Extremely Up-in-the-Air: Flesh Hook Suspension and Performance
In: Pain without Boundaries: Inquiries across CulturesSearch for other papers by Julie Rada in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Purchase instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Flesh hooking is the act of suspending the human body from hooks pierced through the skin and flesh of the body. Two primary characteristics of flesh hook suspension stand out as being of particular interest: it is seen, meaning it is performed in various contexts (performance, play, ritual) as some kind of spectacle, and it is done, meaning the physical act is performed and not faked as a product of illusion. In spite of both these concrete aspects of flesh hooking, it is a physical act with illusory implications. Although it has a rich cultural history, flesh hooking seems to exemplify the postmodern, with shifting meanings or, as cultural theorist Peggy Phelan says, ‘extremely up-in-the-air…impossible to map.’ In contemporary cultural logic, the symbols of performance, including the body and its response to pain, are slippery, and few meanings are fixed. In this chapter I posit that flesh hook suspension is an apt metaphor for the coexistence of seemingly contradictory impulses, which I attempt to ‘map’ here. The various cultural and historical instances of flesh hooking can be considered through Richard Schechner’s theories of performances and Victor Turner’s liminality and communitas construct. The concept of communitas is useful in understanding ceremonies that include flesh hooking performed by the Mandan and Oglala/Lakota Sioux peoples of North America and the Tamil Hindu kavadi ritual, as well acts of performance art and fetish performance. Witnessing pain in a performance context disorients the conventional spectator/performer relationship, lays bare the invisible contracts of participation, and reflects on the current social order. Owing to the inscrutability and uncertainty of the pain experience, pain in performance problematises the audience’s position and makes an ethical demand of witnesses. Through the dynamic experience of witnessing pain, the possibility for unexpected shared catharsis becomes attainable. While flesh hooking and Aristotle’s concept of catharsis are both ancient, the contemporary use of flesh hook suspension in performance achieves catharsis through means that are quintessentially postmodern and resistant to categorisation.