You are on page 1of 13

INVOCATION OF THE THEATRICAL FRAME

IN BAMANA DRAMA PERFORMANCE*

James T. Brink
Brooklyn College of the
City University of New York

Abstract: This article argues that an anthropology of art can only be valid
as it integrates the art form and the socio-cultural context, using data
from Bamana (peoples from the region of Bamako in Mali) drama performances.
It is shown how cultural knowledge and social activity is situationally used
to contextualize aesthetic experience.

I.

However we choose to define art and aesthetics, most anthropologists


accept the generalization, I think, that an anthropological study of art
implies conceptualization and analysis of the interrelationships between
aesthetic objects and socio-cultural processes in human populations .*•
Acceptance of this fundamental premise, however, masks the division of opinion
within the discipline concerning what the explanatory object should be, how
such a study should proceed, and ultimately what constitutes an anthropology
of art. Studies of art undertaken within a functionalist methodology, for
instance studies too numerous to mention here have identified ways
in which art either contributes to social, political or economic stability
or, less often the case, plays a supporting role in social change (cf.
Peacock 1968), but they tell us very little about art itself. Instead, art
is viewed as a function of some other set of variables which the analyst
finds of more interest or value. Although work of this sort embodies an
anthropological approach to art in this instance a functional orien-
tation it does not constitute an anthropology of art. For that, one must
proceed from the simple premise that art is a worthy subject of investigation
in its own right, the analytic objective being to identify and describe the
socio-cultural antecedents of art by focusing on the dynamic interplay of
aesthetic concepts, behaviors and objects in a population (Merriam 1964).

* This article was co-winner of the 1978 Central States Anthropological


Society's Student Prize Paper Contest. ,
This does not mean, however, as some have thought, that an anthropology
of art involves description of the conceptual-behavioral background of art,
on the one hand, and analysis of formal properties of objects, on the other.
Rather, just as John Blacking proposes an ethnomusicology founded on study
of music sound and behavior interrelated as parts of a total system (1971;
93-94), so should an anthropology of art be conceptualized as the study of
aesthetic objects and their socio«*cultural background undertaken on one level
of analysis.

Conceptualizing art as aesthetic experience emergent in situated communi-


cation and social action represents one way aesthetic products and processes
may be related on the same level of analysis. By claiming that art be
viewed as an aesthetic experience, I am focusing attention on the relationship
established between aesthetic products and their beholders. By claiming
further that aesthetic experience is emergent, I am implying that any relation-
ship established between products and beholders is dependent upon contextual-
ization. Finally, by asserting that this occurs in situated communication and
social action is to draw attention to the contextualized relationship as a
product of an interpretive process whereby coded information is assigned
meaning by persons bringing their abstract sccio-cultural knowledge into some
degree of resonance with a social occasion (cf. Cicourel 1974: 11-41). An
anthropology of art conceived along these lines, I would argue, preserves a
linkage between aesthetic products and processes by first, viewing the product
in its situated setting and, second, by conceiving experience of such products
as grounded in socio—cultural knowledge relevant to the occasion.

One problem of investigation revealed by this theoretical orientation to


art and culture, a problem especially relevant to understanding how a relation-
ship between performers and spectators is contextualized in drama performance,
concerns how aesthetic experience is ordered as the definition of an occasion.
For Gregory Bateson, defining a situation is a matter of understanding and
acting upon the metamessages embodied in communication (Reusch and Bateson
1968). These metamessages or "markers of context," Bateson contends, point
to the premises on basis of which the communication should be interpreted and,
as such, function as "frames" setting off the communication as experience of a
certain type (1955). Drawing upon these ideas and Eric Goffman's (1974)
related notion of "keying," Richard Bauman (1975) argues that verbal art
and I believe his formulation applies to all the performing arts is
contextualized by keying or invoking what he calls the "performance frame."
Through metacommunication performance is keyed and participants obtain a sense
of the rights, responsibilities, behavioral repertoires and evaluative
criteria applying in the situation at hand. Aesthetic experience, in other
words, is ordered as the definition of an occasion as participants organize
their experience in accordance with the premises signalled by the framing
events.

The topic I want to investigate in this paper concerns the organization


of theatrical experience in Bamana (Bambara) drama performance,2 Assuming that
drama performance involves participation in an illusionary world of dramatic
entertainment (Schutz 1967; Burns 1972; Goffman ibid), we should expect a
measure of time and activity devoted to setting up the theatrical frame. By
interpreting culture specific metacommunicative signals, in other words?
Bamana drama participants can be said to make a transition to a fictive,
illusionary world of theatrical play. How this transition is accomplished
how Bamana key the theatrical frame and in turn contextualize a relation^
ship between players and spectators in terms of the premises implied by the
frame is the main question under consideration here, I will focus on the
strategies employed to set off drama performance as a theatrical event and not
consider the various behavioral and evaluative criteria these strategies imply.
Very briefly, then, I will argue in prologue skits preceding the main part of
the drama, Bamana actors draw upon various ideologies of identity in the society
at large to establish a meaning context in which their culture can be
momentarily interpreted and appreciated as theatrically organized humanity.

II.

Although several forms of drama are found among the Mande-speaking peoples
of Africa's Western Sudan (Brink 1973; Dembele 1974: 32-39; Arnoldi 1977), some
based upon manipulation of puppets and others upon organization of actors and
actresses, we have detailed information about performance only for the latter
form as it is practiced by Bamana peoples of the Region of Bamako in present-
day Mali. Referred to by several names kote komo manyage, koteba, koteba
nyogolon, kote-tlon bo, kote-tlon this tradition of farcical comedy consists
of several improvized plays in which various cultural stereotypes are satir-
ically portrayed as moral delinquents of one shade or another (cf. Labouret and
Travele 1928; Meillassoux 1964; Brink 1977, 1978).

Among the sedentary Bamana of the Circle of Kolokani (also known as the
beledugu) in the northern section of the Bamako region, where I conducted
research from 1974 - 1976, the drama is performed at night on the village
public place in dry season months (November to May) by young people organized
into male play-acting groups, male drumming teams and a female chorus. These
performing units are affiliated with the youth ton (kamalenw ton), an age-grade
association cutting across the agnatically organized lineage structure of free
men (horon) and casted persons (nyamakala). Comprising unmarried males and
females of the village roughly between 10 and 30 years of age, the ton
functions chiefly as a collective work group (ngonson ton) and an entertainment
society (koteba ton). When emergent as the latter, its purpose is to provide
musicians for activities of the various cult societies, provide food and
accommodation for visiting entertainers (singers, musicians, acting troupes), or
organize and present the kote-tlon drama for such occasions as the celebration
of a marriage or funeral, renewing ties with neighboring or ancestral villages,
or for no other reason than to fill idle moments with the brand of humor the
comedies afford. Drawn from human and spirit worlds, audiences for the drama
consist for the most part of married persons and uninitiated children, the two
age-grades flanking the youth organization, and bush spirits who, Bamana claim,
attend the comedies to steal ideas for their own dramatic productions played
in the bush.

Drama performance brings certain realities of Bamana life into focus,


providing a backdrop against which the significance of theatrical framing can
be interpreted. While relations between lineages, clans and villages, as well
as relations between village and town and village and national government
help explain variations in theatrical framing from performance to performance,
the necessity of framing as such for kote-tlon drama is related to the geronto-
cratic organization of authority in village life and the competition and
jealousy characterizing persons* efforts to achieve identity and power within
the social system. Although the youth organization's service role in the
community, whether viewed as provisioning labor or entertainment, guarantees
a measure of political and economic leverage in local affairs, the group
plays no major role in political decisions and young men are almost totally
dependent on lineage elders for land and in most cases for money, grain and
livestock used for bridewealth payment. Since this system of authority and
privilege remains unchallenged on the village level youth and elders continue
to negotiate a relationship which is usually cooperative, sometimes conflicting
and fraught with lineage segmentation, but always characterized by a distant,
formal respect bordering on mutual resentment. Equally conducive to tension and
conflict on all levels of village life and between villages is the inter-
personal competition over valued but limited resources. In addition to
rights to property and labor and other economic resources, a high survival
value is placed upon possession of knowledge, particularly esoteric "secrets"
which are believed the major source of power to influence others, improve
one's abilities and social position, and guarantee one's self-protection.
Possession of such resources by persons embitters those of less fortunate
circumstance, leading to frequent accusations of witchcraft and sorcery and
sometimes the much regretted intervention of jealous bush spirits or other
capricious beings inhabiting the Bamana social world.

Although the age-graded system of authority and privilege and inter-


personal competition and jealousy are by no means the only social realities
converging on drama performance, they are two of the more intensely felt
emotional issues motivating potential tension and conflict at any performance
of the drama. Given the fact that the social organization of performance
consists of young performers « especially young male actors trying to make a
name for themselves as artists in a setting in which their social and
spiritual superiors comprise the larger part of the audience, one can argue
that a kote-tlon drama performance provides an occasion for the possible
eruption of conflict, if not open hostility, if the situation is not correctly
interpreted as theatrical play.

This interpretation gains additional support from the content of the


drama, for in addition to presuming a relationship between youth and elders
framed in terms of theatrical entertainment, enjoyment of the plays requires
participants to be disposed toward laughing at some of their society's most
frustrating contradictions, including those noted above. Elder men, for
instance, are portrayed in the drama as social incompetents and personal
failures incapable of asserting control over their wives and children as they
wallow in avarice, greed and other assorted social ills. Drunkeness, excessive
devotion to an inept wife or son or simply an over-abundance of personal pride
are themes the drama employs to spotlight the elder male's role in the erosion
of moral and social order. Young men depict themselves as harbingers of
exploitation, aggressively taking advantage of tears and loose ends in the social
fabric to secure special favors, usually from consenting wives at the expense
of their unsuspecting husbands. For every drunken husband, the plays point
out, there is a virile young man available and willing to assume a sexual
relationship with the neglected wife* More often than not, the boyfriend helps
himself, with the wifefs assistance, to the husband's food stores and live-
stock too. The issue of personal power is also treated with men and women,
Moslems and fetishers fighting for social advantage through the medium of
esoteric knowledge and powerful objects. Other storylines satirize the
laziness of young men, the greed of the wealthy, the sexual license of married
women, the idiosyncracies of Moors, Fulani and other tribal groups living in
the area, and more «—^all of which is beyond the scope and intent of this
paper.

When viewed in the context of everyday Bamana life these themes are
serious, deadly serious in some cases. When viewed through the theatrical
lens, on the other hand, they assume the character of what Clifford Geertz
calls "deep play," thematic elements possessing the capacity to motivate
interest and involvement by increasing the meaningful depth of the play
experience (1973: A31^34). As Bamana actors express it, only by playing out
these themes as close as possible to "real life" can they be considered
"famous actors" in the community. At the same time, however, these actors
are well aware of the dangers associated with deep play. Disaster stories
abound about actors who were "taken seriously," who in our terms knowingly
or unwittingly stepped outside the theatrical definition of the situation in
their "play" and become theatrical stars. In view of such knowledge it is not
surprising that Bamana interpret moving into dramatic performance as a transi-
tion of sorts. I conceptualized this transition above as one in which a
situation becomes defined in terms of dramatic illusion. Bamana view it
similarly in principle and devote time and effort in every kote-tlon perfor-
mance to its realization in fact.

III.

As I describe elsewhere (Brink 1978), kote-tlon drama performance is one


event within a larger spatio-temporal field of thought and activity. Bamana
refer to this larger context as koteba, a term possessing several meanings,
but which most commonly is used to designate the spectacle in which members
of the youth association give their song, dance and dramatic presentations.
The koteba spectacle consists of three contiguous performance events, each
distinguished by name and presentational mode. The first event, which Bamana
term bamuku, consists of circle dances and their associated songs and rhythms
performed by all members of the age-grade. The second and shortest portion of
koteba, baduku, features male acrobatic dancing and, if the event should
warrant it, female songs of encouragement and praise and dancing. Immediately
following the baduku is kote-tlon drama performance, the event of koteba
Bamans deem most entertaining and the segment to which most performance time
should be devoted.

Just as the koteba spectacle embraces three distinguishable performance


events so does kote-tlon exhibit a tripartite organization. Although informants
fail to agree on the folk terminology one should apply to the three perfor-
mance segments, they are quick to point out the kote-tlon involves three
kinds of theatrical entertainment, each occupying a place in the temporal
organization of a kote-tlon performance* Dramatic material performed last
in an evening?s presentation is designated the "secret" or "fetish" portion
°f kote-tlon. Interpreted by Bamana as feats involving secret knowledge and
power, these presentations are used as a kind of epilogue to the drama and
the koteba spectacle as a whole, Preceeding the epilogue is what Bamana claim
is the main part of the drama, that portion of kote-tlon devoted to performing
plays revealing the comical aspects of everyday life. Involving formal
entrances onto the public place, greetings between characters and lead
drummer, and more than one presentation of dramatic material and action,
these plays occupy most of the time given to drama performance and represent
the focal point of interest in any koteba for both players and spectators.
This part of kote-tlon does not commence, however, without first presenting
a few short skits representative of the type of drama Bamana associate
with the beginning of dramatic performance and which I refer to as the drama's
prologue. As I indicated above, it is my contention that the prologue segment
serves as a meaning-action context in which time and space are set aside for
the communication of theatrical intent and re-aligning the definition of the
situation in terms of dramatic illusion.

The communicative importance of the prologue segment in Bamana drama


performance is best assessed by taking a brief look at two categories of
experience Bamana associate with kote-tlon as a whole. First, the drama is
interpreted as a "lie on persons and situations." In order to appreciate the
performance as drama, in other'words, players must be proficient at creating
culturally recognizable scenes which transcend the everyday world of real
persons and situations. Similarly, spectators are expected to be able to
differentiate between these two worlds and experience the dramatic event as
nothing more than a playful lie. Playing roles as actor and spectator is in
part dependent upon such awareness. Of course, all persons I talked with
recognized the moral lessons espoused in the plays that kote-tlon, if you
like, provided a mechanism for expressing and reinforcing certain time-honored
cultural values but few deemed this understanding the most important
feature of the drama or the most significant attribute of the roles involved.
On the contrary, the portrayed absurdity and obsenity, the gross exaggeration
of social and physical decay the presenting and experiencing of a lie on
the everyday world — is what made the drama both possible and potentially
rewarding to participants.

A second but related category of Bamana experience in the drama concerns


the process whereby lies on persons and situations become viable dramatic
entertainment. Bamana interpret the process of becoming involved in theatrical
"lie-telling" as a transformative experience in which participants relate their
knowledge of "funny things" (yele kow) to "places" (yorow) or situations in
the drama. Those places accorded most importance in the drama from this
point of view are called yele ko yorow, the "funny places" or "laughing
places" experienced in the actor's play. When discussing these experiences
persons invariably point to the dramatic situations developed in the plays,
especially the humorous climaxes accompanying these situations and the
strategies (yele ko feny) players employ to improvise them. Seldom, if
ever, do Bamana speak of laughing places in the prologue skits preceding
performance of. the plays. These are viewed singly and collectively as
funny things without laughing places — as taken-for-granted knowledge
requiring no dramatic situation to be understood or appreciated. When asked
why perform these skits if they have no laughing places, persons reply
simply that to have a laughing place you must first have a funny thing, a
view supporting my contention that prologue skits are used in performance to
invoke a sense of theatrical comedy within which dramatic situations and
laughing places developed later in the plays can be interpreted as efforts
to create humorous lies, and not something else.

IV.
So, how do prologue skits transform awareness into one of a theatrical
kind; how, in other words, do Bamana set up a frame for theatrical deep play?
The most frequently mentioned strategy is the acceleration of body tempo.
Bamana interpret a sussun rhythm as slower than everyday tempo while a
£ploba rhythm represents a pace faster than the everyday norm. In the
prologue actors adopt for the most part the goloba movement style, performing
all acts and gestures, say Bamana, "in an instant" without much regard for
control. Equally obvious is the shortness of the skits compared to the
plays, most skits not exceeding fifty seconds in duration. "Everybody
audience and actors," commented one informant, "have in their minds that
the short ones will come first. This happens in every kote-tlon." Besides
short duration the prologue skits exhibit no dialogue among characters, no
thematic development, and no scenes in the sense of definite settings,
situations and problems. As noted above, we have no dramatic situations,
only a series of short, fast-paced presentations consisting of a song and/or
dance sometimes repeated one or two times.

Particularly important for defining frame is the metaphorical content of


the skits, especially meanings associated with characterization and song
text. This area is best introduced by taking a brief look at the structure
of events emergent in kote-tlon prologues. By and large, all prologues
consist of two performance events, the kaka and the koreduga. While these
labels are also used to designate two skits often performed in the prologue,
they more importantly stand for two action scenes related in sequence and
meaning but embracing different song and dance material and ultimately
different purposes.

The kaka always initiates the prologue and announces the start of kote^
tlon. Ideally, it is performed by boys 5 to 10 years of age who claim
membership in the nfdomo society, a secretive association organizing cult
activities of uncircumcised boys. In practice, however, the kaka is often
performed by circumcised boys who have left n'domo and become members of the
village youth association. In either case, the time allotted to kaka must be
used to present material having some relationship to nfdomo and if n'domo
children are not available the songs and dances may be performed by boys of
the youth association who owe allegiance to the most recently formed age—set
8

and are in attendance at the performance, This emphasis upon having young
performers present the kaka is important, for Bamana conceptualize youthful
innocence as a means for accomplishing kakafs purpose in the prologue.
As one informant explained it^

Young boys aren^t powerful; they don't have the power


of the older boys which could make the spirits angry.
In the kaka they ask the spirits to give them time to
play their kote~tlon» In so doing, the boys shut the
mouths of superstition on the public place, such as
bad spirits, use of fetishes, and so on. If kaka is
not done it is believed that everything will be in
disorder — — actors will fight; the audience will be
angry; girls won't be able to answer the actorfs
songs because they will be angry. Little boys are
very important to the koteba organization for this
reason, (Interview notes, March 22, 1975)

In an effort to convey an impression of powerlessness players perform


skits which invoke a sense of the child's world. In the skit known as
"Tcheblenke Dance," boys enter the public place and one by one dance the
steps associated with the n'domo society* tcheblenke dance. As an adult male
activity, tcheblenke dancing is most often a part of men's secret society
activities where it is bound up with sacred power. Persons who dance this
form of tcheblenke, moreover, are themselves believed to possess great
esoteric power which protects them, for instance, when they dance holding
one of the sacred fetishes in a public performance. In contrast to the
serious and dangerous business of adult tcheblenke is that of the n'domo
society where in the absence of personal and societal power it is reduced to
a harmless dance activity. When appearing in the kaka, the children's
tcheblenke dance is accompanied by a song sung by the dancers which charact-
erizes them as frightened and afraid and their dance as a disorderly perfor-
mance. The theme of childlike disorder is brought out more dramatically in
the skit known as "Kaka" in which 7 or 8 beys attempt a difficult acrobatic
step requiring dancers in a crouched position to thrust one leg out in front
while shifting weight to the second leg, all in time to a quickening drum
beat. As the tempo increases, boys lose their balance and roll over onto
the ground. Within a few moments the boys are either in a pile on the ground
trying half-heartedly to recollect themselves or tottering off balance and
facing imminent collapse. Immediately prior to this dance toward disorder, as
the boys make their way onto the public place, they may sing 2 or 3 short
songs, but usually manage only one before the drum signals the beginning of
the dance. One song asserts the irresponsibility of uncircumcised boys who
do not participate in the kaka. Another song draws attention to the status
transformation being played out in the kaka segment; "The little bird has
laid her eggs in the large baobab tree; these have hatched as uncircumcised
boys."

Appearing disorganized and incompetent, as young boys inevitably do while


dancing "Kaka" and "Tcheblenke Dance," and claiming to be uncircumcised
children of n'domo (or less than human), these boys, representing all members
of the youth association, present themselves to human beings and spirits on
the public, place as powerless, unsocialized, witless children. The message
appears somewhat like the following; "We have taken on the status of
children so interpret what you experience here as an unaffectual, playful
activity like children's games, and not as something serious or potentially
harmful." A message of this sort encourages persons and spirits on the
public place to initiate a social relationship in which the question of
personal and collective power and its use is outside the official definition
of the situation. By establishing a sense of situational order along these
lines, the kaka segment can be said to create a meaning context within which
theatrical entertainment of the kote-tlon variety is possible for Bamana.

On the other hand, to argue that kaka inevitably predicts a kote-tlon


performance can be misleading, for it is an event tied to other public
performances whose definitions are decisively not of the theatrical kind,
although theatrical elements may be involved. Kaka is used to initiate little
girls1 dancing to the xylophone (musonin bala) praise songs and dances of
entertainment traditionally associated with sending men off to war (gussun)
and the adult tcheblenke briefly noted above. On each of these occasions
kaka"grpy^ars as we have described it for kote-tlon, the same songs and dances
and similar meaning attributed to the symbols. Moreover, kaka appears to
serve the same purpose as it does in kote-tlon to provide a transition
from everyday activities or performance events (as in koteba bamuku and
baduku) to performances in which mis-interpretation of what is occurring or
about to happen may lead to dangerous consequences for individual and community
What sets off the kaka of kote-tlon from others is its direct association in
time and space with koreduga, the second segment of the prologue, in which
the situation's definition is narrowed to one of a distinctively theatrical
kind. The theme of status separation initiated in the kaka, in other words,
is complemented in the koreduga by the appropriation of theatrical roles.

The term koreduga is most commonly used to designate a person with a good
sense of humor, one who can tell a joke, act in humorous ways and appreciate
the wit of others. In the portion of the prologue known by the same name
time and space are set aside for performers to formally take on the comedian
role. In the performances I observed, the skit most often used for this
purpose derives its name and performance material from a specialized group
of ritual clowns of the men's kore society who are best known for their
esoteric knowledge, power and comic inversions and reversals of reality.
Twisting the structure and meaning of words and phrases and decked out in
fantastic costumes (cf. Zahan 1960), they always introduce levity, combined
with a degree of seriousness, into everyday life when they appear. In the
context of the koreduga segment, anywhere from 1 to 5 players key these
buffoons by singing of the enormous quantities of food these persons are
reputed to consume in one sitting, dancing their rhythms one by one, and some-
times by greeting the lead drummer with one of their absurd expressions, such
as "Here is the tobacco, no box in it." They tour the public place using
the buffoon character and its songs to levy social criticism. One of these
songs refers to the above-mentioned tension between young men and village
elders:
10

Each year we prepare the fields for


planting, but there are no wives for us,
At the beginning of the dry season
there are no wives for us.
The road to the cemetary is well^
travelled, but no one returns from there,
There is no way to pay for a person's
soul.

Other songs which may be used criticize libertine behavior of young women,
and old men for taking sexual interests in young women.

Presentation of other character skits usually follow the "Buffoon Dance"


in rapid succession, "Blacksmith Dance," "Slave Dance," "Karite Nut
Pounder," "Man With A Long Penis/' and "The Ragged Woman" are among the
skits chosen to complete the kbreduga segment. The blacksmith and slave
skits are keyings of blacksmith and slave associated archetypes in the society
at large. Both groups partake of the status assigned to nyamakala or persons
of caste and, as such, play similar roles vis-a^vis their patrons (horon),
including displays of obscenity, foolishness and comic wit in language and
behavior. Borrowing a song and dance from the blacksmith group, 2 or 3
players disguised as blacksmith women perform the "Blacksmith Dance" by
dancing onto the public place to drum accompaniment, slapping their pelvic
areas on alternate drum beats and singing "The mange has appeared on my
vagina; persons, I will go scratch it in a private place." Performance of
the "Slave Dance" invokes a sense of theatrical comedy similarly as ^oes
performance of "Karite Nut Pounder." This latter skit refers to the
communal gathering in which women playfully criticize friends in song, dance
and imitation as they prepare their karite harvest. The fact that the female
depicted in the skit is a hobbling, broken old woman further clarifies the
skit's meaning in the context of kote-tlon by pointing to the formalized
joking relationship between grandsons and grandmothers in the society and by
invoking a sense of women's drama (naloma-tlon) in which actresses, usually
women beyond menopause, act out comic themes such as obscenity, insanity,
stupidity and clumsiness. "Man With A Long Penis" and "The Ragged Woman"
portray some of the destitute and downtrodden persons in Bamana society who,
because of their social condition and character flaws are viewed as objects
of humor outside the drama. In "Man With A Long Penis," for example, an
actor enters the public place holding between his legs a long stick with a
cloth tied to its end. This artificial penis is fondled as he sings a song
relating his impoverishment and physical predicament to his uncontrolled
desire for attending public performances.

Taking on such roles and drawing a connection between their purposes and
the frivolity of communal Varite pounding, women's drama, formalized joking
relationships, ritual clown buffoonery and the state of the destitute, players
of the koreduga align themselves with some of their society's most well-^
known varieties of comic experience. In so doing, players draw upon know-
ledge which, on the one,hand, represents taken^for-granted facts of Bamana
cultural experience and, on the other hand, invokes a mode of experience
closely related to their immediate intentions, the performance of theatrical
11

comedy. By playing-out these intentions in the koreduga through the character


skits we have described, performers can be said to set up a theatrical
definition of the situation at hand, thus preparing themsolves and specta-
tors for the drama to follow.

The importance of koredxiga skits for theatrical framing is indicated


also by the role they play when performed in the main part of the drama
following the prologue. While the "Buffoon Dance" never occurs outside the
koreduga segment, the other skits we have described are used occasionally as
filler material between the longer plays, for instance, when players require
time to obtain articles for costumes or to discuss strategy for an upcoming
play. In such instances, Bamana speak of the necessity of "keeping the
public place in order," of maintaining a pace consistent with that pstablishec.
in the prologue and sustained by the plays performed so far. At such times,
koreduga skits are used to keep the kote-tlon alive, to maintain the thea-
trical definition of the situation until the plays can be resumed.

On the other hand, it is in these moments of a performance that the


limitations of prologue skits are readily apparent to Bamana. Actors and
spectators interpret their appearance as a "waste of time," as nothing more
than a stalling procedure. Although they function well to remind participants
of the definition of frame, that kote-tlon is, in fact, underway, the skits
are unable to sustain the energy level or level of involvement required to
keep persons interested in the drama. As we indicated above, at this point
* n kote-tlon spectators expect the yele ko yorow, dramatic scenes drawing
attention to humorous situations. Since these "laughing places" are not
deemed characteristic of the prologue, the skits are useless for maintaining
interest in the drama. Performing 2 or 3 skits may maintain a formal defin-
ition of the situation,but unless players are prepared to resume the plays
the drama will be irretrievably "broken."

V.
In summary, Bamana actors utilize the prologue portion of kote-tlon
to construct rhetorical messages which announce, in effect, that what is
occurring is kote-tlon drama and not something else. Taking on the role of
children in the kaka, players symbolically exchange their status as members
of the youth association for that of persons outside the officially recognized
hierarchies of power and authority in political and spiritual life. Moreover,
by assuming various culturally explicit comic roles in the koreduga,
players provide a sense of the theatrical intent of the performance, including
the idea that social satire is an integral feature of the event's definition.

As such, the prologue may be interpreted as a metaphorical bridge


between action and experience both in a paradigmatic and syntagmatic sense,
Paradigmatically, the prologue links ideologies of Bamana identity to a
nucleus of concrete acts, giving these latter and the persons presenting them
a meaningful place within Bamana conceptions of innocence and "funny things."
Syntagmatically, the prologue establishes a meaning-action context which
contextualizes the events to follow. In this respect it serves as a frame
12

or marker of context within which it is possible to experience theatrical


deep play, or simply to develop and appreciate what Bamana classify as
"laughing places,"

In conclusion, I would argue that analysis of the transition to drama


performance involves study of more analytical units than were treated above.
I have looked at two contexts, the broad societal arena and the very
specific prologue context. Mediating between these levels of context are
what I would call the spectacle context and the social occasion for perfor-
mance, two meaning-action domains establishing motivational and thematic
relevance within which theatrical framing may occur. Viewed from this
perspective, drama performance involves not only a keying of the theatrical
frame, but the organization of thought and activity in other social spheres.
Analysis of these contexts and their interconnections defined in terms of
meaning and action will improve our understanding of how persons modulate
their transitions to performance. In turn, we learn how cultural knowledge
and social activity is used situationally to contextualize aesthetic
experience (cf. Horton 1963), I consider this one area of investigation in
what I described earlier as an anthropology of art.

Notes

1. I wish to thank Alan P, Merriam for his thoughtful comments and suggestions
on an earlier draft of this paper prepared for the Central States
Anthropological Society's annual meeting in 1978.

2. Field research on which this essay is based was supported by a Fulbright


Hays Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship, number 42-161-05.

References Cited

Arnoldi, Mary Jo
1977 BAMANA AND BOZO PUPPETRY OF THE SEGOU REGION YOUTH SOCIETIES.
New York: Haywood Printing Co.

Bateson, Gregory
1955 "A Theory of Play and Fantasy." PSYCHIATRIC RESEARCH REPORT 2:
39-57.

Bauman, Richard
1975 "Verbal Art as Performance." AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST 77j 290-311

Blacking, John
1971 "Deep and Surface Structures in Venda Music." YEARBOOK OF THE
INTERNATIONAL FOLK MUSIC COUNCIL 3; 91-108.

Brink, James T.
1973 "Drama and Social Organization Among the Bambara." Unpublished
manuscript.
13

Brink, James T,
1977 "Bamana Kote^tlon Theater," AFRICAN ARTS 10 (A); 36-37, 61-65,
1978 "Communicating Ideology in Bamana Rural Theater Performance."
RESEARCH IN AFRICAN LITERATURES, Vol. 9. No, 3,

Burnst Elizabeth
1972 THEATRICALITY, London; Longman Group Limited.

Cicourel, Aaron V,
1974 COGNITIVE SOCIOLOGY. New York; The Free Press.

Demebele, Nagognime U,
1974 "De la Tradition Orale a la Litterature le Partie." ETUDES
MALIENNES 11: 1-37.

Goffman, Eric
1974 FRAME ANALYSIS, New York: Harper and Row.

Geertz, Clifford
1973 INTERPRETATION OF CULTURES. New York; Basic Books, Inc.

Horton, Robin
1963 "The Kalahari Ekine Society: a borderland of religion and art."
AFRICA (London) 1 C D : 73-97.

Labouret, Henri and Moussa Travele


1928 "Le Theatre Mandingue (Soudan Francaise)." AFRICA (London) 1 (1):
73-97.

Meillassoux, Claude
1964 "The 'Koteba1 of Bamako." PRESENCE AFRICAINE 24: 28-62.

Merriam, Alan P.
1964 THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF MUSIC, Evanston: Northwestern University Press

Peacock, James
1968 RITES OF MODERNIZATION. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Reusch, Jurgan and Gregory Bateson


1968 COMMUNICATION: THE SOCIAL MATRIX OF PSYCHIATRY. New York;
W.W. Norton and Company.

Schutz, Alfred
1967 COLLECTED PAPERS, Vol. 1. The Hague; Martinus Nijhoff.

Zahan, Dominique ^
1960 SOCI&TES D r INITIATION BAMBARA; LE N'TOMO, LE KORE. Paris and the
Hague: Mouton,

You might also like