<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Hi Phelim, your story moves me really, and as Christy said,<i> </i></span><i><font style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" color="#330099"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">"so that instead of quickly reading, quickly
appreciating, and then moving on to the next thing (of which there
always seem to be so many) as I usually would do, the space is suddenly
not only vastly open, but is also very still and deep </font></font><font style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" color="#330099"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> and alive</font></font><font style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" color="#330099"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">."</font></font></i><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
<br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Some weeks ago I experienced a very similar feeling. I had spent some 8 months caressing the idea to have Sunni Brown (Gamestorming=visual thinking+facilitation+creativity+meetings,...) giving a workshop in Bilbao. We had her finally with us and a group of 25 passionate people anxious with the learning experience. We had got to have it organized in Eutokia, a one year old council "social innovation" place... and the same council was supporting the closure of Kukutza (a self-managed community place that had been since year 1998 growing with creativity and activism, </span><a style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2VieT5ksyo">see this lip-dub below to take a taste of the spirit in Kukutza</a><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> if curious). <br>
<br>Just the day before our workshop started, the news came: police got to Kukutza to desoccupy it. </span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Lots of riots happened </span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">during 2 days, with some friends and acquaintancies suffering them on the street,... as we were enjoying our great workshop. </span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Kukutza -t</span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">he building- (no way the spirit!) was demolished...</span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
<br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><font style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" color="#330099"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">I was really moved and felt out of place. But, on the other hand, I felt totally on my</font><i><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">"own place of truth"</font></i></font><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">. (Something like now, not being phisically in Chile, but totally doing what I feel I must do :-). Many people of the group were also really moved, and there were some that had come from other towns and had no idea about all what was happening... </span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
<br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Eventually, after doubts and mixed feelings, I got to know clearly that it was my duty to hold space for the workshop and take care of people. Then beautiful things emerged. People had conversations on Kukutza, many were sharing the same feelings as myself and needed to gather and "do something". I just held space, listened, cared, expressed my own feelings,... We finally got to do something that alliviated our pain: we painted a pannel saying "people from the Gamestorming workshop supporting Kukutza" with lots of energizing drawings done by many hands and distributed it via Twitter and blogs.</span>..<br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><br>Small action outwards but very big one inwards (as individuals and as a group).</span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Phelim, I´m sure your feelings and doubts are widely shared in your team and in the opera house (when you say </span><i style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">"I ask myself what am I doing not down on Wall street but inside an
opera house doing a piece about activism and protest portrayed by
singers with amazing voices. Is this just decadent?"</i><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">). And I can understand you quite well...</span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Who knows, maybe someone ex-presses them aloud, conversation starts and something really beautiful is born, outwards, inwards, wherever...</span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
<br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Now in Mundaka (just the contrary as in Olmué, I guess) little by little days are shorter, water colder, and we spend less and less time swimming in the sea... dear spingtime!</span><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
<br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Best dives,</span><br><br><div><div style="color: black; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); color: rgb(0, 102, 0); font-weight: bold;">Eleder</span><span style="background-color: rgb(204, 204, 204);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); font-family: arial;"><span style="background-repeat: repeat; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="color: black;">B<span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">u</span>M</span><span style="color: red;">31</span></span></span></span></b></span><br>
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); font-family: arial;"><span style="background-repeat: repeat; font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">Mind Mapping<span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">-</span></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">Open Space Technology</span>-<span style="color: rgb(180, 95, 6);">Creativity</span></span></span></b></span> </div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: white; color: rgb(7, 55, 99);"><a href="http://www.burumapak.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">http://www.burumapak.blogspot.com</a> (eus) <a href="http://twitter.com/Eleder_BuM" target="_blank">@Eleder_BuM</a> (Twitter)<br>
<a href="http://www.in-fluyendo.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">http://www.in-fluyendo.blogspot.com</a> (esp) <a href="http://www.flowandshow.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">http://www.flowandshow.blogspot.com</a></span></span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: white; color: rgb(7, 55, 99);"><a href="http://bm31-liburuak.blogspot.com%20/">http://bm31-liburuak.blogspot.com</a> </span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: white; color: rgb(7, 55, 99);"><a href="http://www.bilbohiria.com/gaika/berbaz">http://www.bilbohiria.com/gaika/berbaz</a> </span></span> </div>
<br><br><br><br><br><br>2011/10/19 Phelim <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:phelim@mac.com">phelim@mac.com</a>></span><br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
Dear Raffi, Harrison, Michael, Suzanne, Christine, Peggy, Karen, and all, how great to hear from you around the world.<br>
<br>
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:<br>
<br>
“could an opera make us stand up for the truth?”<br>
<br>
(Links here to the publicity and poster:<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/news/features/detail.aspx?id=3624" target="_blank">http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/news/features/detail.aspx?id=3624</a><br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/news/features/detail.aspx?id=3674" target="_blank">http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/news/features/detail.aspx?id=3674</a> )<br>
<br>
“Satyagraha”: At that time in NYC no one knew what the word even meant! How times have changed.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
Now just three years later we are remounting the production whilst an open space/Satyagraha movement breaks out around us and worldwide.<br>
<br>
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%”.<br>
<br>
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?<br>
<br>
“Wherever it happens is the right place.”<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
As Gandhi sings in the opera (in words from the Bhagavad Gita)<br>
<br>
“These are the Athletes of the Spirit"<br>
<br>
Love<br>
<br>
Phelim<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
________________________________<br>
<br>
I generally pick up emails only at the beginning and end of the working day. I am currently aiming to respond the following day. If it is urgent please call me on 07956 187298.<br>
_____________________________________<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.improbable.co.uk" target="_blank">www.improbable.co.uk</a><br>
@openspacer<br>
<br>
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</blockquote></div><br>