Bodies of magic.

A look at the operation of dance and objects in the magical rite from the aspects of device, narrative and mediatization

Abstract

The following work seeks to recognize the aspects that allow us to define the Magical Rite as a performative act, investigating the semi-anthropological configurations that result from the disposition of body movement, dance and the objects participating in the rite.

Our position for the observation agrees with the reflection of Levi Strauss in the sense that the physical is, at the same time, both a simple element of significance of a symbolism that overwhelms it, and the only means of verification of a reality whose multiple aspects cannot be caught out of it, in a synthetic form (1979) With it, we will echo the proposition that identifies the structuralist current: the symbols are more real than the object that they symbolize.

In this direction, it will be sought to pay attention mainly to the object level in different types of magic scenes, as objects fulfil a defined and systematized symbolic role, but are also variable and comparable. In relation to this aspect, we will investigate the functioning of the body and its aestesic and aesthetic expressiveness, as the nucleus of the ritual device.

We will observe the Magical Rite as a device inserted and sustained in the long history of mediatization, starting from the concept of narrative proposed by Fabbri (1999) and revised by the socio-semiotics, as well as notions such as that of the law of sympathy proposed by Frazer (1890) reformulated by Mauss (1902-1903) and then discussed by the Tensive Semiotics - whose position is that the exercise of some rhetorical figures are in line with the problems of cultural taxonomies, problems that are both lexicological, sociological and anthropological.