Description
Book SynopsisThis is the first book to explore the notion of sacred places from the perspective of performance studies and presents both practice-as-research accounts alongside theoretical analysis. It is multidisciplinary, bringing together religious studies, philosophy and anthropological approaches under the umbrella of performance studies. By focusing on practice and performance rather than theology it also expands the notion of sacred places to non-religious contexts.
This new collection offers a multi-layered and contemporary approach to the question of sacred sites, their practices, politics and ecologies. The overarching critical framework of inquiry is performance studies, a multidisciplinary methodological perspective that stresses the importance of investigating the practices and actions through which things are conducted and processes activated. This is an innovative perspective that recognizes the value, function and role that practices and their materialities have in the constitution of special places, their developments in culture, and the politics in place for the conservation of their sense of specialness.
The questions investigated are: what is a sacred place? Is a place inherently sacred or does it become sacred? Is it a paradigm, a real location, an imaginary place, a projected condition, a charged setting, an enhanced perception? What kind of practices and processes allow the emergence of a sacred place in human perception? And what is its function in contemporary societies?
The book is divided into three sections that evidence the three approaches that are generally engaged with and through which sacred places are defined, actualized and activated: Crossing, Breathing and Resisting. There is a strong field of international contributors including practitioners and academics working in the United Kingdom, the United States, Poland and Australia.
Primary interest will be students, academics and practitioners studying or working in theatre and performance studies; fine art; architecture; cultural and visual studies; geography; religious studies; and psychology.
Potential for classroom use, and very strong potential for inclusion on reading lists as a secondary text for undergraduate and postgraduate courses in fine art, live art, performance art, performance and theatre studies.
Table of ContentsIntroduction
The Performances of Sacred Places: An introduction
Silvia Battista
Part I – Crossing
Chapter I
A place that stands Apart: Emplacing, re-imaging and transforming life-events through walking-performance in rural landscapes
Louise Ann Wilson
Chapter II
Bordering the sacred: The labyrinth as non-site
Kris Darby
Chapter III
In peril & pilgrimage: Exploring the experience of suffering in journeys endured
Simon Piasecki
Part II – Breathing
Chapter IV
Acting atmospheres: The theatre laboratory and the numinous
Ilaria Salonna
Chapter V
Holding out: The sacred space of suspense and sustainable ethics
Annalaura Alifuoco
Chapter VI
The introspective theatre of spirits read Foucault: The digital space, the inner gaze and the sacred landscape
Silvia Battista
Part III – Resisting
Chapter VII
Performing on the tightrope: Sacred place, embodied knowledge and the conflicted history of colonial modernity in the Welsh and Khasi relationship
Lisa Lewis
Chapter VIII
Performing memorials as intervening grounds
Ruth L. Smith
Chapter IX
Sacred space and occupation as protest: Jonathan Z Smith and Occupy Wall Street
Joshua Edelman
