[OSList] Satyagraha, Opera and Wall Street.

Mon Nov 21 07:52:21 PST 2011

Hello all . 

I have been off this list for a couple years as I needed to focus on some
other priorities . but then I began to miss the wonderful people and ideas
that get exchanged here.  So I started reading again, and was pleased to see
this chat about Satyagraha, as I had the pleasure of seeing the HD video
version last night. 

Phelim .. 100 bows to you for bringing this to us.  I found the production
to be very powerful and surprisingly - for something that was not emotional
in a conventional sort of way - it moved me to tears.  

I particularly admired your courage in directing so much stillness in the
actors. I'm guessing that this required great restraint and trust on your
part, and might not have been too easy for the actors, either. J But the
feeling of deep conviction and courage in non-action in the production
supported the music and the message so beautifully.

Is there any chance of an audio recording of this company?  The voices were
just gorgeous.

Again . Phelim . thank you and congratulations.

Marty

www.onemomentmeditation.com

From: oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org
[mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] On Behalf Of
icataiw at ms69.hinet.net
Sent: Sunday, November 20, 2011 11:59 PM
To: World wide Open Space Technology email list
Subject: Re: [OSList] Satyagraha, Opera and Wall Street.

Phelim,

Greatly appreciate your reflections on the NOW and Satyagraha.   I shared it
with friends in the US and got the following information (sadly too late to
tune in).

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.

Congratulations to all of you!  And may there be more...........

Gail

Dear Raffi, Harrison, Michael, Suzanne, Christine, Peggy, Karen, and all,
how great to hear from you around the world.

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

-- 

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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