By Shion Yokoo-Ruttas
Last September, I found myself spontaneously being on stage, taking part in a dance audition for an upcoming performance project. I did not aim nor obtain the position I auditioned for since the project looked for a dance coach, preferably without any previous relation to performing arts as an art form. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the people’s attention being on stage, feeling pleasure and discomfort simultaneously. Eventually, this audition turned out to be an unofficial and unintentional audition for another project, “Lucky Charm.”

“Lucky Charm” is a piece of contemporary performing arts created and directed by Karolin Poska with Kanuti Gildi SAAL. The latter is a contemporary performing arts centre in Tallinn, which co-produces art together with other institutions and artists. It organizes performative art festivals. After two-month-long rehearsal process in Tallinn, including one week spent in Czechia, our performance premiered on 10th of April, 2023 at Kanuti Gildi SAAL. This was followed by two more performances there, one in May at Tartu’s Uus Teater during the performing arts festival “Switchover”, and one in June at Helsinki’s Kiasma Theatre for the festivals “URB” and “Baltic Take Over.” Two more performances are planned for the coming October also at Kanuti Gildi SAAL. Following is the official description of the performance:
In her new performance Karolin Poska is a self-proclaimed anthropologist who investigates the world around her and her own hunger for supernatural forces. Life can be quite terrifying and people would do anything to avoid hidden threats. Do crystals help to take care of the family’s health, an astrologer to reveal self-image, tarot cards to warn about the future, does getting out of bed with the right foot manifest a better day or knocking three times on the wood create an apparent sense of security?[1]
As often the case of the non-national theatre (not founded or funded by the state) in Estonia, the creative team is relatively compact: an author/choreographer/performer, two performers, a dramaturg (an advisor and co-thinker of a director), a sound artist, and a lighting designer. Even though I was a mere performer on the paper, the actual expectations from a performer in this field extend to generating ideas, developing concepts, composing scenes, and even building up the stage and props and cleaning up, besides rehearsing and performing. Therefore, a performer plays an active role in the creating process with less responsibility compared to an author/choreographer.

During the rehearsal periods from February to April mainly in Tallinn, we have tried out plenty of potential elements of the performance, relying on existing superstitions and books on related topics and the first-hand experiences obtained by calling fortune-tellers, visiting a tarot card reader, an aura reader, and a conference of Estonian Witches Association. Props, too, gained great importance, just as in prevailed spiritualism and occultism.
During the rehearsal process, I spent approximately a week at an artistic residency in a small village in Czechia to intensively work on the project with the team, living together and constantly thinking about the performance distancing away from the daily noises. After all, most of the scenes selected to be used in the final form of the performance came into being in the last week before the premiere, discarding most of the materials we had tried out and collected during the preceding two-month rehearsal process. A physically demanding expressive process was transformed into a presentation of ritual practices with a hint of humour. The scenes primarily rely upon the props such as Himalayan salt lamps, bells, dowsing rods, a giant ball as a pendant, and a collage of old embroidery works. With the help of these objects, we invented our rituals to practice on the stage, following a set of rules also created and agreed on for the performance’s sake, at least in my understanding.


Here arises an ontological question of theatrical art and the practice of pseudo-rituals: what are the signs standing for during the performance?
A folklorist and a semiotician belonging to the Prague School, Petr Bogatyrev (1976: 34), suggests: “The spectators behold these real objects [props], however, not as real material objects, but only as a sign of signs, or a sign of material objects.” In a direct sense, a sign of signs is presented in a theatrical art form as an imitation or re-creation of social reality outside the theatre; however, by placing it in the context and delivering it as such, significations would multiply, be formed, and layered. Just as grape juice on stage would go as red wine in classical theatre, our made-up rituals do refer to rituals in our social reality outside the theatrical art as a sign of signs. Yet, it is remarkable that some material objects serving as theatrical signs are identical to these in the non-theatrical context.
Our contemporary theatre researcher, Erika Fischer-Lichte (1992: 130-131), claims three possible features of a sign of signs in theatre: 1) material identity with signs, which a sign of signs refers to, 2) mobility or interchangeability with other sign systems, and 3) polyfunctionality, out of which performers determine a particular function.
I find that the use of the dowsing rods in “Lucky Charm” is worth noting regarding the upper-mentioned qualities of a sign of signs in theatrical art. The scene would be best described as an opportunity for moderate audience participation with performers’ initiative and guides. Some say that the rods can search for substances, including underground water, which we brought out by searching the space, as well as their function to answer closed questions by showing specific patterns of movements when questions are posed. One of the performers played a role of a phone psychic on stage, providing the opportunity for the spectators to call or message her during the scene. The dowsing rods held by the other performers answered to the posed questions. I am generally sceptical about the function of this kind of artifact. Nonetheless, the rods seem to function as a medium for their holders to answer the questions as they wish.
The rods present a complete material identicality, differing from the example of grape juice, simultaneously referring to the material objects in use outside the theatrical situation. The interchangeability with other sign systems does not appear clearly in this scene since it illustrates the actual functionality of the things by utilizing them as fortune-tellers. The polyfunctionality remained and was not imparted. Thus, the scene was open for individual interpretations. The last feature did not require impartation in a strict sense partly because of the use of objects identical to the daily situation outside the theatre.
Our pseudo-rituals with authentic material objects assumably provided the audience with an opportunity to ponder on spiritualism, occultism, superstition, and the social positions of these. The message conveyed may vary greatly accordingly to each audience member. As a medium of these messages, I obtained experience as a performer and semiotic student.

References
Bogatyrev, Petr 1976. Semiotics in the Folk Theater. Matejka, Ladislav; Titunik, Irwin R. (eds.) Semiotics of Art: Prague School Contributions. The MIT Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England.
Fischer-Lichte, Erika 1992. The Semiotics of Theater. Indiana University Press: Bloomington and Indianapolis.
[1] Karolin Poska Lucky Charm s.a. https://saal.ee/en/performance/lucky-charm-1776/