Ritual4Return Women’s Rite of Passage
All are invited to attend and participate in the Women’s Rite of Passage for members of the Ritual4Return 2026 Spring Cohort.
Ritual4Return, supported by multiple NJCH grants, is a 14-week course through which returning citizens engage with and explore the many aspects of their own experiences getting into, through, and out of prison.
Reading from a wide variety of source materials and then trying to understand them through dialogue, writing, movement exercises, and theatrical devising techniques, participants explore — individually and collectively — themes like Home, Sin, Judgement, Punishment, Exile, Bondage, Trauma, Grief, Freedom, Repair, Forgiveness, Justice, and Homecoming.
The process culminates with a one-time-only public ritual marking and celebrating the end of incarceration and the beginning of an individual’s new identity within the community. This rite of passage is the centerpiece of a one-day gathering that aims to extend the conversation to family members, loved ones, and other community stakeholders who care about the impacts of incarceration.
Ritual Schedule
12:30 pm Doors Open
1:00pm Pre-ritual Audience Workshop
3:00pm Ritual4Return
5:00 Community Dinner
Tickets are free, and audience members play an active role in welcoming returning citizens back to the community: https://www.njpac.org/event/ritual4return-a-homecoming-rite-of-passage-for-returning-citizens/. The event will be held in the Chase Room at NJPAC.
Ritual4Return was awarded the 2024 Stanley N. Katz Prize for Excellence in Public Humanities. Read more about the program and award at https://njhumanities.org/katz-prize-2024/.
