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BIRTE GIESLER in stating that it is guite impossible to discriminate exactly between ritual and drama.? German drama researcher Hans-Ihies Lehmann refers to Victor Turner’s differentiation between “social” and “aesthetic” drama in arguing: Victor Turner made the important distinction between ‘social drama’, which takes place in social reality, and what he called ‘aesthetic’ drama, primarily in order to show how the latter ‘reflects’ hidden structures of the former. He emphasized, however, that, conversely, the aesthetic articulations of social conflicts in turn offer models for their perception and are partially responsible for the modes of ritualization in real social life. He argued that aesthetically formed drama produces images, structured forms of development, and ideological patterns that give order to the social, its organization and perception.* Aesthetic drama thus mirrors social drama, while at the same time taking part in the shaping of ritualized forms of social interaction, human perception, and the social order in general.’ Current human biotechnology, with its cultural practices in human genetic engineering and reproductive medicine, challenges heteronormative sex and gender identities and hence fundamentally contests traditional family forms. ‘Thus, theater plays dealing with reproductive technology and human genetic engineering prove to be particularly useful in investigating gender as ritual in literary drama. This is because drama and dramatic literature very much deal with, and reflect on, “implicit knowledge” and the tension between language and the body as the two major tools of human cognition. Lehmann points out: “No other form of art but theater focuses that strongly on the human body, on its vulnerable, violent, erotic, or ‘holy’ substantiality. [...] As is generally known everything starts with a bodily act [...].”° However, in the age of human biotechnology “everything” no longer starts with a bodily act but with a mechanical procedure of technical devices. Lehmann further argues: “Cultural notions of what ‘the’ body is are subject to ‘dramatic’ changes, and theater articulates 3 Matthias Warstat: Ritual, in E. Fischer-Lichte — D. Kolesch — M. Warstat (eds.): Metzler Lexikon Theatertheorie, Stuttgart/Weimar, Metzler, 2005, 274-278, 274. See also Uri Rapp: Rolle Interaktion Spiel. Eine Einführung in die Theatersoziologie, Wien/Köln/Weimar, Böhlau, 1993, 15. Hans-Ihies Lehmann: Postdramatic theatre, trans. Karen Jürs-Munby, London/New York, Routledge, 2006, 37. On the fundamental relation between ritual and aesthetic drama see Bernhard Jahn: Grundkurs Drama, Stuttgart, Klett, 2009, 74-82. 6° Lehmann: Postdramatisches Theater, Frankfurt a. M., Verlag der Autoren, 1999, 361f. [In keiner anderen Kunstform steht der menschliche Körper, seine verletzliche, gewalttätige, erotische oder ‘heilige’ Wirklichkeit so sehr im Zentrum wie im Theater. [...] Mit einem körperlichen Akt fängt bekanntlich alles an [...].]“ (Translation by the author of this article as this section is not part of the published translation.) «178 +
