Between Play and Prayer - Anita Hammer

Between Play and Prayer launches Spiritual Performance as a term to cover all human performance which in some way refers to creating the presence of beings or entities from a realm that transgresses the sensorial. This notion covers a great variety of performative genres, ranging from funerary services, spiritualist performances of deceased souls, to spiritual readings. This broad and deep approach to a range of performances is answering a renewed craving for spirituality in contemporary culture. By way of performance theory and aesthetic theory, concepts of faith, belief, experience, play, prayer and theatricality, are set in motion when proposing the necessity of experiencing such performances on their own terms. In depth descriptions of a variety of performances in Norwegian and New Zealand local contexts show the necessity of experiencing and understanding an existential quality in Spiritual Performance. Faith, not credo, is at the heart of spiritual practice. The book represents a new, innovative and trans-disciplinary approach to spirituality in performance. The reading of this book is a must for scholars in the field of theatre- and performance studies, ritual and festival studies, for scholars of religion, and anyone interested in the understanding of spiritual practices.

Anita Hammer is an Associate Professor of theatre studies at the The Department of Cultural Studies and Oriental Languages at the University of Oslo, Norway.

"The reader cannot fail to admire the attention to detail of Hammer's research, as well as her honesty, frankness, and even what she calls love, here defined as 'another form of truth… subject to the use of theatricality'." - A. Robert Lauer, University of Oklahoma