Complexity, Ritual, Belief and “Standing By”: Sources of Uncertainty and Practices of its Management, the Case in Dance Improvisation
Vol.17,No.2(2020)
Actor-Network Theory in Czech Social Sciences and Humanities
In this article I analyse the handling of uncertainty in dance improvisation performance. I focus on the sources of uncertainty together with techniques used to manage it. I also show that magic practices are integrated among these techniques and that all the described techniques are pragmatic and reasonable, though they do not provide guaranteed effects. This leads to an analysis of the possible role of belief in ritual practice. The efficiency of ritualist magic in handling uncertainty is ascribed to its ability to create an intimately supportive atmosphere of mutual reliability. Belief regarding the causal efficiency of magic is then shown as an issue emerging only in controversies over the nature of collective enterprise as a way of othering. The complexity of dance and life in general makes uncertainty inevitable. Hence, all theoretical knowledge in terms of consequences of action is provisional. The text then recommends rejecting the knowledge-belief dichotomy and reshaping belief to analytically comprise knowledge as intertwined with uncertainty.
complexity; ritual; belief; uncertainty; dance; performance; improvisation; techniques of the body
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