Ritual

A duck hunter rises before the first light of day to don camouflage and venture out into the swamp, loyal dog at his heels. Tears and river water stream down the face of a newly “reborn” Southern Baptist. A jazz band leads a family second line from the cemetery, transitioning from dirges to “When the Saints Go Marching In”—a celebration of a life well-lived. These are just a small cross-section of the rituals that have underscored life in the South for more than a century—the rituals that connect us to the land, to each other, and to those who came before us.

Louisiana Public Broadcasting’s newest docuseries, Ritual, sets out to explore, honor, and contextualize traditions such as these. “What we hope to achieve with the show is a historic understanding of how rituals function in terms of mechanisms of survival, resistance, and joy—culturally,” explained Ritual Co-Producer Avery White. The majority of the episodes are focused on the Southern African American experience, meaning that historic issues like slavery, white supremacy, and climate change are often at the forefront of the narration, providing important context for the traditions that emerged because of—or despite—these oppressive systems.

“What we hope to achieve with the show is a historic understanding of how rituals function in terms of mechanisms of survival, resistance, and joy—culturally,” —Ritual Co-Producer Avery White.

“These rituals really emerged as these indications of human resilience,” said White. “And it’s this beautiful diamond that comes from suffering, from pain, from oppression. Humans have always managed to have these extraordinary rituals. And those rituals really constitute our existence—[they] keep us holding hands with our ancestors, [they] help us have a context for current society.”

Ritual will premiere on PBS’s “Voices” YouTube Channel, which specializes in short documentary-style content. The first episode, focused on Black burial rights, will premiere on February 14, with a new ten-to-fifteen-minute episode to be released each month for the duration of the eight-episode series. Other historic rituals the series will explore include the connections between river baptisms and rock ’n’ roll music, the Haitian Independence Day/New Year’s Day soup joumou, traditions around honoring the dead, and hunting and decoy carving.

To illustrate such vivid traditions, the production team is expending considerable time and resources to gather and include a plethora of “really killer archival footage,” and in general maintain an attentiveness to making the show artful, beautiful, vibrant, and poetic—much like the traditions it presents. “These episodes are intended to be like love poems,” White explained. “They’re really, you know, offerings of admiration towards Southern culture, and the complexity of how culture functions in history.”

Tarriona “Tank” Ball, frontwoman of the Grammy-nominated, New Orleans-based band Tank and the Bangas and a culture bearer in her own right, will host the series. Before becoming a spoken-word poet and now musician, Ball was raised in the Baptist church, coming from a family “stacked with pastors”. The experience meant so much to her that at one point, she wanted to become a pastor herself. “So for her, ritual is a very personal subject,” said White. “It’s evolved from the very ritual-oriented religious experience that she had, into now performing musically for the whole world.”

Besides that deep personal connection, White describes Ball’s presence as host as “wildly magical and fun”—which is ideal, considering Ritual is part of a larger shift at PBS towards connecting with younger and more diverse audiences. “I think that’s what’s so exciting about this project is that it’s rooted in a sense of new-guard storytelling, and perhaps a new face to come for PBS at large,” White said, citing conversations she and Ritual’ producer Emma Reid are having about the future of the network, and its place in the ever-evolving world of entertainment. “We hope it’s going to start looking more like this kind of programming, which is hip, inclusive, really thoughtful, beautiful. And PBS has always had really thoughtful programming—you know, things like Sesame Street, which was incredibly inclusive and groundbreaking,” White said. “But we hope to bring a whole new level of artfulness and relevance that will kind of rock the world in terms of, you know, show-stopping content.”

“These episodes are intended to be like love poems,” White explained. “They’re really, you know, offerings of admiration towards Southern culture, and the complexity of how culture functions in history.”

Reid emphasized that particularly in our ultra-digitized era, young people tend to be more disconnected from their communities and traditions than past generations were—and Ritual aims to provide a means of reforging those connections, while hopefully bringing Millennial and Generation Z audiences into the fold of those who watch and appreciate PBS. “Younger people are more and more losing connection to, you know, religion, rituals, the sacred, this community,” Reid said. “And they’re kind of wanting to reconnect with their past, and as we’re becoming more isolated, to learn about these rituals is kind of a way to reconnect—which I think a lot of young people are looking for right now.”

“We’re losing this sense of community, and of orientation within our communities,” White added. “And these rituals steady us. They ground us in our community and in our realities, and they give us joy.”

Ritual is funded in part by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which established new Regional Digital Centers of Innovation at PBS, designed with the intention of creating new content focused on uplifting BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) voices, a responsibility Reid and White do not take lightly. “Every step of the way, we’re held accountable to that,” said White. Whether that means hiring Black-owned catering companies or Black hair and makeup artists; creating significant space for BIPOC voices in each episode; or having community members do sensitivity reads on scripts before filming to prevent blind spots—Reid, White, and the whole production team, from those on set in Louisiana to those in the PBS offices in Washington D.C., are committed to “walking the walk” when it comes to supporting the communities the series celebrates. “We have people who are part of that community who make sure the story is ethically told, and the facts are straight,” White said. “I’m very proud of that part of our production.”

These efforts are also part of ensuring that this addition to the historic register is a complete and accurate one. “This show is about adding a page to the history books for the South,” White said. “There are some real deep misconceptions about the South that I’ve observed as a Southerner in other parts of the country—that perhaps we’re not as sophisticated, and we’re not as advanced in our culture. And I think that a big part of what’s cool about this project is that we’re like, ‘No, look how incredibly complicated and extraordinary and artful and diverse our cultures are in the South, and the power that emanates from Southern culture today.’” 

Episode 1 of Ritual premiered on PBS’s “Voices” YouTube Channel on February 14 @pbsvoices.