October 17, 2026 | Amy Brenneman
"Devised Ritual: Embodying Inner and Outer Landscapes"
Offered by Harvard Office for the Arts & Harvard Divinity School Facilitated by Amy Brenneman (AB ’87, MRPL ’26)
What are the rituals that ground us?
What are the rituals that no longer serve us?
What new rituals are longing to be incarnated?
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Workshop Dates: January 20, 21, 22, 2027
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Application Deadline: November 20, 2026
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Admission Notification: December 1, 2026
Devised Ritual: Embodying Inner and Outer Landscapes is a three-day experimental creative workshop exploring the intersection of theater, religious ritual, personal narrative, and sacred imagination.
Workshop Description
Ritual is one of humanity’s oldest technologies for making meaning—intentional structures through which we mark transitions, express belonging, grieve deaths, celebrate lives or witness one another’s journey, to name just a few.
But what happens when inherited rituals no longer speak to us? What happens when a need for ritual emerges before there is an established tradition to meet it? What are the new rituals needed for our unprecedented times?
This workshop approaches ritual as both ancient practice and creative innovation. Participants will playfully investigate the relationship between inner and outer landscapes, individual and collective experience, traditional structures and new creations. Drawing from religious and spiritual traditions, myths, dreams, theater-making, and personal lived experience, we will consider how the perennial structure of traditional ritual can serve as a sturdy scaffolding for expressing something new, personal and timely.
Our time together will culminate in each participant creating and offering an original ritual offering. These need not (and mostly likely will not!) belong to any established religious traditions but will emerge from the participant’s own unique expression and use of materials, gestures, words, objects, and structures. You will always have the option to work privately—no performance required!
But what happens when inherited rituals no longer speak to us? What happens when a need for ritual emerges before there is an established tradition to meet it? What are the new rituals needed for our unprecedented times?
This workshop approaches ritual as both ancient practice and creative innovation. Participants will playfully investigate the relationship between inner and outer landscapes, individual and collective experience, traditional structures and new creations. Drawing from religious and spiritual traditions, myths, dreams, theater-making, and personal lived experience, we will consider how the perennial structure of traditional ritual can serve as a sturdy scaffolding for expressing something new, personal and timely.
Our time together will culminate in each participant creating and offering an original ritual offering. These need not (and mostly likely will not!) belong to any established religious traditions but will emerge from the participant’s own unique expression and use of materials, gestures, words, objects, and structures. You will always have the option to work privately—no performance required!
Workshop FAQ’s
January 20, 21 and 22, 2027
Multifaith Room, Swarz Hall, Harvard Divinity School. 42 Francis Ave.
The workshop is open to undergraduates, graduate students and members of the wider Harvard community. It is particularly suited to:
- Students of religion interested in how established ritual forms might be reimagined
- Theater-makers, performers, writers, artists, and other creatives interested in rooting their work in sacred intent
- Interfaith and interspiritual practitioners
- Activists wishing to create new ritual practices for collective expression
- Anyone curious about the role of ritual in contemporary life
- Space is limited to 15-20 participants.
- Link for application here.
- Deadline for applications:
November 20, 2026 - Admission Notification:
December 1, 2026
About the Facilitator
Amy Brenneman is a working artist whose creative practice explores the intersection of embodied performance, ritual, and the study of religion. She received her BA from Harvard in Comparative Religion and completed her Master’s in Religion and Public Life at Harvard Divinity School in 2026 where her capstone project focused on the Trickster archetype as a source of wisdom and revelation.
She is an award-winning actress and producer in film (Casper, Heat, Your Friends and Neighbors), television (Judging Amy, Private Practice, The Leftovers, The Old Man, Dept. Q) and in theaters around the country (Lincoln Center Theater, Geffen Playhouse, Playwrights Horizons, Arena Stage.) Her original autobiographical multi-media piece, Overcome, is currently in development at the American Repertory Theater.
Her interest in ritual is both scholarly and practical. Like many, Amy has increasingly been called upon to create ceremonies for people seeking meaningful ways to mark significant moments outside of established religious communities. Her experience includes creating marriage ceremonies and memorial services, as well as developing a blessing ceremony for her children in collaboration with an Episcopal priest and Rabbi Sharon Brous that honored her family’s multiple religious traditions. Her work grows from a conviction that ritual is not simply something we inherit. It is also something we can thoughtfully and intentionally create—and that artists may have an increasingly important role to play in helping communities imagine new forms for marking the experiences of contemporary life in a genuinely pluralistic and multifaith society.
She is a longtime student of Kim Gillingham and Creative Dreamwork (https://www.creativedreamwork.com) in the tradition of Marion Woodman.
Amy is a coalition member of the Faith and Media Initiative, which serves to connect and provide resources to media members in order to support balanced representation of all faiths in entertainment and journalism.