Finding a Way Back: Reimagining Ritual and Trance in Post-Soviet Russia
Arts March 19, 2026 Thomas Riccio
A three-month intercultural performance collaboration with Metamorphosis Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia, during the summer of 1992 used trance techniques, rhythm-based training, and ritual archaeology to reconstruct pre-Christian Slavic performance practices. The resulting production, Shadows from the Planet Fire, positioned ritual not as nostalgic revival but as a living technology for addressing cultural trauma and existential displacement. The work establishes foundational principles for what the author terms "Techdigenous" practice—the synthesis of Indigenous wisdom traditions with contemporary performance contexts—and argues for ritual as a necessary consciousness technology in an era of ecological crisis and cultural fragmentation.