Medieval and Early Modern Performance in the Eastern Mediterranean ed. by Arzu Öztürkmen and Evelyn Birge Vitz (review)

This volume is extensive in its subject and exceptional in its interdisciplinary value laying a multilayered foundation for further examination of the histories vibrantly represented here. For scholars of late medieval and early modern art history, performance, and religious studies there is much to support research and apply in practice from these lesser known regions of performance. The editors have attracted and arranged the thirty-three authors through sections extending the boundaries of verbal art, imperial performance, iconography through a theatrical lens, and notions of the ‘ritual roots of performance’. Within this exemplary collection, there are contributions representing the religious streams of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, as well as classical and pagan traditions, and the folkloric. All authors have framed the complexities of complicity with, and deviation from, dogmatic norms within religious, social, and politically influenced spheres.

Like their topics’ narrators, the authors provide visually stimulating historical discourses and provoke contemporary associations. Historical examinations are lifted into the arena of practical use for performance makers, not solely for re-enactments, but as inspiration for new contemporary interpretations within a globalised culture of the arts. Koray Durak’s examination of ninth-century ceremonial activities in the area of Lamis, for instance, particularly brings such modern implications to mind. Also among this fluid exchange is Masiud Hamdam’s chapter drawing an association with commedia dell’arte. Anestis Vasilakeris presents how visual narration functions and Hrant Khachikyan highlights performance activity’s presence in unlikely places beyond the theatrical space.

This volume continually redirects conceptions of the role of performance throughout the Eastern Mediterranean. While post-secular analysis often relocates Church ritual for a more generic gaze, Tivadar Palágyi confirms the anti-theatrical relationship in the Byzantine, quoting St John Chrysostom’s view that ‘This is not theatre here, and you are not sitting now in order to look at actors and to applaud them. There is spiritual learning here’. Audience relations with dramatic impact and theatrical solemnity continue to elicit a tentative, uncertain relationship with applause recalling this reverent, or restrictive past. David Rotman provides the intercultural antidote to the Byzantine Chrysostom through the performance of public sermons which played a key role in maintaining Jewish culture within pagan, Christian, or Muslim majority communities. Cem Behar returns sacral understanding of the dervish experience, insomuch as this can be known outside the Mevlevî order’s continued performance of these rituals in private. This is further explored by Ehud R. Toledano, who reveals highly theatrical healing rituals.

This volume is highly recommended for its breadth, practical methodologies, and reference value.