Resisting through Rituals is usually not the way that one thinks of the traditional arts, yet unravelling the layers of contradictory meaning yields much to understanding of cultural work in SE Asia.
A Masterclass on Rituals by Mr. Eddin Khoo on a Saturday late afternoon to a packed room of art connoisseurs at a lovely art gallery. Listening to the 90 minute talk is a tour de force of ideas which was one big question on What is a Ritual? In the northern state of Kelantan, which is the rich space of arts and ‘Pooja’ or rituals such as Mak Yong and Myin Puteri, for both therapeutic and cultural purposes, is a site for celebration, preservation and contestation. Rituals ultimately belong to the realm of the sensual, sensory and the sacred which inhabits a zone which is both psychological and material. The interesting anecdote is that the art form, Manora travels differently from Kelantan to Kedah to Creole Penang.
The talk delved in to the element of the political as it should be, and ask bigger questions about identity and it’s pluralistic notions beyond the bureaucratic. Three decades of cultural preservation work bears a rich legacy, and the talk was an archive of cultural history, although I am not sure that was the intention.
I often listen to great intellectual expositions on YouTube such as Edward Said or Fareed Zakaria, yet an opportunity to attend an intellectual, yet an anti academic, eclectic lecture on rituals present an opportunity of what real public facing scholarship based on long duree work could offer, outside the seminar hall and into the mainstream of cultural life, the curated art gallery.
Cultural Heritage Organisation’s such as Bangla Natak in Kolkata can take a page or two from Pusaka’s archives to foster political engagement with art.
Change Thinker 