Habit as Restored Behaviour in Purulia Chhau

Abstract

According to Richard Schechner, the overall time-space sequence of performance is divided into three parts: proto-performance, performance and aftermath. Schechner’s concept of restored behaviour falls under the time-space sequence of proto-performance, which comprises of training, workshop and rehearsal processes. As such, restored behaviour marks previously enacted embodiment and emphasizes the processes of repetition and revision. These behaviours can be aligned with habits as ‘a settled disposition or tendency to act in a particular way, acquired through repetition of the action in question’ (Felix Ravaisson (2008) Of Habit, trans. Clare Carlisle and Mark Sinclair, London: Continuum, p5). This article aims to open a window on the concepts of restored behaviour and habit and explores in the context of a particular aesthetic performance practice via an emphasis on repetition, enactment and embodied assimilation. Accordingly, this vignette focuses on Purulia Chhau of West Bengal, a tribal, martial, folk, masked dance-drama form of Eastern India, whose various habits of performance are considered in terms of restored behaviours. Within this context, we use Schechner’s theory and employ a qualitative approach as the primary methodological tool to analyse the threefold habits of proto-performance practices in Purulia Chhau, close read the recurring patterns as habits in practices of repetition and their improvisation, and examine how restored behaviour works both in symbolic and reflexive ways during the performances offered to the public.