The Role of Theatre, Rituals and Religious Ceremonies in Improving the Concept of Spiritual Tourism (Case Study: Iran)

Spiritual tourism and fulfilling its promotion and development is one of the challenges of this recently blooming industry during the last decade. Such matter must be reconsidered by the society inside the country on one hand, and promoting and organizing such approach internationally on the other. To improve and create variety in this industry and helping to introduce and develop the spiritual culture of this country therefore, finding innovative and interesting methods seem to be a major necessity. The religious-cultural potentials of the country and religious rituals and theatrical performance and national religious semi-theatres in particular are some of the most significant instances which could be under instruction and short and/or long-term planning of tourism industry managers. By investigating these arts and rituals, their features and the way they could be applied in this survey, in this article we would introduce and then explain each item and discuss their potentials afterwards. So what is emphasized in this article is that the Persian theatre, rituals and Persian Ta’zieh in particular are so potent and have their cultural and artistic functions which could be included in grand programs based on a precise, systematic plan and contribute to their rapid growth and becoming one of the major tourist spots and attractions. In this respect, we introduce and respect such rituals and their characteristics and features to our citizens and other nationalities to recognize spiritual tourism in particular. We aim to propose approaches and suggestions in order to recognize, record, organize and collect such rituals in both domestic and foreign tourism. This article has a descriptive-analysis approach based on library documented records.

Keywords:

culture , Rituals , Spiritual tourism , Theatrical performance arts