A 4-part Interdisciplinary Conference Series on the Relationships between Religion and the Arts, organized by Prof. Mark Kligman (UCLA) and Dr. Ruthie Abeliovich (The University of Haifa)
Part 3: Religious Dramaturgies
This session explores historical and present-day liminal dynamics of the Kol Nidre. The very nature of the Kol Nidre’s incongruencies and inner tensions will be examined within the Yom Kippur prayer between absence and presence, and between performance and loss. Contemporary practices provide examples of ethnographic and performative explorations of the liminal moment that not only connects the secular with the sacred, but also bridges between the congregants and their gender\sexual identity.
Presenters:
“Kol Nidre as Prologue: Performative Tensions”; Yair Lipshitz (Tel Aviv University)
“Queering the Sacred Performance: The Kol Nidre Prayer at Reform Jewish Congregation in Tel Aviv”; Elazar Ben-Lulu (Ariel University)
Laura Lieber (Duke University), Discussant
This 4-part online conference aims to foster an interdisciplinary dialogue on the performance and artistic creativity of “Kol Nidre” across historical periods, aesthetic forms, mediums and cultural contexts. We seek to gain fresh perspectives on the audio-visual entanglements of the performance of the “Kol Nidre” prayer. Focusing on its various artistic iterations within popular culture, as well as its numerous adaptations, we aim to rethink the theatricality and musicality of the ritual, untie the affective qualities of the ritual, explore its social performances and analyze how its inherent dramaturgical structures configure communities.
Additional conference date for these 90 minute sessions include: December 12th, starting at 9:30am PT | 12:30 ET.
Register here for December 12th session.
This event is made possible by the Lowell Milken Center for Music of American Jewish Experience at The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, and is part of the DYBBUK project at the University of Haifa, that has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement No. 948150). It is co-sponsored by the UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies. Additional support is provided by The International Forum for Jewish Music Studies, Cantors Assembly, European Cantors Association, Jewish Music Forum and the UCLA Center for the Study of Religion.