Abstract

Initiating from a discussion on performance as a liminal/liminoid practice that has the potential to create a space in which participants become aware, challenge established assumptions about the self and society, and open the way to social change, and from a discussion on mindfulness as a cultural practice that is also related to awareness and personal and social transformation, this paper intends to demonstrate that performance has a shared mindfulness quality. Although liminality, within the framework of anthropological and performance studies literature has almost unproblematically come to denote something ‘positive’,something that leads to enhanced social justice and mindfulness (in psychology literature in particular), to well-being and compassionate action within the world, I suggest that the degree and direction of this change depend – among other factors – on the moral/ethical considerations to which performances engage participants. Levinas’ thought on ethics as responsibility may contribute significantly to the study of the multiple and often contradictory experiences and meanings that performances, as shared mindfulness practices,generate.

Keywords

Responsibility, Liminality, Intersubjectivity, Ethics, Mindfulness, Intercorporeality

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