Entering the Theatre of Manifestation – The Art of Possession

(For the first installment in this series covering the FoolishPeople’s ritual performance craft

see - Entering the Theatre of Manifestation – Unveiling the FoolishPeople)

“There was a time when I found the concept of possession alien, exotic and

dangerous. We Westerners have come to see possession a something akin to what

we find in movies likeThe Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby, The Serpent and the Rainbow

and many other movies that feed the fear of the unknown taking possession of us.

But these movies speak solely about the possession and obsession that might happen

by the intrusion of hostile spirits upon ones being.”

- from The Mystery of Possession, Nicholaj de Mattos Frisvold

Possession is an odd phenomena. Portrayed in the media as rare and uncertain, observed

more carefully the basic elements of possession can be used to understand the underlying

nature of our conscious experience. We are possessed by our self identity, a phantom, so easily

unmoored, an accretion of habitual responses and memory that we cling to with such

intensity we often miss the benefits of taking on another type of personal agency. Especially

when we begin to realize that possession does not end with the body, or with the self, but

exists within a web work of wider relationships and environmental memories.

FoolishPeople make a game of possession, they play with it, and fool’s play is a serious games

to engage in. Whatever the internal driver we want to assign for possession, the state seen

symptomatically involves changes in action and self perception radically altering how we

interact with and experience the world around us. To invoke these changes willfully, to court

the disassociation and potential permanence of alternate personalities and memory sets, is a

very potent artistic tool.

When we hear anecdotes of internal experiences they can be easy to dismiss, perhaps the

more telling evidence of this power is its ability to affect those who choose to follow the

FoolishPeople into their explorations. Breathing the atmosphere of the Theatre of

Manifestation is enough to open people to altered states of consciousness. Tereza Kamenicka,

who entered the FoolishPeople’s world as a Core Member in 2006, mentions, ”sometimes it

actually happens that audience members start following each other thinking that the other

one is a performer or a plant. Sometimes it opens something, and people get drunk on the

feeling of the magic or creativity around them, and it does influence their behavior.”

Possession and ecstasy are closely tied, especially in the context of FoolishPeople’s work.

Lucy Harrigan, another integral player in FP’s world, found herself at the center of this

restructuring of identity and action while interacting with an audience member who stepped

into the narrative during A Red and Threatening Sky. She was tied to a bed, possessed within

a truly trying performance, when an audience member, emboldened by ecstatic catharsis, was

lead to comfort her while she struggled in captivity. These fluid boundaries between fiction,

fact, performance and living memory open up interesting therapeautic avenues that react

almost as exorcism on the unresolved ghosts of those participating in the Theatre of

Manifestation.

Going into the project John Harrigan knew A Red and Threatening Sky was going to be one

of their most focused and intense efforts. He states this very plainly while reflecting on the

event on FoolishPeople’s website, he also opens a window into how personal this work can

become:

Love. A vicious, bright beast and one of the most interesting forms of idea/deity

we’ve worked with. I barely survived love’s rawest essence with sanity intact.

In March I was rewarded, I married Lucy, FoolishPeople’s producer and

performer.

It was with the power of this intent that the audience became so engaged that some of them

became possessed by the spirit of the performance and entered the narrative on a level that

shares in the intensity of the piece. As he describes in the following recording, Harrigan

experiences this from the very beginning of any project, communicating with and opening up

to the sense of place spirit is central to building the integral soul of any FP production:

This artful exorcism extends to broader cultural memories as well. One review of Cirxus, a

performance enacted by FoolishPeople in 2009, mentions that:

“…Cirxus is perhaps less interested in the facts of the case than in the allegorical

potential of nuclear disaster as an event that, by dangerous radiation, prohibits

access to the evidence of its own happening. The ruins of a nuclear site have a

special sort of status: the only life that remains is that which is left in objects, or that

which objects remind us of.”

The performance summons memories of nuclear holocaust, a fear which shaped the culture

of the late 20th century, and which has been largely forgotten in the midst of additional fears

such as economic collapse, terrorism and climate change. FoolishPeople allow us to talk once

more with these ghosts, to rework them into our own cultural memory, and to see how the

shadows of Hiroshima still loom large in the subliminal ebb and flow of society.

Here we find ourselves in an interesting matrix of influences, in an artistic experiment that

provides deep insights into how we relate to the world, and in turn how the world relates to

us. By opening the act of theater beyond acting, into possession and manifestation, the entire

process takes on a vitality that unbinds the creative act from temporal or spacial boundaries.

The theater becomes an alchemical alembic where poisonous manifestations intermix with

pure until the final act reveals the next stage in the experiment.

These methods bear some semblance to the theoretical archaeological techniques developed

by John G. Sabol, Jr. and the C.A.S.P.E.R. group:

“Theatrical ghosting is the common thread and process that opens a link between

one “living” ghost and another already physically dead. In this ghosting, the

performance of past memories are recalled and shared. The behavior of the

investigator (as participant in his/her internal ghost culture) and the ghost (as

observer in her/her external ghost culture) resonate with one another, creating a

“ghosting” (a mutual understanding) link from past to present that results in

communicative behavior.”

- from Bodies of Substance, Fragments of Memories: An Archaeological Sensitivity

to Ghostly Presence, John G. Sabol Jr

Sabol’s work uses these techniques to understand how we interact with history, place memory

and what ways that becomes active in the present. FoolishPeople’s work activates this further

through rituals that deeply embed the personal narratives of the participants into this

invocation of past and future memories. Although both Sabol and the FoolishPeople are more

careful than to provoke paranormal claims, the interplay that occurs between the

performance narrative, place history, personal history and audience immersion provides an

open ground for unexpected revelations and breakthroughs.

“We are the ghosts within these remembrances and memories as our experiences

are recalled, and a symmetrical connection between past and present begins to

percolate. We re-live our past cultural behavior through resonating moments that

link us, through our contemporary performances, with those uncompleted (and still

sensed) past events. This is a form of “theatrical ghosting” and a performance

odyssey that takes us through the ghost culture of our life. There is nothing

worse…or better…than this journey. Within these time and space travels we have

already met the ghosts we seek out in our investigations, without even

acknowledging their existence and continuing presence. An important consideration

in these travels through space and time is whether we can tell the difference

between internal ghosts, and those that are external and foreign to our own

personal feelings and cultural values.”

- from Bodies of Substance, Fragments of Memories: An Archaeological Sensitivity

to Ghostly Presence, John G. Sabol Jr.

One of the keys to FoolishPeople’s work is that they weave these interactions into their

performances, keeping in touch with the additional layers of meaning and interaction that

can be evoked in an immersive setting. As Craig Slee, FP’s Writer and Creative Content

Director puts it, they are ”well aware that everything in the world is connected. Thought,

word and deed can cross distances, and that everything is in flux. Everything we do has an

affect, and we understand that stories and narratives are a form of navigation - a way of

carving a path through existence.” Throughout the process one of the ways that the group is

able to maintain this awareness of connection is through living 24/7 under the influence of

their role in the performance. Allowing the integral spirits of the piece to work through them

inside and outside the performance space.

With each experiment they’ve stretched the boundaries of this immersion, breaking into a

new level with their upcoming feature film experience,Strange Factories. Premiering at the

Cinema Museum in London, the work will engage the historic resonance of the museum itself

as part of the integral place dynamics that attend FoolishPeople’s work. Housed in the former

Lambeth Workhouse, which Charlie Chaplin spent time in during his childhood, the museum

was a first choice for Harringan who felt called to the site even before learning of its full

historic presence.

Here the spirits of the cinema will speak from

photographs and memorabilia gathered from

every era of film making, teased into

revealing their secrets through the gate of the

active screen and the interaction of

FoolishPeople’s live ritual during the

screening. From the very foundations the

sweat of past residents of the workhouse will

warm with the crowds anticipation, perhaps a

few drops from Chaplin shivering beneath the

feet of an unwary watcher. When the

FoolishPeople “ invite you to enter into the

heart of English Dreaming” who can tell

what’s to come?

Willing sacrifices to the creative fires, those

who invite you in to the Theatre of

Manifestation have already loosed the bonds

of reality for a time. As the rooms of the Cinema Museum slowly slip under the influence of

the spell, all media outlets will become pathways back to Strange Factories. The web of

nostalgia woven from the associations primed within the collection stretch out through the

culture to every aspect of the visual arts. Every warmly held memory of City Lights, or the

Little Tramp, will begin to tremble every so lightly as the projector lamp begins to hum.

When the potent cinematic ritual of Strange Factories takes possession of the Cinema

Museum beginning October 26th, 2013, it will be with the weight of the building’s history and

the museum’s collection behind it. The Core Members have been immersed in the ritual since

the films conception in 2011. One can expect, based on FoolishPeople’s previous invitations to

the Theatre of Manifestation, that this will be an entrancing evocation and potent personal

examination of the art of possession and storytelling.

Your memories and self perceptions are already in some sense borrowed, and the forces that

will be rearranging them as Strange Factories begin to take possession of familiar cultural

cues are thoroughly professional and experienced, having undergone the procedure

themselves. Just remember, they’ve been living this story since before it was written, and the

spirits of our collective culture don’t disappear when the film ends and the screen goes dark.

-

FoolishPeople actively engage audiences through immersive theatre, live cinema, ritual and

independent film. Spectators must choose their own journey without guidance, which

challenges their habitual way of watching art and entertainment in a passive manner.

FoolishPeople have been commissioned by the BBC, ICA and Secret Cinema, and have

produced work for conventional theatres, galleries and site-specific venues.