[Dialogue] Satyagraha, Opera and Wall Street.
Wilson Priscilla
Pris at TeamTechPress.com
Sun Nov 20 21:28:14 EST 2011
Thanks. Yes, we're just finishing up the series of events with the Festival of Faiths. A lot of people involved by now. This is the fifth year.
If you're interested you can look at what we did at: www.festivaloffaithskc.org
Would love to see you both, but don't know when.
Have a good Thanksgiving
Priscilla
On Nov 20, 2011, at 8:22 PM, Lynda Cock wrote:
> Thanks so much! Brassfield is right close by!
>
> Have you done your Festival of Faith this year? What a beautiful gift to the
> world you have given through this ongoing project.
>
> Isn't this amazing to have such programs available in the hinterlands? Ah,
> technology!!!
>
> Thinking of you with care and would love another visit if you are this
> way!!!
>
> Lynda and John
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net
> [mailto:dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of Wilson Priscilla
> Sent: Sunday, November 20, 2011 6:01 PM
> To: Colleague Dialogue
> Subject: Re: [Dialogue] Satyagraha, Opera and Wall Street.
>
> 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=36
>> 24
>>
>> http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/news/features/detail.aspx?id=36
>> 74 )
>>
>> "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
>
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Priscilla H Wilson
Pris at TeamTechPress.com
913-432-2107
www.teamtechpress.com
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