Undoing performance: macumba and the proliferation of the uncertain
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2525-3123.gis.2023.203031Keywords:
Macumba, Performance, Power of the uncertain, Povo da rua, FabulationAbstract
Following the productive uncertainty of performance as practice and concept, here I turn to what is undone in words, turning upside down John Austin's classic definition of the power of the performative act. The encounter in macumba centers in Rio de Janeiro between entidades [spiritual entities] and their clients is marked by the instability of language and the danger of words in the very search to unveil future paths in consultation with these entidades. The recent meeting with an entidade in which she un-says what she had revealed to the client leads me to reflect on these consultations as a mode of putting into practice the power of the uncertain. The (anti)performative act of unsaying can be read as putting the unknown back into play, diverting client and entidade from the imprisonment of certainty and into the fabulation that is at the heart of consultations with the entidades.
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