There are many times that I am wrong, and this is one of them.
I went back and looked at your posts and re-read your comments. You say that
you were not accustomed to a newcomer deriving such assumptions about
yourself. At the same time, I was not used to such a greeting. Yes, your
comments were flip, but I took them to be more than they were. You brought up
many points that I do need to seriously consider in the continuation of my
discourse. My responses to you were harsh, ugly, and totally uncalled for;
and for that I am deeply sorry.
I do not want to engage any further in our exchange of hostilities. I started
it, and now I would like to end it. Again, I was the one that brought our
discussion into a personal realm. It was wrong and petty of me, and I can
only promise you that I won't do it again - preferring to keep the rat-list a
forum for artistic discussion.
Here are some answers to your last posting to me that I hope you take well.
1. Yes, I do work with children - mostly it is in the context of conducting
workshops for them ranging from simple voice and movement exercises, to
clowning, script analysis, and all sorts of other stuff.
2. Yes, I do direct - I have taken a hiatus from directing from which I am
just now emerging. I had grown upset with most of the processes and social
effects of standard theatre -- believing the separation of performers from
spectators/audience to only reinforce the banality of everyday life no matter
how wonderful those few hours of magic were. I searched for something more
immediate, more on the level of actual dialogue between the theatre makers
and the accidental participants in the theatrical event.
I think I have now found something that is more along the lines of what I was
searching for - and I know you how you feel about art always being a
representation of life… but I have found that has not always been the case.
There was a Russian director right after the Revolution named Oklopkhov who
incorporated shamanism into his performances and was able to induce mass
transformation in his audiences, becoming actual participants in the dream of
the play. Also, there was a French radical group of artists that existed from
the 1950's through the 1970's named the Situationist International whose
entire premise was a redirection of creative energies used in creating "art"
into life. They were by no means a marginal group either, for they were the
main instigators behind the May student /worker uprising of 1968 - their
ideas and practice was dynamic enough to inspire a revolution based on
premises never before introduced to artistic or political discourses. And
finally, there has been a whole slew of contemporary radical writers and
practicing artist who base their entire work upon the ideas of the SI and the
anthropological view of human consciousness in pre-sedentary,
pre-"civilized", states (emerging from the research presented at The Man, The
Hunter symposium, Chicago 1963-66?).
I mention these things because they are the foundations from which I am going
to base my return to theatre, not as a "director", but as a theatre-maker.
Currently I am talking with a company about engaging in some "theatrical
actions" during Burning Man this summer, and planning is already under way
for me to do a similar project with a company in New York.
So, there you have it. I wrote these things directly to you in hopes of
healing things up on a personal level. If you feel that you would like me to
"publicly" do so on the rat-list, then you can either forward this message or
write me back to let me know, and I will do accordingly. Again, I am deeply
sorry for my postings to you, and I offer to you my most sincere apologies.
David.