[Dialogue] Satyagraha, Opera and Wall Street.

Sun Nov 20 18:01:20 EST 2011

Lynda,
The Metropolitan Opera is doing a series of simulcast opportunities for us out here in the "wilderness."
Satyagraha was simulcast yesterday and I couldn't go. It is having an encore in local theaters across the country on Dec. 7. According to the internet it will be at the Brassfield Cinema 10 and Greensboro Grande Stadium 16 in Greensboro.
Anyone not in NYC...or near...look up Metropolitan Opera live in HD on Google. Faust is 12/10/11.
There are 11 opportunities during 2012. I've been to several. 
Went to Seigfried a couple of weeks ago. It is better than being in New York. The camera gets up close and personal with the singers. Plus they go back stage and talk with folks.
Look it up.
Have a great Thanksgiving.
Priscilla

On Nov 20, 2011, at 2:51 PM, Lynda Cock wrote:

> I just forwarded this message to my two special theater friends:  my cousin
> Laley Lippard who is completing her MFA in dramatic directing at
> Northwestern and to our friend Dipankar Murkerji and wife who are the
> artistic and literary directors at Pangea Theater in Minneapolis. (They are
> college friends of Jono's from India.)
> 
> I first learned of Satyagraha from Bishop Jim's book on Gandhi by the same
> name with the subtitle The Matchless Weapon.  
> 
> I imagine you had a special connection to the video of the production from
> your friend.  Do you know how it is available since I doubt that I will get
> to NYC to see the opera and that it may be a few years before it comes this
> way?
> 
> Thank you for sharing this informative letter and links with us.  
> 
> Lynda
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net
> [mailto:dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of icataiw at ms69.hinet.net
> Sent: Sunday, November 20, 2011 4:41 AM
> To: dialogue at wedgeblade.net
> Subject: [Dialogue] Satyagraha, Opera and Wall Street.
> 
> A friend and colleague from the UK who is in the theater business, is
> currently in New York City preparing for his second appearance at the Met.
> I saw a video of the production 3 years ago.  This one at this particular
> time portends to be even more powerful.  Don't miss if if you are anywhere
> near!
> 
> Gail
> 
> 
> 
> From Phelem:
> It is an amazing time to be here in NYC. As you may remember three years ago
> we came here and mounted our Philip Glass opera "Satyagraha" which some of
> you saw. At that time we had a great ad campaign which was almost cheeky in
> it's proposition:
> 
> "could an opera make us stand up for the truth?"
> 
> (Links here to the publicity and poster:
> 
> http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/news/features/detail.aspx?id=3624
> 
> http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/news/features/detail.aspx?id=3674 )
> 
> "Satyagraha": At that time in NYC no one knew what the word even meant! How
> times have changed.
> 
> Glass's piece is a thirty year old opera about Gandhi's Satyagraha campaign
> which first emerged and was enacted in South Africa. The Satyagraha protests
> involved the burning of record cards and the Newcastle march changed the
> rights of Indians in South Africa forever and was the beginning of the
> movement which brought India out from beneath the oppression of the British
> Empire.
> 
> At the time of first doing the Opera I was so drawn to it because of the
> personal connections to working with open space and it's power to help
> "peace break out". I was excited by how I saw that Gandhi's idea of
> Satyagraha meant how leadership, activism and protest starts with work on
> the self. The intangible "inner work cooking" that if we are lucky can
> happen whilst opening space for transformation and self organisation. All
> these are open space practices. All these are Satyagraha practices. A
> discipline of forged vulnerability or "soul-force", "truth-force",
> "love-force." I felt it was important to do the piece as it re-imagined and
> stated the true nature of what had become mistranslated and interpreted
> incorrectly as  "passive resistance" an unhelpful term to truly explain
> Gandhi's concept.
> 
> Now just three years later we are remounting the production whilst an open
> space/Satyagraha movement breaks out around us and worldwide.
> 
> The irony that our production will be playing to the Metropolitan Opera
> house audiences whilst Occupy Wall Street is so near cannot be avoided! I am
> fascinated to see how the audience will respond to the piece this time
> around, especially as many of them no doubt could well be considered to be
> part of the "1%".
> 
> I have also found myself feeling how strangely complicated the politics of
> this piece playing in the opera house is for myself and here of course the
> fifth principle seems all the more important and helpful to me.  I ask
> myself what am I doing not down on Wall street but inside an opera housed
> doing a piece about activism and protest portrayed by singers with amazing
> voices. Is this just decadent?
> 
> "Wherever it happens is the right place."
> 
> I have found myself in the past questioning during extreme times what is the
> point of doing theatre? This thing that can seem so frivolous whilst world
> events seem so overwhelming. However it is in theatre that I first
> experienced the transformative nature of space, atmosphere, silence and
> emergence. True theatre holds space for the imagination, dreams and the
> future when events, despair or beliefs could close that space down. This is
> the frontier I personally have known since childhood where a true
> conversation with the unknown and chaos can be had (as David Whyte says) and
> the imagination can be the first step towards opening space beyond my own
> prejudice and limiting beliefs into possibility.
> 
> So I have realised how important this piece is to perform right NOW because
> it manages to communicate what is behind or beneath a Satyagraha protest:
> this is the power of Spirit. How important it is to speak from my own place
> of truth. To be present in this a-causal connection with world wide events
> and to let theatre do what only theatre can do: to communicate the
> mysterious nature of the spirit that exists out there as the space opens. To
> speak tangibly of the spirit that so easily can be dismissed or made
> invisible in media coverage or polarised reactions. To use art to do what
> its purpose
> is: to say the unsayable, speak the ineffable.
> As Gandhi sings in the opera (in words from the Bhagavad Gita)
> 
> "These are the Athletes of the Spirit"
> 
> Love
> 
> Phelim
> 
> www.improbable.co.uk
> @openspacer
> 
> 
> --
> Gail West
> ICA
> 3F, No. 12, Lane 5, Tien Mou West Road
> Taipei, Taiwan 111
> 8862) 2871-3150
> SKYPE   gwestica
> www.icatw.com
> 
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Priscilla H Wilson
Pris at TeamTechPress.com
913-432-2107
www.teamtechpress.com