ABSTRACT
‘Invented tradition’ is taken to mean a set of practices, normally governed by overtly or tacitly accepted rules and of a ritual or symbolic nature, which seek to inculcate certain values and norms of behaviour by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past. The anthropologist Victor Turner created highly influential definitions of the relationships between ritual, community, and the potential for change inherent in ritual action. In contemporary community performance work, practitioners strive to be respectful to all art practices and to understand them as complex parts of complex societies, not as ideas that can be picked up, recycled, and easily incorporated. Avant-garde practices and their oppositional stance to “traditional” Western art practices provide a related important and fruitful reservoir for community arts development. While many community art workers have experience in and of art therapy, the goals and tools are often different.
