Moved to Distraction: The Ritual Theatre of the Fire Festival in Southwest China

Katherine Swancutt

doi:10.1080/0048721X.2023.2211398

Moved to Distraction: The Ritual Theatre of the Fire Festival in Southwest China

Katherine Swancutt

Theology & Religious Studies

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

91 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

What does it mean to be ‘moved to distraction’ by ritual theatre? Each year the Nuosu, a Tibeto-Burman group of Southwest China, may be moved by their Fire Festival competitions, pageantries, and ‘extravaganzas’, but not necessarily by the Chinese nationalist elements within them. Simulating the pageants of Chinese megacities, Fire Festival extravaganzas meld Nuosu myth-history, animistic imagery, and ‘minority culture’ with the Chinese Dream of prosperity, the party-state’s efforts at generating cohesion, and the soft power of stadium rock concerts. Many Nuosu are abducted into the mood of performances that evoke what is archetypically human for them, including their myth-historical relationships to Tibetans and Han Chinese. But while some Nuosu may experience frisson and the giddy sense of being moved to distraction by spectacles that celebrate China as a socialist superpower, many turn away from ritual theatre that challenges their cosmopolitics and their sense of what it means to be human.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	431-455
Number of pages	25
Journal	RELIGION
Volume	53
Issue number	3
Early online date	29 May 2023
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/0048721X.2023.2211398
Publication status	Published - 2023

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Cite this

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title = "Moved to Distraction: The Ritual Theatre of the Fire Festival in Southwest China",

abstract = "What does it mean to be {\textquoteleft}moved to distraction{\textquoteright} by ritual theatre? Each year the Nuosu, a Tibeto-Burman group of Southwest China, may be moved by their Fire Festival competitions, pageantries, and {\textquoteleft}extravaganzas{\textquoteright}, but not necessarily by the Chinese nationalist elements within them. Simulating the pageants of Chinese megacities, Fire Festival extravaganzas meld Nuosu myth-history, animistic imagery, and {\textquoteleft}minority culture{\textquoteright} with the Chinese Dream of prosperity, the party-state{\textquoteright}s efforts at generating cohesion, and the soft power of stadium rock concerts. Many Nuosu are abducted into the mood of performances that evoke what is archetypically human for them, including their myth-historical relationships to Tibetans and Han Chinese. But while some Nuosu may experience frisson and the giddy sense of being moved to distraction by spectacles that celebrate China as a socialist superpower, many turn away from ritual theatre that challenges their cosmopolitics and their sense of what it means to be human.",

author = "Katherine Swancutt",

note = "Funding Information: I would like to thank Mark Teeuwen, Moumita Sen, Aike P. Rots and the participants at two on-line workshops in 2020 and 2021 that were held at the University of Oslo and devoted to the study of festivals in Asia, where I received many generous comments on early drafts of this article. My gratitude also goes to Stevan Harrell for his characteristically generous and excellent feedback, to Jan Karlach for penetrating conversations on the Fire Festival, and to the editor and two anonymous reviewers for their stimulating comments. This article is part of a project that has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union{\textquoteright}s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement No. 856543). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.",

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Moved to Distraction: The Ritual Theatre of the Fire Festival in Southwest China

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