ABSTRACT

Sue Jennings and her three children spent two years on a fieldwork expedition to the Senoi Temiar people of Malaysia: Theatre, Ritual and Transformation is a fascinating account of that experience. She describes how the Temiar regularly perform seances which are enacted through dreams, dance, music and drama, and explains that they see the seance as playing a valuable preventative role in people's lives, as well as being a medium of healing and cure. Her account brings together the insights of drama, therapy and theatre with those of social anthropology to provide an invaluable theoretical framework for understanding theatre and ritual and their links with healing.

chapter 1|24 pages

Setting the scene

chapter 2|18 pages

Introducing the Temiars

chapter 3|13 pages

Boundaries and transformations

chapter 4|21 pages

Temiar body

Control and invasion

chapter 5|22 pages

Temiar space

Order and disorder

chapter 6|20 pages

Dreams, souls and trance

chapter 7|18 pages

Women and blood

chapter 8|15 pages

Temiar healers

Shaman and midwives

chapter 9|23 pages

Healing performances

Dance-dramas of prevention and cure

chapter 10|19 pages

The epic metaphor

The paradox of healing