Ask Madonna. She did the same thing on her Vogue tour. There's archival video evidence.

This is actually pretty common amongst stage performers. It calms.last minute jitters and helps focus that nervous energy amongst other things.

So no, not oppressive in and of itself. You don't have to pray. You can just have a quiet moment to yourself to center and focus or not participate at all.

If it's required as a condition of employment, then it's oppressive and it also violates civil rights based on the First amendment. OSHA and other emoloyment regulatory agencies will be very upset with you.

That's gonna be a jail response, not a civil litigation response, so I tend to not believe this one off the bat.

It's pinging my "that's a bit squirrelly, yeah?" radar. So something in there is askew. I don't know what
Yet. Will investigate.

Smells like potential bullshit. We might have to deploy the hound.