On the art of practice and the practice of art

This is purity… honest purity. I can not tell you how I can relate to your thoughts. For the last fifteen years I have been writing plays ABOUT this… not have a way to translate it to the stage.

Every play has the same dilemma— the characters are in search of some new why to express there containment… an experiment maybe… each play ends with they cryoing out to to aloud to live… to come alive on the stage.

I have been writing for performers who can achieve a new level of art but I am not sure HOW to achieve it myself.

Your thoughts?

Coni

I simply want to take issue with the interpretations of some words you use in the context of your explanation and exposition, which present experiential conflicts for me.

“purification” has rather dark implications as well; think Stalin, or medieval christianity. In “practice”, I wonder about the use of figures of speech.

As to “closed doors”, there is accepted canon that certain psycopathic urges are invited in behind closed doors,individually and as a society of people.
Perhaps you’re referring to Tikkun, or turning inward, as nature does in winter. Is there a practice which both allows a turning inward, a time for reflection, and, simultaneously, a meeting with reality as it is, not as something to be explained, but as action? Are these two processes separate and distinct?
And lastly, “vacation” is a nice bourgeois idea; in fact a similar metaphor was proposed by Grotowski et al,a religious one viz: “Holiday”, or “day that is holy”.
“Pilgrimage” was also used to represent a resignation from everyday concerns, the banal, the culture of repression (my term). But deconstructing these concepts in the historical context from which they emerged, it’s clear that they presaged and prefigured an age of horrible passivity and conformity socially and culturally.

I’m sorry, but I take serious issue with another figure of speech you use viz: ” a return to the spine and the reptile that lives in us all”

This is a stretch since it’s scientifically impossible to reverse evolution. Yes, yes, it’s a metaphor, but it’s quite real too…it’s called the limbic brain, and it’s reponsiblility in the brains architecure, is to govern movement of fight or flight. It’s a survival mechanism in time of war. And, it functions well as a primary, a regressive means of facing reality. Perhaps you could elaborate.

Wow, beautiful – even the way this was written. I want to go to this place too, right now!

In response to the first part about the word and the sound, I thought of a book I am just beginning to read, about language – the origins of language and how language primarily emerged as sound, spoken word, and not as written words – the way we often think of it.

“A Mouthful of Air: Language, Languages…Especially English”, by Anthony Burgess.

Today and this past week I have been particularly focused on thinking about language, and how exploring foreign languages has lately been serving to open up my mind and even fuel my creativity as a visual artist. I have been learning (more like “playing with”) Arabic and Mandarin Chinese – not necessarily with the intent of going to a place and conversing successfully with native speakers, but because these languages have a deep and beautiful history, and make use of sounds, expressions and scripts that get my more primal gears of curiosity, play and raw expressiveness turning and churning. When I attempt to produce the unfamiliar sounds of Chinese or Arabic, I feel more like I am singing than simply speaking, or maybe making use of more areas of my mind than I normally would for speaking my native tongue (American English).

Thank you, I was moved by this posting. Now I would like to hear it performed – spoken live. Can someone do an audio recording, please?? And in more than one language.

~CS

@ Stephan Geras:

I welcome your comments and their intention, although I also think that the dangers you are referring to are very far from Domenico’s work. I’m not sure when he’ll have the opportunity to respond, so I will offer a few thoughts…

It seems that the general gist of your comments is that secularism (deeply informed by Marx) has revealed the dangers of religious and mystical thought. Of course I agree that religion and mysticism can be used for violent and even genocidal purposes. On the other hand, so can words like “freedom” and “democracy” and “capitalism.”

There’s nothing wrong with the idea of purification in itself. We are all aware that genocide has been committed based on ideas of “racial purification,” but this doesn’t invalidate the concept of purification in other contexts. Personally I find a lot that is valuable in ideals of asceticism, personal sacrifice, and spiritual annihilation.

Interestingly, a very similar conversation took place on CPf a couple weeks ago, between Lane Pianta and “noform”:

http://www.creativepracticeforum.net/cpf/?p=208

Although the conversations are definitely related, one thing that I think is important about Stephan’s comments is that they really make it clear that the SPIRITUAL is at issue here. We’re talking about the role of spiritual and religious language in secular society.

Words like “purification” or “holiday” (”a day that is holy”) or “pilgrimage” – these are all words that come from a religious context and which theatre practitioners (especially Grotowski) have taken up in secular contexts. Often we are speaking about a kind of secular sacred.

There is nothing “bourgeois” about a theatre practice that takes place behind closed doors or apart from society. Such a practice may not be proletarian – because it produces no commodity – but neither is it bourgeois. I would suggest that it is outside the capitalist economy to some degree – attempting (at least) to create a separate economy, a kind of gift economy or “economy of embodied practice” – to which words like “bourgeois” do not apply.

I suppose the practice could be bourgeois if it were paid for by exploited labor, but in most cases that I know of, it’s paid for by the artists holding other jobs as teachers, waiters, or office workers. Which makes it much closer to a working class practice than a bourgeois one.

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@ Christina:

Great to hear from you!

You can see some of Domenico’s company here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhKtC-pfElE

Also, in terms of the musicality of different languages, you might be interested in knowing about this amazing event which is unfortunately finished (and I didn’t get to attend it myself) but which includes many amazing practitioners who work on song in very deep ways:

http://www.urbanresearchtheater.com/yog/GivingVoice.pdf

Ben, I take your response seriously.
I wanted to point out the inadequacy of language in describing the events Domenico is referring to.
To me, there is work process when writing just as there is when practicing the arts of moving or giving voice or earning a living. And silence is necessary in all work processes, as well as waiting, precision, “self annihalation” maybe, or perhaps disciplined self analysis, and repetition.
Work is an ancient way of coming to knowledge (Sufism). Technique (Greek,original meaning: a return to the “home, the “hearth”)is practice, repetition, testing, review and application of learned principles, the basis of all techne, or “art”.

I think you’ll be interested in this scholar’s thoughts from his work.
He is a ritual studies scholar who began his path working in paratheatrical events with the Polish Theater Lab.
His name is Ron Grimes.
I suggest listening to the the talk linked to below, for starters.

http://sunsite.queensu.ca/memorypalace/garden/Grimes02/index01.html

@Domenico Castaldo
Domenico,
Since 1992, my dramatic writing has on a strange form… I loosely called it METATHEATRE- based on the rough imaginings by Lionel Abel, critic and dramaturg, because every play has the same themes: life is a dream and theatre is life.

Yet, my metadramas have one more dimension— there is usually a desire to involve the audience to a point a of new transformation. Like the Greeks, exultation of the spirit, perhaps, yet in its purest sense.

There are two elements within the actualization of the theatrical presentation that somehow needs to be considered in the development of the text- it has something to with the vibration of SOUND as you say — and something to do with MOVEMENT— and the development of a relationship between the amplitude and frequency of these two elements of the creative practice before the text can be fully developed— thus a primordial relationship for SOUND, VIBRATION and MOVEMENT. Yet, what is it? Until this happens, the playwright remains in a state of theatrical stupor. Locked within his own lie.

Ciao-

Coni

Domenico,
I saw one piece of yours online and was very, very moved by it. I would be happy to email you some of my work. Also, I am friends with a student, a post doc from Rome, Milena and I meditate together. Milena will conclude her studies here and return home in December. Maybe I can let her bring some pieces as well. I am working on SERENELLA an Italian – American opera about truth in art.

Feel free to send me some of your works via email.
Ciao,
Coni

BTW- Your English is fine… Your insights are brilliant.