PRS is an international, bi-annual, peer-reviewed and open-access journal devoted to expanding and deepening discussion about the performed and performative dimensions of religion and spirituality, as well as the religious and spiritual dimensions of performance. The journal promotes rigorous scholarship about the social, cultural, philosophical, and theoretical implications of religion and spirituality as aspects of theatre, the arts, everyday life, politics, language, history, and the sciences. PRS views ‘religion’ and ‘spirituality’ from a global perspective and as inclusive of secular and atheistic currents of thought and practice.
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This project presentation is based on the translation resources I developed as part of the University of Glasgow’s Impact Development and Evaluation Fund around Passion Day. Passion Day in Naro (Agrigento, Sicily) is an all-day event which re-enacts the Sacred Representations (now UNESCO-protected) — from Christ’s condemnation to death to his resurrection. The event is hosted at the former monastery of St Agustine’s church which is transformed into a large open-air theatre. A number of local theatre companies from all around Sicily are invited to participate in the event. In 2025 14 companies (over 400 actors) took part. Each company performs a scene from the Passion of Christ (14 scenes in total). The script is adapted from Adam’s Ransom (1750), also known as The Martyrdom of Jesus Christ, which was written by the Sicilian playwright, Orioles Philip.
In international comparison, Czech society emerges as strongly secularized. While we can discuss whether this could be the result of a too narrow conception of measuring religiosity, it can also be taken as a fact that we intend to use positively. This article presents new tools for the detection of religiosity focused on spiritual and transcendental dimensions. Therefore, it is an advantage to verify them on a population in which a significant part declares secularized attitudes, without, however, an empirically-based finding that its needs of spirituality or some transcendental overlap have been lost. Czech society was led to brutal atheism in the time of the totalitarian system. For a part of society this concept works as a simple label or short-cut. In the post-secular era, however, in addition to traditional religiosity, growth in various areas of civil spirituality or transcendence, which we conditionally refer to as "lived", plays an important role. Their measurement is the focus of our article, which brings a number of positive experiences from the pilot verification of the new instrument on a representative sample of the Czech public (N=811). The constituted scales show very good consistency and reliability. Extending the measurement of religiosity to other dimensions offers the possibility of a more subtle typology, which leaves the original one-dimensional axis of "religion – atheism" as obsolete and opens the way to a more differentiated approach to religion as a multidimensional continuum, which is more fittingly indicative of the post-secular religious practice in society. Although it is primarily an exploratory and methodologically oriented research, the content consistency of the typology is also confirmed by the correlations with other indicators of relevant values and attitudes.
The paper explores the interplay of performance and caste in the ritual festival of Thirayattam in Kerala in South India. This day-long festival features the performances of Thirayattam, in which Dalit (“lower caste”), performers transform and dance as deities in a state of possession trance. In events of the festival, there is ritual action that signal inversion of caste and elevation of status of the Dalit performer. This paper looks at the process of ritualization in Thirayattam, with framework of ritual as practice propounded by Catherine Bell. It takes a close look at the production of ritual environment through strategic action of participants of the ritual complex. The paper studies specific ritual activities to argue that interaction of ritual participants with the space structures the ritual environment in Thirayattam as sacred, pure and hierarchical. The paper argues that the strategic action involved in ritualization builds an implicit disposition of caste-affirmation.
This article examines women’s sacred musical composition from the Protestant Reformation to the present as a form of performative resistance that challenges theological, artistic, and social hierarchies. Through analysis of key figures, from Elisabeth Cruciger to contemporary artists such as Lauren Daigle, we explore how women’s sacred performance creates transformative ritual languages that mediate between individual and collective divine experience. The study reveals how women in different global contexts, from the Corn Ditties of enslaved American communities to contemporary gospel, use sacred performance to build cultural counter-narratives that resist marginalisation and create new spiritual epistemologies. Drawing on performance studies, ritual theory, and feminist musicology, this research demonstrates that women’s sacred music functions both as devotional practice and as sociopolitical intervention, transforming traditional liturgical spaces into places of empowerment and theological re-imagination.
Columbia Cemetery is the oldest cemetery in Boulder, Colorado, receiving its first interment in 1870. It is also a hub for live performance, hosting at least two significant promenade productions in recent years. In this paper, I explore Monica Weller’s 2020 MFA Dance thesis project, The Liminal Heart, and Historic Boulder’s 2022 edition of Meet the Spirits, both performed on the grounds of the cemetery in the month of October. In The Liminal Heart, Weller and her fellow dancers offer a devastatingly personal meditation on grief and loss, inspired by the untimely death of Weller’s husband; the performance featured a collective memorial audience members were invited to contribute to, and—for many—marked the first live performance they’d attended since the appearance of COVID-19. Meet the Spirits, by contrast, is a biennial dramatization of some of Columbia Cemetery’s most famous occupants, played by amateur actors, and timed to coincide with Halloween. Equal parts historical interpretation and family-friendly haunted trail, the popular event serves as a fundraiser for a local historic preservation organization, and seeks to draw attention to their ongoing preservation of the cemetery. While very different in tone, The Liminal Heart and Meet the Spirits share surprisingly similar objectives: to rebrand the cemetery as a vibrant and welcoming communal space for the living, and to nudge the living and the dead into closer contact and more meaningful conversation with each other. In this article, I argue that both performances transform a static, sporadically visited cemetery into a dynamic, living memorial and meeting space, posing interesting questions about if and how we may ethically and lovingly (re)animate our dead.
Since 2017, the Church of Norway has introduced new theatrical strategies and embraced spectacular aesthetics in its masses. Introduced initially through “carnival services,” these practices have since expanded into what I have termed “pop-masses”, which incorporate elements from popular culture to create events blending sacred and secular themes. Through case studies of Harry Potter-masses and Les Misérables-mass, this article explores how these liturgical innovations challenge traditional minimalist aesthetics in Norwegian Lutheranism and foster new modes of theological engagement. Beginning with carnival services, I will examine how these new pop-masses have become significant events in Lutheran congregations in Norway's largest cities: Oslo and Bergen. Through this analysis, I aim to shed light on the development of a new dramaturgical approach within the Norwegian Church that integrates popular aesthetics into religious rituals.
Creole Religions of the Caribbean from Vodou and Santería to Obeah and Espiritismo: An Introduction by Margarite Fernàndez Olmos and Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert (Edmund Lingan); Puppet and Spirit : Ritual, Religion, and Performing Objects. Volume I Sacred Roots : Material Entities, Consecrating Acts, Priestly Puppeteers edited by Claudia Orenstein and Tim Cusack (Pallama Ghosh)
This essay considers the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius as a kind of philosophical performance manual. It argues that an appraisal of this text in terms of performance is one key way in which to understand the originality of the Meditations. Throughout much of the Meditations, Marcus surveys his own experience and the things occurring around him and attempts to create a kind of mental space (an “inner citadel”) from which to “correctly” perceive these experiences and events. But it is also clear that this “inner citadel” is a space that can only exist inasmuch as it is enacted, moment by moment. This essay follow’s Pierre Hadot’s claim that the Meditations offer a window into a set of “spiritual exercises” which would later be developed within a Christian context by Ignatius of Loyola. However, this essay argues that the Meditations differs considerably from the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises conceived thirteen centuries later, which envisions an ongoing dialogical relationship with a personal God rather than an inner dialogue set against the impersonal governance of Nature. It is this performative construction of the self, set in adversarial relation to the self-experiences of that self, that separates the Stoic spiritual experience from the Christian tradition that would eventually supplant it. In a contemporary secular context, however, it is very much this performative approach to aligning one’s identity with an all-encompassing world view, without encumbrance from organised religious structures, which ensures the continuing currency of the Meditations today.
Editoiral introduction, Performance, Religion and Spirituality 5.1
Experiencing Connection: Bridging the Gap in Interpersonal Exchanges on Stage
This article presents interdisciplinary practical research focused on co-performer connection, which refers to the deeply gratifying sensation derived from a profound interpersonal exchange between performers. While several performing arts practitioners, such as Stanislavski (1937/2008), Nachmanovitch (1990) and Zarrilli (2009), have attempted to unravel what co-performer connection exactly is and how performers can achieve it, there are still an abundance of theories regarding how to achieve it, with a myriad of names associated with this phenomenon. Drawing on interdisciplinary practical as well as theoretical research, this article contends that co-performer connection happens indirectly through active engagement with the evolving performance. Following this statement, it redefines the functioning of co-performer connection as a responding to the game of the third space. Furthermore, by drawing a parallel between my redefinition and the ideas of philosopher Leo Apostel, the article argues that dedicated interaction with the performance-in-progress is spiritual in nature and can therefore evoke a spiritually transformative experience.
Spiritual Archives. Communication, Healing and Politics of Performance
In this essay, I present the concept of “spiritual archives” as a relevant and innovative tool to analyze and critically understand performance's political power and healing potency. I argue that this concept contributes to the discussion about our ways of categorizing sources of knowledge, which means that the spiritual archives are an episteme, a legitimate way to obtain information about the world. First, I develop the concept in the context of the discussion about “valid” sources of information for research in Performance Studies, which comprise, so far, the archive and the repertoire. Then, I explain four characteristics of spiritual archives by applying the concept in an analysis of my performance art piece Medium. I end by explaining human communication in the context of spiritual archives and their political potency.
Sacred groves are very important elements of Hinduism, and take on different characteristics in different parts of India, just like Hinduism does. However, due to political, cultural or social processes, some of these forests have been converted into temples, and the rituals practiced there have been brought closer to the dominant Brahminical cult, with an evident loss to the richness and cultural diversity of Indian spiritual practices. Those processes can mostly be viewed as Templisation, Sanskritization, and Hinduization. In this short essay we examine the consequences of those procedures upon the sacred groves of northern Kerala, and especially upon the ritual of the teyyams, living gods who inhabit these woods.
Visions of Inner Life: The Performative Techne of Spirit
This chapter considers the performative techne of spirit by viewing inner life through the lens of visual images. The first section links key ideas: inner life and spirituality, contemplative practice, and the performativity of visual images. The second section discusses cultivation of inner life as embodied practice. The third section offers readings of three genres of visual images, which represent inner life. The techne of visual images mediates the sense of inner life cultivated in contemplative practice by giving that sense sensual form and negotiating between inner self and outer world. The first genre of images is the infinite regress of representation. This image performs inner life as a kind of theatre in which the cognitive mind sees itself seeing itself, never perceiving the world outside the mind directly. The second genre performs the meditation posture associated with Buddhist and Yogic traditions. This familiar genre performs the external signs of an embodied inner life. The third genre depicts a Buddhist monk wearing an EEG cap. This genre answers the phenomenological question of how we can know the insides of other people by promoting a materialist, technologically mediated view of the mind embodied as the brain.
Care has been theorized in the context of equality and ethics in academia, with an effort to dismantle the gendered interpretation attached to the concept. In this paper, I study care ontology of Korean shamanism to investigate the ambivalences in care performance that complicates rather than nullifies the gender dimensions. The history of survival embedded in Korean shamanism shows the establishment of peripheral authority in the near-death realms, which is often occupied by women. I conduct a case study of Jeju shamanism that responds to the island’s historical trauma whose justice work is still in process. The harsh survival stories that Jeju women and shamans share indicate that care functions as ontology and performance, bringing healing power regardless of religious doctrines. I examine Lamentations of the Dead, an act in Jeju shamanic ritual, to observe closely its ambiguous qualities that facilitate interaction with discursive space and time. I attend to the performative aspect of the shamanic ritual, whose improvisational necessity enables radical care uncharted by governmental censorship.
British playwright Tom Stoppard’s radio play In the Native State (1991) and its stage version Indian Ink (1995) attest to Stoppard’s fascination with the country in which he spent his childhood. The play originated with his idea of wanting to write about the circular situation of a poet who sits for a portrait, while writing about the painting. Set in both colonial India and contemporary Britain, the play deals with the themes of colonialism, love, and art. Even as critical discussions of the play invariably highlight the political and cultural tensions between the East and the West, the elaborate discussions of classical Indian aesthetic theory found in the play have not yet been analysed in depth. Specifically, the spiritual significance of the rasa theory and its implications for Stoppard’s later work on consciousness has seldom been studied. The present essay argues that the play Indian Ink marks the beginning of Stoppard’s continued engagement with the aesthetic and religious philosophy of ancient India. Here, in particular, may be seen the emergence of the idea of a Universal Consciousness that transcends space and time, which closely resembles the Vedantic conception of Brahman.
Chaitanya and the Evolving Shades of Devotion in Pada Kirtan
This article endeavours to explore how the implication of Bhakti, or devotion (which is the basic premise of Vaishnavism) has evolved in relation to the change in the depiction of Radha and Krishna’s relationship in its enactment or performance, i.e. Kirtan from pre-Chaitanya to post-Chaitanya era. Chaitanya instrumentalised the ushering in of Bhakti cult in Bengal (sixteenth century A.D.) to protect the marginalised section of the society from the oppression of the orthodox Brahmins and the tyrannical proselytizing moves of the Muslim rulers of Turkish origin reigning in Bengal. Chaitanya revised the ancient Vaishnava tantra that already existed in Bengal and brought it under the canon of Bhakti which seemingly altered the concept of devotion in the Vaishnava order. In the process, Chaitanya emerged as a hero among his followers who initiated the worship of Chaitanya. Thus, in this context, the credo of devotion was redirected to a hagiographic alley that challenged the earlier democratic fervour prominent in the sect. Chaitanya’s conceptualization of ‘Radha-Bhava-Dyuti’ and ‘Prembhakti’ impacted the depiction of Radha and Krishna in Kirtans. Radha’s positionality shifted from being an enamoured woman expressing her carnal passion, and the prototype of the female entity of Nature to an abstract representation; a term denoting a certain ‘bhava’ (feeling) of lovelornness. The notion of devotion altered from the equal surrender in their organic, transcendental union (based on the sexo-yogic philosophy of tantra) to a relationship of subservience and lordship. The visceral, erotic love lore of Radha-Krishna was subjected to erasure and replaced by absolute submission to the will of the Almighty to satisfy the conservative outlook of the mass followers towards religion. This article aims for pragmatic approach to the chronological changes in the historical factors, the philosophical concepts and its evidencing body of performative literature that occurred parallel to one another. The fact that the implication of devotion has changed over time and that Vaishnavism has acted as a counter-current to mainstream religious wave in Bengal which can be derived from the study of its complexities.
Ben Zeller, ed: Handbook of UFO Religion (Ammon Allred) Kevin Whetmore, ed: The Oberammergau Passion Play: Essays on the 2010 Performance and the Centuries-Long Tradition (Jenna Soleo-Shanks)
Staging “Lamentations” and “Triumph”: New Methods of Understanding Two Ancient Egyptian Dramatic Texts
Archaeological evidence for the content, context, and intention behind ancient Egyptian dramatic texts is extremely limited. In rare instances, performance iconography can provide clues. On the walls of the Temple of Horus at Edfu, illustrations of dramatic scenes appear in relief alongside the text of what translator H. W. Fairman entitled “The Triumph of Horus.” Dating to approximately the second century BCE, the Edfu text represents a dramatic reenactment of the legendary battle between the gods Horus and Seth for the Egyptian throne, a tradition attested on royal documents more than fifteen hundred years earlier. For this reason, Fairman and others have dubbed “The Triumph of Horus” the oldest play in the world. In December of 2019, theatre students at an American university performed a new staging of “The Triumph of Horus” as well as another dramatic text, “The Lamentations of Isis and Nephthys,” as translated by R. O. Faulkner. The intention was to determine if embodied practice could reveal new ways of understanding and transmitting knowledge about ancient Egyptian dramatic performance. This paper will discuss the development, rehearsal process, and outcome of this production, incorporating research methodology from the field of performance studies.
The Routledge International Handbook of Spirituality in Society and the Professions. Edited by Laszlo Zsolnai and Bernadette Flanagan. London and New York: Routledge, 2019. (Reviewed by Deirdre O’Leary Cunningham.) The Challenge of World Theatre History by Steve Tillis. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. (Reviewed by Dennis Sloan.) Over the Threshold, Into the World: Experiences of Transcendence in the Context of Staged Events by Kim Skjoldager-Nielsen. Stockholm: Stockholm University, 2018. (Reviewed by Samuel T. Shanks.)
Seeing is Believing: COVID-19 and Televised Hinduism
The idea of darshana, implying seeing and being seen is central to the Hindu religious interaction between the devotee and the divine – an extrusive rhythm of sight which brings the two into actual contact. From religious sculpture and idolatry, to calendar art, to ritualized performances, the emphasis on the visual in Hinduism can hardly be overstated. With temples being locked down and religious gatherings forbidden in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic in India, this important aspect of Hindu religious life was severely affected. The sights and sounds of ritualized Hinduism were attempted to be reinforced through the public instructions to clap or light candles in honor of those at the frontline of the pandemic attack. This, however, failed toengender a spirit of religious communion in the absence of an effective visual paradigm. Further, in the light of the pre-lockdown socio-political scenario encompassing anti-CAA-NRC protests across the country, leading to sporadic riotous outbreaks, keeping the Hindu religious fervor alive became a political necessity. Against this backdrop encompassing pandemic and politico-religious unrest, the decision to re-run the religious epics on State-sponsored television was taken on March 27, 2020, whereby not only were both the Ramayana and Mahabharata retelecast, they also received record-breaking views. This paper attempts to compare the socio-political contexts of the first telecast of 1987-89, itself against the backdrop the Ram Janmabhumi movement and, 2020 re-telecast during the COVID-19 lockdown, so as to foreground the importance of the ‘visual’ in Hindu religious life, whereby the televised darshana becomes a means to foster the spirit of community and hope, and therefore, to reinstate the how this ‘visual’ paradigm is maneuvered to the attainment of specific goals of religious indoctrination. The central argument remains that televising Hinduism is a result of an emphasis on the importance of seeing and being seen as a crucial means of devotee-divine interaction, which itself becomes the epistemological foundation of religious life in times of socio-political crises.
Front matter of PRS Vol. 3, No. 1.
Field Reports on Religious Life in the Time of COVID-19
We have for you a set of short field reports on the ways in which religious (and, in one case, theatrical) life has continued and changed in the time of the pandemic. These reports shed light on the resillence of religious life across the world. This pandemic has been an assault both on the bare biological basis of our lives and the social fabric that makes them livable. Taken together, these reports shed light on how that assault has highlighted bothour common humanity and our social diatance from one another. They also hint at new possibilities for the ways that our religious and spiritual lives might be lived and peformed in the future, ways we are only beginning to understand.
Psychedelic Spirituality and Thinking in Performance
In this article, I seek to explore resonances between psychedelic spirituality and feminist epistemologies as a starting point for bringing psychedelic studies (and more broadly, consciousness studies) into conversation with performance. In surveying the field, I will deploy the concept of a “cosmic affect,” a term I use to refer to a sense of interconnectedness with the universe, sometimes articulated as an experience of “ego-death” (dissolution of the self). I am interested in tracing the circulation of “cosmic affect” through forms of “psychedelic” aesthetic, cultural, and knowledge production. Here, I foreground a desire for the near-impossible task of articulating or translating profound, transformative, and numinous, but often ineffable and non-discursive experiences and insights into language. I explore how “psychedelic” performance texts such as Gloria Anzaldúa’s work and Diana Reed Slattery’s Xenolinguistics: Psychedelics, Language, and the Evolution of Consciousness approach the performance of consciousness through narrative, discourse, and writing, by foregrounding its intermedial elements, as well as the alternative and multiple ways of knowing made accessible by psychedelic experiences. My curation of the collection of sources cited in this article into a psychedelic archive traces the contours of the field of psychedelic performance studies, with a focus on spirituality, and also situates performance at the interface of spirituality and neurocognitive research.