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TRANSFORMATION RITUALS IN THE PERFORMANCES OF JUDIT KELE female body. Although there are no explicit texts here, the role of the female body is decisive in both cases. Referencing Michel Foucault’s sexuality concept Judith Butler defines “gendered society as the repetition of the performative expressions.”® The gendered society can be interpreted as a “script” that is born as a “realization”, in which “the body is not a passive, neutral recipient,” completed by the gendered society itself, nor is it one that can exist without it or be separated from it. They do not exist without each other, because “the body embodies the gendered society.” Among other things, it is the cause of “gendered society’s category” being under political leverage and the reason why “duality and uniformity is forced on bodies.” This uses sexuality as a political device to make procreation the main goal.’ According to the psychoanalyst feminist’s interpretation, theatrical representation is entirely male-centered. They believe that the female body is only present on stage as a male support, which, “connoting castration in the visual field,” forces the female gender into a dependant position. Feminist critics see this, optimistically, as a transformable field in the cultural sphere, that can be changed for the better, however Lacan and Freud document this as a finalized situation in which modification is not possible.'° Kele “appropriated the institution of marriage as an artistic strategy and a means of social mobility with different connotations and subtext”" and used it in her body-centered performance. Quoting Walter Benjamin in her thesis for a doctor’s degree Gabriella Schuller writes that in certain theatrical performances the actresses’ bodies have an auratic aspect. This sexual seduction differentiates between male and female shapes. With modernisation the aura changes, it loses its old power. Some feminist theater productions “temporalize” the viewer perception, thereby changing the passive nature of the female body’s aura; it will not then be subjected to consumer culture and audience enjoyment, but will become the mainstay of criticism of the gendered society.” The profane and the sacred world are so incompatible that it takes a ritual ceremony to cross over from one to another.’ The institution of marriage is one of the seven holy sacraments, which happens with God’s blessing. The initiating parties move from one particular social situation to another, articulates ® Judith Butler: Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York, Routledge, 1990, 8. Judith Butler: Esetleges alapok: a feminizmus és a “posztmodern” kérdés, in Marta Csabai — Ferenc Erős (eds.): Freud titokzatos tárgya. Pszichoanalízis és női szexualitás, Új Mandatum, Budapest, 1997, 271. Gabriella Schuller: Tükörképrombolók. A tekintet eltérítése a poszt/feminista színházban es performanszokban, https://pea.lib.pte.hu/bitstream/handle/pea/14771/schuller-gabriellatezis-hun-2005.pdf 4 Hock: 2014, 35. Schuller: Poszt/feminista színházban. 1° Arnold van Gennep: The Rites of Passage. Budapest, L'Harmattan, 2007, 41. * 167 +
