Dr. Catharine Christof, PhD.
Senior Lecturer in Theatre Arts
Biography
Catharine has acted in several productions for the Royal Shakespeare Company -performing at theaters at Stratford and at the Barbican in London, as well as playing leading roles in many repertory theaters throughout the UK.
She was Artistic Director of the Sacred Performance Project - her company's work has been seen at festivals at Pari in Italy, and at Canterbury and Oxford in the UK. Catharine holds an MA (Hons) in the Study of Mysticism and Religious Experience also from the University of Kent at Canterbury, UK.
Her first full length text was published by Routledge, Study of Religion Series, entitled Rethinking Religion in the Theatre of Grotowski, Oxford, UK: Routledge, 2017.
Dr. Dada is proud to be a Program Officer for Project Welcome Home Troops –teaching an evidence-based form of breathing meditation to Veterans with PTSD. She is currently creating a Theatre of War class for Fall 2018 at LMU.
Education
University of Kent at Canterbury
Ph.D.
Religious Studies
Bristol Old Vic Theatre School
MFA
Theatre
University of Kent at Canterbury
M.A.
Study of Mysticism & Religious Experience
Loyola Marymount University
BA
Theatre Arts
Homerton College, Cambridge, UK
BA
Theatre
Areas of Expertise
Industry Expertise
Accomplishments
Interfaith Seminary, UK
Catharine trained for two years in Spiritual Counseling and Interfaith Ministry, at the Interfaith Seminary, UK.
Affiliations
- British Association for the Study of Religion
- British Actors Equity
Articles
Feminist Action in and through Tarot and Modern Occult Society
La Rosa Di ParacelsoFeminist Action in and through Tarot and Modern Occult Society
Gurdjieff in the Theater PDF The Fourth Way of Jerzy Grotowski
BrillThis article focuses on the links between revolutionary and iconoclastic Polish theater director Jerzy Grotowski (1933–1999), and G. I. Gurdjieff. Grotowski is widely honored in the theater world, and understood to have been involved in creating what have been called spiritual experiences within theater movements of the late twentieth century. His work articulated experiences of the spiritual within the body; achieving a removal of spirituality from ecclesial authorities and a relocation of it within the body of the performer. This article explores the manifold resonances between concepts used in Grotowski’s work and that of Gurdjieff, demonstrating how Grotowski’s transformative theater work shows strong elements of Gurdjieff’s influence. Because of the striking and numerous similarities explored herein, a place can be affirmed for Grotowski as an independent Western Fourth Way spiritual teacher, working in theater.