Holy Art

Religion has rather a bad name these days: often cited as the root of all human evil, it is commonly assumed that anyone of any intelligence is an atheist, while Richard Dawkins roams the academy, threatening to arrest religious leaders for crimes against humanity.

Against this, Josh Armstrong, for The Sounding, has decided to explore Judaism. "An aspect that I find fascinating with the Jewish faith is the culture, tradition, and heritage that fills it," begins Armstrong. "So, in looking at Judaism, I am not just referencing the spiritual beliefs but also creating a space for the culture to come forth."

"The work uses reference of the esoteric beliefs which can be found in Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism," he adds. Although he comes from a Presbyterian background, he has been interested in Judaism from an early age. "I was fascinated with the aramaic "avra kedabra" or "I create as I speak."" From this, Armstrong has created an intimate work where "all of the senses are used to create imagery.

While Jewish mysticism has been adopted by the New Age movement, it is firmly rooted in what could be regarded as a pre-scientific mentality. It relies on correspondances, complex textual exegesis and a highly metaphorical understanding of both language and the physical university.

"The esoteric and mystical surrounds the work, numbers of chairs, patterns of string, widths of circles all take their place amongst numerology and symbology," Josh explains.  It is not merely a piece for the initiated, however. "I do not expect the audience members to come with this knowledge nor figure it out." Indeed, The Sounding aims to immerse the audience in a sensual experience.

"The audience is invited to eat and to touch, to smell and to hold. The sound surrounds the audience, in an attempt to make the sound a tangible participant in the event, which becomes ritual as it is repeated."

Armstrong argues that the religious foundations are no barrier to appreciation of the experience "I felt that I needed to find a way to penetrate the notion of me representing a religion through art, and so I have taken S. Ansky's yiddish play, The Dybbuk as a reference and have created the performance through the context of entering into a recreated fiction, the mind of a man obsessed with mysticism."

In other words, The Sounding is at one remove from its sources in mysticism: more about religion, than a religious work of art. Since The Kabbalah itself is controversial, seen by some as atavistic or even fundamentalist, Armstrong is careful not to present a work that is evangelical. "I try not to use that name, and prefer to speak of Jewish mysticism because of the Kabbalah that is known in the media."

This is more than just the nonsense that Madonna peddles, as Armstrong acknowledges. "It is also still controversial within the Jewish community as well. Some still believe that you should be at least 40 years old before you begin to study, though other Rabbis have said that that is not true in contemporary society."

The source material itself warns against a facile engagement with the divine: "The story in The Dybbuk, is based on a young man who studies Kabbalah and by uttering the name of G-d twice, trying to call forth some vast power, is 'destroyed'."

It is a startling choice of source material, both in contradiction to the materialist assumptions of modern culture and challenging the possible uses of religion. The danger is that mysticism could be trivialised by the performance, although the presence of Sigur Arendson, last seen fighting a log at Into The New, promises an embracing physicality to counteract any ethereal associations.