I’m preparing workshop for the good folks at The New Journey Festival, who have, like the rest of the world, moved their festival to Zoom. I had proposed a performance workshop for their next festival and they accepted it for this online New Story Journey adaptation of the festival. A performance workshop online, particularly one that I had intended to emphasize presence, for crying out loud. So, it’s a challenge. It’s coming into focus.
It is not what I would do in person, but I think it’s going to be okay.
The title is Spiritual Practice and Performance, and it’s going to pull together a lot of things I’ve thought about and practiced (usually in secret) and even wrote about here and there but not extensively. I’m pulling as much of it together as I can fit in 75 minutes. There will be a little bit of scripture, a little bit of theology and a lot of engaging the creative act of performance as a site for theological/spiritual reflection. I’m Christian so the stories and theology I’m exploring features Jesus, but I hope to present it in a way that isn’t completely exclusionary of other faiths or no faith.
I’m looking back on some books that have influenced me and I thought I’d give a very brief bibliography:
Performer as Priest and Prophet by Judith Rock and Norman Mealy, which is long out of print but there are used copies available out there.
Sanctifying Art by Deborah Sokolove
Drawing the LIne: Towards an Aesthetics of Transitional Justice by Carrol Clarkson
Through the Dark Field: The Incarnation through an Aesthetics of Vulnerability by Susie Paulik Babka
No need to rush to order these before the workshop, but I’ll mention this blog post at the workshop for those who want to explore further.
That bibliography looks heady, but I hope we have some fun as we discuss things like stage presence and resurrection and breath and spirit and physical presence and spiritual presence and . . . more!
I hope some of you will be able to check it out.