With The Ritual Season, Gottfarb and his collaborators invite their audience to experience the creation of a secular ritual. This immersive experience transforms Der Betrieb into a space for reflection and contemplation.
Based on established practices rooted in repetition and transformation, the artists perform a formalized ceremony open to a multitude of individual dedications and associations.
In this setting, performers and audience members alike have the freedom to shape the purpose of their actions. For the audience, it's an opportunity to explore personal associations, while the performers let their dedications shape the work. From shattering object fetishization to sacrificing time, confronting energy consumption, and participating in rituals of forgiveness, the variations are as varied as the people engaged.
What rituals are lacking in our lives? Can we revive old traditions, forge alternative pathways and gently guide existing rituals toward a meaningful future?
In a performance spanning five hours daily, four days a week over six weeks, the audience enjoys the freedom to come and go as they please, and establish a reoccurring individual encounter with a ritual.