Vodou as sacred theater - Notes

Vodoo as sacred theater

In Vodou a sacred theatre, Marie Jose Alcide Saint-Lo’s dissertation, she looks at how Voodoo can be better understood from the perspective of a sacred theatre. That is to look at Voodoo comparatively akin to the birth of Greek tragedy, European theatre (10-16^th) and Japanese drama (16^th).

In her study she claims that all the elements of theatre are found in voodoo ceremonies: 

Impersonation (possessions would be choreographed yet believed)- Stanislavski: “Truth on stage is whatever we can believe with sincerity… each and every moment must be saturated with a belief in truthfulness of the emotion felt, and the action carried out by the actor”

Mise en scene: The Houngan in role of director and creative mind conveys to his “cast” the movements and directs the pace of the music that will be part of the ceremony.

The audience feeds the spectacle, energizes the performance of the practionners, without them there would be no ceremony.  Participants and spectators interact and dialogue with each other through dance. 

Chorus: structural feature to the ceremony and element of spectacle.  The ritual is shaped around them.

Music is in a sense an integral part of the ceremony as the drumming dictates the rhythm of dance and the energy for the audience and participants.  Drum being sacred (it has a spirit and invokes the spirit Hounto) – Life being rhythmic, the drum recreates this rhythm of life. 

 Scenery: area reserved for the ceremony; preparations that take place in the Peristyle (beaten earth, covered with palm leaves or sheet iron and the pillar or Poto-Mitan) Sprinkling of flour and floor decorations vèvè (in line with cardinal points)

Costume: each loa or deity has a particular aesthetic aspect: color symbolisms. 

Plot:  panoramic plots

Characters

Diction

Finally, she claims that Voodoo has become entertainment for tourists and the curious alike.  Much like theater began as a sacred elements in Greek life and evolved into an art form for entertainment, Voodoo in Haiti also has undergone this transformation.