Contemporary Performance Network
A Resource for Performing Artists, Scholars and Audiences.
Performance and Religion
Information
Profile of the official working group "Performance and Religion" under the auspices of International Federation for Theatre Research. Get active membership here: https://www.firt-if
Members: 24
Latest Activity: on Sunday
Statement of Purpose
Performance and Religion
Working group of the IFTR (approved in Osaka, August 2011)
Mission Statement
This working group seeks to examine the interconnection between the forms, institutions, practices, traditions and impulses of religion and theatrical performance. We seek ways of examining how performance and religion have come into conversation, cooperation and conflict, both historically and in the present.
We wish to place our work at the intersection of the scholarly traditions of theatre studies and the study of religion. Both are committed to the critical inquiry of their material, and both are committed the joint participation of scholars from all corners of the world. This group is open to members from all national and cultural backgrounds, and it interests itself in the world’s religious, spiritual, and performative traditions.
Both religion and performance are, in our view, sets of social and cultural practices that have a profound and long-lasting importance to those involved in them. Because these practices are so important, we are committed to a nonsectarian inquiry of them. We assume no particular faith or religious affiliation for our members or our work.
Topics of interest might include (but are not limited to):
• The use of performance within religious practices (i.e., ritual or spirituality) and its relationships to secular performance
• The interactions between structures of religious institutions and theatres, politically, economically, or legally
• Traditions of religious antipathy towards the theatre, and vice versa
• The secularity of performative aesthetics and ways in which this has been challenged
• Attempts to bridge religious divisions by means of performance
• The nature of the theatrical spectator compared to the religious worshipper or congregant, as well as the theatrical performer as compared to the religious practitioner or celebrant
• The transcendent or supernatural in performance
• A comparative analysis of religion and theatre as phenomenological and/or epistemological systems
• Religious performances, including as an ecological engagement or as a “theatre” of the oppressed
Those who are interested in more information or possibly joining the IFTR working group for active membership should contact the converners: Joshua Edelman and Kim Skjoldager-Nielsen at performanceandreligion@gmail.com
Discussion Forum
This group does not have any discussions yet.
Comment Wall
Comment
-
Comment by Neil Ellis Orts on March 5, 2013 at 11:44am
-
This seems to be an inacctive group. Still, if there are any people here at all, I'd like to draw your attention to my work here in Houston which has roots in faith and religion. My performance company blog is a good place to start: http://ortsperformance.blogspot.com/
-
Comment by Grace Exhibition Space on May 6, 2011 at 1:34pm -
The LUOTAIN comment sound very beautiful. AABier are sisters who collaborate and explore the mystery of connected souls.
I hope to see 'Girl in a Bathtub'
-
Comment by Grace Exhibition Space on May 6, 2011 at 1:31pm
-
From Jill McDermid:
I just made a performance in the Transmuted Festival in Mexico City where I carried a cross on my back from the Zocolo main square to the X-Teresa Contemporary Art Musem. I had two angel assistants helping.
Inside the museum, I stood on the cross, put a metal crown of thorns on my head and pierced a bag of black blood to drip down my face and body. I climbed down from the cross to the front of a stage and drowned myself 3 times.
I walked under a frescoe of God and Angels and all and had a conversation with God, asking him why he had a son and not a daughter. I climed a ladder to be closer to God, took a long red ribbon from inside of me, and used the ribbon to tie a nun to a cross and held it over a light shining to God. I placed the cross & nun on the light and left.
It was very emotional and I was crying while talking to God. I didn't expect to cry, it just came out.
Religion is such a powerful concept when you have been raised in a religious household. It hits our cores so deeply, and it's so personal as to how each of us relates to our religions.
-
Comment by LUOTAIN-CrossArtsCompany on December 14, 2010 at 6:50am -
Currently working with a project 'The Girl in the Bathtub' which is inspired by the art of Butoh. It is a sensorial examination of 'twin'souls (dont know if the right expression for the word). The piece is based on a story and thesis which were made by our company's member, writer Essi Kummu. She created it during the rehealsals, through watching us dancing butoh midst all the old scenic elements.
It has been very interesting to deal with these matters of soles connected to each other. As a dancer and an interpretator of them I somethimes felt like they really existed, these characters, souls, I felt strongly connected to them.
Something I considered very normal and natural.
Funny!
© 2013 Created by Caden Manson (Network Curator).
You need to be a member of Performance and Religion to add comments!