COURSE OBJECTIVES: The course aims to get students to know and understand the ritual performances and their relationship with the theatre, so as to:

become able to recognise and interpret the ritual performances  which they encounter in everyday life, or which are present in theatrical texts and plays as well as in visual recordings (e.g. cinema), and

Use these forms as sources of inspiration, so that they can use them creatively in theatre and other performing arts.

LEARNING OUTCOMES: Upon completion of the course, the students know in depth the notion of ritual – as the common component of the archaic/atypical forms of theatre. They understand the range of rituals (magic/religious/secular/political) and the relationship between ritual and theatre through the presentation and analysis of examples from Western and non-Western societies diachronically. They develop critical thinking and reflection through their contact with theoretical texts on ritual from the perspective of Theatre Studies and mainly of Social Anthropology. They learn to respect difference, diversity and multiculturalism in art, to recognize and appreciate anonymous collective ritual creations as equivalent. Their contact with this (pre)theatrical form serves as an inspirational starting point for applications/creations in the field of theatrical and performing arts, in educational-learning processes and in social activities.