Arts & International Affairs: Volume 2, Number 2 | Page 175

The universal ethics of public performance have puzzled us for centuries
from Platonic dialogues to Vedic texts. The ancient Indian Sanskrit
dramaturgy Natya Shastra (figuratively, treatise on performance), sometimes
termed the fifth Veda, both prescribes and proscribes rules for performers
and audiences. A dramatic performance fosters rasa, or an ethical awareness
of one’s consciousness and existence in relation to the story. One of Natya
Shastra’s rules asks spectators to keep their eyes open while striving for
rasa. It is a metaphor for not letting the sentiment goes so far that the mind
and body are dulled. Natya Shastra is a theory of communication. It can be
interpreted as a treatise on performative dialogues, albeit one that strives to
produce spiritual bliss.
Performance, dialogues, and deliberations are communicative processes, not
outcomes. The values and consequences of universal ideas and covenants
are unresolved and cannot be resolved through further assertions. Art can
foster dialogues. Whether these dialogues will engender universal ideals
remains a question—in search of a twenty-first century participatory ethic.
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