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<div>Phelim,</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>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).</div>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>The Metropolitan Opera is doing a series of simulcast
opportunities for us out here in the
"wilderness."</blockquote>
<blockquote>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.</blockquote>
<blockquote>Anyone not in NYC...or near...look up Metropolitan Opera
live in HD on Google. Faust is 12/10/11.</blockquote>
<blockquote>There are 11 opportunities during 2012. I've been to
several.</blockquote>
<blockquote>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.</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<div>Congratulations to all of you! And may there be
more...........</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Gail</div>
<div><br></div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>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>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite
>http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/news/features/detail.aspx?id=<span
></span>3624<br>
<br>
http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/news/features/detail.aspx?id=3<span
></span>674 )<br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>"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.</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><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>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Phelim</blockquote>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
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</pre></x-sigsep>
<div>Gail West<br>
ICA<br>
3F, No. 12, Lane 5, Tien Mou West Road<br>
Taipei, Taiwan 111<br>
8862) 2871-3150<br>
SKYPE gwestica<br>
www.icatw.com</div>
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