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Between Letter and Spirit: The Ontology of Jewish Performance

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dc.contributor.advisorLevin, Laura
dc.contributor.authorSchwartz, Shira
dc.date.accessioned2021-07-06T12:41:39Z
dc.date.available2021-07-06T12:41:39Z
dc.date.copyright2021-01
dc.date.issued2021-07-06
dc.date.updated2021-07-06T12:41:39Z
dc.degree.disciplineTheatre and Performance Studies
dc.degree.levelDoctoral
dc.degree.namePhD - Doctor of Philosophy
dc.description.abstractThis dissertation is an ethnographic and auto-ethnographic study that focuses on the discursive, gestural rituals and performance practices in the orthodox Jewish community in Toronto, Canada over the last decade. It explores how the written law factors into an oral tradition, a script not passed on by bodily surrogation alone but in the form of guidebooks, performance manuals and legal texts. We have learned from Judith Butler and others how we perform cultural and ideological scripts; performance theory has taught us how scripts are passed down generationally through oral traditions and the repertoire. Diana Taylors bookThe Archive and the Repertoireargues the vital role of performance gesture, spoken word, movement, song, dance, etc. in storing and transmitting cultural knowledge. What distinguishes this methodology from Taylors and others is that it asks how does performance differ in a cultural context where those performance scripts are not implicit, but written? In this project I focus on the scripts central to the religious and cultural life in orthodox Judaism. Indeed, these prescriptions seem to compel their own transgression. The scriptand the performance are passed down, and what results is a sort of contest between them. This dissertation argues that the archive and the repertoire were never meant to line up that their efficacy relies precisely on their mutual disconnect.With disidentification as a major theme and throughline, I look at various sites of more progressive enactments of orthodoxy in orthodox communities, which, in some cases, include overt subversions. These phenomena are not a turning away from orthodoxy but rather a recreating of customs often characterized as orthodox, which construct new avenues for embodied performance, mindful enactments, and community formation. In this dissertation, I pose the questions: How are identities formed and agencies acquired through failing to meet a standard or perfectly match a picture? How does this Sisyphean process of striving for the impossible, in the words of Haym Soloveitchik, produce music that is better than it can be played? (73)
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10315/38429
dc.languageen
dc.rightsAuthor owns copyright, except where explicitly noted. Please contact the author directly with licensing requests.
dc.subjectPerforming arts
dc.subject.keywordsperformance
dc.subject.keywordsperformance studies
dc.subject.keywordsperformance theory
dc.subject.keywordsperformance art
dc.subject.keywordstheatre anthropology
dc.subject.keywordscultural studies
dc.subject.keywordsJewish studies
dc.subject.keywordsritual performance
dc.subject.keywordsJewish performance
dc.subject.keywordstheatre archeology
dc.subject.keywordsJewish culture
dc.subject.keywordsJewish history
dc.subject.keywordsobject theory
dc.subject.keywordsperforming gender
dc.subject.keywordsdreidlich
dc.subject.keywordsmikveh
dc.subject.keywordswomen in Judaism
dc.subject.keywordswomen in Jewish law
dc.subject.keywordsPassover
dc.subject.keywordscultural dress
dc.subject.keywordsHalacha
dc.subject.keywordsshidduch dating
dc.subject.keywordsperforming orthodoxy
dc.subject.keywordscharedi
dc.titleBetween Letter and Spirit: The Ontology of Jewish Performance
dc.typeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation

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