When I've been bicycling uphill for more than 30 minutes there is a rage that starts to pulse through my body and it overtakes me. Not until I get to the top of the hill and begin the descent does it then slough off as if it never existed. When I ride through mountains, nature is teaching me to respect her. When I climb her majestic heights, she rewards me with a thrilling downward flight on the other side.
I am conquered by her voluptuous curves and am a ready willing student, hoping to understand.
I have had several great teachers in the last few weeks. The mountains and the masters.
The mountains of Croatia.
The master teachers in Dah Theater Festival in Belgrade, Serbia.
It was a humble festival, intimate, vastly different than the grand hubbub of the Sibiu Festival. There was a small group of about 40 to a hundred people at each event. The same people traveling between a few theater spaces together.
Two Americans with robust beards approached me at the fireworks celebration in Sibiu and told me I should go to this festival in Serbia because they were carrying on the legacy of Grotowski. and, it turned out, Rena Mirecka, one of my holiest of holies would also be there to speak and lead a workshop.
What luck! What a charmed path! After Rosia Montana and the border city, Timisoara, where Benjamin had our bikes painted with sea horses, stars and a blue octopus on my helmet at an arts festival in an alley way, we arrive in Belgrade and the lungs are under attack.
But all the pollution disappears when we duck into Dah Theater housed at the back of an elementary school. And there I find a teacher of mine from years ago at NYU, Daniel Banks!, who uses hip hop theater to build community with young people. He also was leading a workshop here with Roma kids and directing a solo dance theater piece of his incredible partner. The theme of the festival was Passing the Flame and could not be more appropriate. Within 4 days time I reconnected with Daniel whose former teacher was also in attendance, Peter Schumann of Bread and Puppet Theater and, of course, Rena Mirecka.
I watched the force of the women from Dah carry on the flow of discussions and shows with grace and intuition. I watched Peter Schumann play his fiddle like he was digging a hole into the heavens while he told the tragedy of a Palestinian in his rough German accent. I watched each master ceremoniously light the candle before they spoke and wondered who I am lighting the candle for. I watched the Women in Black who have lived through militarized rapes, murders of their children, torture and heard of their defiance to carry on. I watched an American woman sing an old spiritual for a Woman in Black who was never able to find her children's bodies and give them proper burial. the American had asked what songs she sings to comfort herself and the woman in black said she does not sing any more. so the American said- I will sing for you then.
I watched Eugenio Barba light up a whole room as he spoke of the power of humiliation as a teacher. I watched Violeta, a performance artist from Mexico distort her body and face like a grotesque clown and ballerina, laying the performance bare across her body as she became the corn transformed by Monsanto in her piece. I watched Rena Mirecka speak like God pulled each word from her mouth and strung it out before us. and then I went up to her afterwards to thank her for her workshop that has continued to have such a profound impact on me. and i could not speak. Again i was made dumb in the face of her power, of her truth.
and i wept and she kissed me on the lips and embraced me.
and i feel her energy pass through me and am reminded of my responsibility.
Much of theater work may be looking inward but that is only useful if it makes you more equipped to look outward. to make the connections.
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