I briefly lose my sense of self and, in some cases, forget that the sounds are based on Chambers’ voice. But I am abruptly jarred out of this state when Chambers’ regular form of speaking breaks in, causing a dramatic shift in the piece. I experience a sudden encounter with otherness since his voice comes out of nowhere and aggressively speaks to an audience with whom I do not identify. I channel the energy of the shock into a performative commitment to execute sharp gestural choreography that reiterates his text. As the piece continues, I lock in with his vocal patterns, and a phenomenological blurring occurs in which I experience his voice as my own thoughts. This is facilitated by gestures which begin to anticipate and synchronize precisely with his speech. In the final section, a phrase from the speech is used in an autoaffective manner to put me into a brief dissociative state in which I am increasingly overwhelmed by sound and movement. Chambers’ voice is then gradually subtracted, leaving digital percussion and the ambient audio. Then the auto-affective movement phrase is minimized with each repetition until I am left standing in silence as the lights fade down.
Paw Creek uses several choreographic and dramaturgical strategies featured in Later Rain. 13 The lighting is provided by low-lit warm incandescent bulbs that create shadows and a low-budget sense of mystery. The setting is a sparse abandoned space which is unusual for the performance of religious themes. As with Sixteen Horsepower’s concert, Pentecostal content does not conventionally belong in a bar, music venue, or, in the case of the video of the solo, an empty warehouse. Also, not unlike the
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band’s music, the solo fuses contrasting aesthetic elements in a manner that undermines the perception that Pentecostal practice is being literally presented. The 808 bass hits, for example, would never be used in a Pentecostal service because the sound was developed for use in digital drum and bass music and, although some of the choreography was created with Pentecostal theology of embodiment and liturgical dance in mind, since the movements, postures, and use of physical energy are the product of my physical training, the choreography is aesthetically quite distinct from Pentecostal ecstatic embodiment.14
Another point concerns my approach to the subject matter—Chambers’ presentation on false prophets. My aim is to neither literally present nor satirize it. The solo is not intended to take a clear ideological stance and yet, a significant amount of mental and physical labor has been spent developing, producing, and performing the piece. The detailed work of researching, composing, memorizing, and physicalizing the material indicates a high level of personal investment which, in turn, marks it as worthy of audience consideration. The combination of aesthetic contrast, ideological uncertainty, and devoted labor creates ambiguity which ideally fosters critical engagement. My goal is for the unknowing viewer of Paw Creek and Later Rain to have an experience akin to mine at the Sixteen Horsepower concert I attended some years ago.
This brings me to another point demonstrated by a duet developed with Rachel Rugh entitled It Falls to Us. Future chapters will detail Pentecostalism’s history regarding gender roles and racial relationships and the manner in which its theology of embodied performance has at times supported a robust egalitarianism. Women have historically been afforded some degree of authority in Pentecostal churches, unlike their counterparts in other conservative Southern Protestant sects; however, for several reasons, systemic gender equality has by no means been consistently achieved (Stephenson 2011). How then could we performatively negotiate gender relationships in a manner consistent with the aim of fostering critical inquiry about ecstatic embodiment?
Later Rain negotiates the problem by focusing on theological debates within the Pentecostal tradition. To return to Paw Creek, one could dismiss Chambers as giving a paranoid rant that criticizes other preachers and scares his congregation members in a manner that reinforces his own authority. This stance could then be satirized by associating it with the rants of other Christian leaders and their political counterparts or by
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emphasizing the religion’s failure to achieve robust gender, racial, and socio-economic equality.
However, in the manner of William James’ account of religious experience, my research and performance work strives to take a more neutral stance. Paw Creek investigates an epistemological problem that Pentecostals face concerning the veridicality of ecstatic embodiment. More specifically, it centers on whether one can judge the cause of another’s ecstatic experience from the outside, a problem that fuels criticism of fakes and that Chambers frames eschatologically in terms of apocalyptic biblical prophecies. As will be discussed, the ecstatic is socially disruptive both externally (in terms of charismatic Pentecostalism’s relationship to other Protestant sects and to broader cultural values concerning embodiment) and internally to the extent that schisms regularly occur. As noted, Chambers’ congregation itself experienced a schism which resulted in the loss of their original church building and their having to rent facilities until they raised enough money to build the current structure. By fusing the ecstatic with Chambers’ stance on the epistemological problem, Paw Creek theatrically presents an issue that Pentecostals themselves must continually negotiate. Similarly, It Falls to Us demonstrates issues concerning gender roles. Rachel and I could portray our relationship in terms of a clear hierarchy such that cultural stereotypes about rural Pentecostalism are reinforced, but to do so would obscure the historical instances in which the tradition moved closer to gender equality. Our partnering duet begins as I sing and play an organ while she dances an improvisation score I developed for her. The audience could interpret this as me supportively accompanying her movement or, more critically, as a silent female body dancing for a speaking man. However, after she finishes the solo, I join her, and we begin a partnering duet in which the roles of physical manipulator and responder are equally shared. The third section features floorwork which continues the manipulation theme; however, it breaks the back-and-forth manipulator/responder rhythm by presenting distinct roles in which one person only manipulates and the other only responds. After completing the choreography, we switch roles and repeat the section. After this section concludes, Rachel exits the performance space and I repeat the choreography in which she manipulates me while imagining her presence. The duet then finishes with a musical interlude performed by the electric band.
The theme of interchangeable roles is reiterated at the very end of Later Rain when Rachel sings a folk song acapella while I dance an improvisation score she devised for me (Fig. 1.1). As with Paw Creek, choreographic and
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dramaturgical ambiguity encourages inquiry into the nature of our relationship. Also, since she dances a self-crafted solo in the first scene to recorded audio of her recounting a visit to a tent-revival plays, Later Rain begins and ends with her voice, thereby intimating that her experiential perspective is an essential part of the piece.
The last part of Later Rain I would like to consider is the most recent, is currently still in development, and marks musical and dramaturgical developments that indicate new directions for the project as a whole. The Land of Nod grew out of research into the history, theology, and ritual practices of the American Shakers, a millenarian restorationist Christian sect founded in England in the eighteenth century and that flourished in America in the early nineteenth century.15 I am currently unaware of contemporary dance theater work that focuses on American Pentecostalism; however, the Shakers have inspired American choreographers and theater groups such as Doris Humphrey, Mark Godden, Martha Clarke, and, more recently, The Wooster Group and Reggie Wilson. Although there
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Fig. 1.1 Later Rain, 2018. Performers: Charlie Trexler, Eric Mullis, Rachel Rugh. (Photo: Diane Mowrey)
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are differences between the Protestant traditions, Pentecostalism and Shakerism are both “charismatic” in that they are characterized by a revivalist spirit which advocates for intense encounters with the divine that culminate in experiences of ecstatic religious embodiment. Both also have extensive hagiographies that detail spirit possessions which produced musical compositions—and, in the case of the Shakers, choreographed dances—that were codified and passed down from generation to generation (Cook 1973).
The Shakers are unique in that their approach to music and dance was strongly egalitarian and aesthetically minimalist in nature. Expertise associated with extensive training in music or dance was viewed as problematic since it was believed that dances and songs with divine origin would be performatively accessible to anyone. The Shaker’s ritualistic fusion of spoken text, simple folk melodies, gestural choreography, and unison marching peaked my interest.
Another factor concerns the theatricality necessary to engage the theological implications of a nuanced biblical story. Contemporary amateur church plays theatrically present biblical tales at times literally and, at others, use allegories to contemporize them. This has a history which extends back to Middle Ages Europe when biblical stories were dramatized and performed in public for illiterate audiences. Such adaptations reveal a tension between biblical literalism and a more creative approach which draws out moral and socio-political implications of the tales, often by taking creative liberties with biblical characters such as Eve, Cain, Abraham, and Isaac (Muir 2003). The Land of Nod takes the latter approach by using aspects of Shaker performance aesthetics to critically engage the story of Cain and Abel—as presented in the fourth chapter of Genesis—in which Cain kills his brother Abel in a jealous rage after God favors Abel.
As with Paw Creek, I began by experimenting with musical structures. A simple six-note melody was varied with multiple-time signatures and rests of differing lengths. The overall structure of the composition and the choreography is based on a song form often used in traditional folk music; a brief melodic introduction, verses, and a chorus. Once the music was composed, I inserted text drawn from the story by speaking during musical rests such that the words counterpoint the melody. Gestures were then developed in a manner similar to Paw Creek; however, as with traditional Shaker performance, the text is spoken and gestured at the same time.
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