Need for Ritual
excerpt: “History of the Groove” Russell Buddy Helm ©2014 all rights reserved
1975.
I have witnessed this need for ritual in various human activities. When I left the music business and went back to art school at San Jose State, the performance artist was being born. Out of the need to create viable new art and to involve the audience that had been saturated with entertainment that was proving to be mostly meaningless, “specialness” was incorporated into the art event, usually in a gallery but often outdoors or in a non art space. The unspoken axiom of these quasi serious art events was that the ritual could have no meaning. It was a ritual that did not make a statement other than ‘this is art’. What I sensed in the audience and the performers was a need to have ritual WITH meaning. But they could not dare look foolish in front of their contemporaries by beseeching a god or goddess, a deity, a prophet or a saint as was the usual modus to gain favor with the universe. I realized that the drum creates ritual without the confusion of words. That was the beginning of the New Age for me.
excerpt: “History of the Groove” Russell Buddy Helm ©2014 all rights reserved