Ritual

Catalog description

This course explores the relationship and translation between ritual and art. How have artists documented, re-enacted, and re-imagined these rituals in their own work? How can you, as a contemporary maker, incorporate these practices into your own creative projects and thinking? What is ritual? Why do human beings enact rituals to create meaning around significant life events? How do rituals define culture, nations, communities, and personal identity? Starting with the self, we’ll explore the role ritual has played in your life and the life of your family. How have holidays, national anthems, and religious observances contributed to your ideas about ritual? Expanding our scope, we’ll research/contrast rituals performed around seminal human events: birth, coming-of-age, marriage, and death. How have diverse cultures/nations throughout history marked moments of transition and identity through ceremonies of dance, music, film, oration, performance, costume, and food?