ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines a more specific definition of ritual and explores its use in post-colonial drama and performance. Discussing ritual's connection with drama is made all the more difficult by the many differing opinions about the origin of drama in, for instance, Africa. In contemporary African texts, the use of a ritualised mask generally signifies a shift away from imperial expectations and a return to traditional values, and an overturning of colonising, western influences. Carnival is suitable as a model for post-colonial representations of the body politic that seek to dismantle the hierarchised corpus of imperial culture. Both M. Harris and M. Bakhtin also stress that carnival is a medium of the multi-voiced or polyphonic spirit which effectively opposes monologic orders such as colonialism. Rawle Gibbons argues that 'Carnival is not commemorative but a living, protean event, whose very validity depends on its capacity to absorb and express the while containing the past'.
