TAPS 35100 Religion and Performance
This course explores the intersection of religion and performance/theatre through the lenses of performance studies that highlight religious practices, investigate worship practices that incorporate theatrical modes, and examine representations of religion and faith practices in and through secular performances. We will study disparate performances of religion (such as prayer, dances, stage plays, music, and art) that involve major religions of the world and some minor ones. Performance activities allow the experimentation and embodied expressions that can authorize normativity as well as enable transgressions. What this homology of religion and performance ultimately shows is a recognition of their mutual expressive force, infinite creative potential, and the power of human imagination. Students will learn practices of meaning that play on all the chords of the sensorium from where cognition and experience emerge or co-arise.