Luiz Guilherme Veiga

Abstract

Risk, Ritual, Performance and the Concept of "Sensory Bell-Jar"

This work tries to conceive the performance from the point of view of
the sensorial experiences that it produces on the performer, rather
than as a spectacle. In order to make this approach viable, I developed the
term "sensory bell-jar" to accomplish the description of the
synesthesic processes to which the performers are subject. This study resembles the
idea of "flow experience" thought by Csikszentmihalyi. The performance
cases chosen for analysis were those involving some kind of physical
danger, as certain arcaic rituals and modern acrobatics. The existence of
risk is important because it acts as a catalyzer of complex sensorial
processes.