Words have power. Perform the possibility. Perform the change. Reclaim your memories, identity. Assert your will. Perform the future. A huge part of what I value though is the rehearsal mindset, it’s the process that’s important, the attempt. Not succumbing to the self-consciousness of performing, or presenting a product. We stay determinedly in process, in rehearsal, and that’s the product. Your life, your stories, your perspective, you truths are valuable and deserve and are worthy and should be made into something. Art. Not art that exists in the patriarchal system, of good enough, well known enough, circulated enough, reviewed enough, sold enough. Simply art in the way that art was before the word art was even invented. Just the results of a creative process. Tell the best lie. (gaga) A lie so fabulous the people who hear it have no choice but to make it true. Repeat the lie. Prove the process. The lie of art. Follow coincidences, that’s universal subconsciousness speaking to you. Appreciate the paradox, milk the ambivalence, tip the scales, push the buttons that extend the distance between two poles and your positioning on them and in the matrix maneuvering like a grand abacas in the matrix of paradoxes which are infinite and actually not lines but more circular, which is the universe. The dual nature of everything. Everything exists because its opposite exists. For every thing there is no thing. Everything that exists begins as a metaphor. Begins as a lack. Begins as nothing. Our bodies are a metaphor for ourselves. So already by creating something physical we’re removing it from its purest nature, primordial ooze that all creativity arises out of. The what’s behind the curtain. What will emerge through you. Escape through the maze of you. Getting off yourself, out of yourself, out of your way, closer to the source of creativity, nature, like the baby. Leave yourself alone. Give the universe permission to emerge from you, then allow it to, don’t subvert it with judgment or forethought. The goal for me is always to channel the subconscious. So you don’t all have to start immediately or at the same time, but try to let yourself enter that ineffable mindset, that animal, child, play, imagine, mystical, sensational experience, and once you start (making “music/dance”) don’t stop. Don’t let your ego in, or doubt or anything that’s familiar, or habitual, or logical. Any thoughts, forms, leave them behind. Transcend them and speak in a language much more powerful. Of intuition. Of inevitability. Of coincidence. Of dream. No need to make sense, just trust that there’s no wrong, and live through as deeply as you can with your whole body whatever the experience is that we embark on. Really release your subconscious. Set it free. That’s where the real power for change is to me, and that’s where I hope for art to come from. But it’s also kind of impossible, at least to control, so I think the real beauty is in the attempt. In the quality, and courageousness, and devotion, dedication, commitment, specificity of the intent. To make something so abstract and transcendent a very concrete and specific goal and then really truly try. I’m going to change the energy in this room, and through that the world. I’m going to plant the seed which will blossom utopia. And all in three short minutes. When we focus like that, with faith, with intuition, and our bodies which are nature incarnate we can strongly channel the subconscious, perhaps even a universal subconscious. It’s messy, unrecognizable, unpredictable, scary, powerful, joyous, in any and all combinations and it can often elicit negative judgments from other, perhaps more linear thinkers, who appraise the activity foolish, indulgent, banal, etc. and the goal impossible. The more abstract the truth we’re trying to communicate, and the more abstract it will get as the linear minds excuses and defensive double and delay, the more we must appeal to the senses. It’s good practice, I think, for the coming utopia to hold two opposing thoughts in your head at the same time. The tension between these poles, of paradox, ambivalence, is the material we create anew.
Politically gender economics underlying all this in a way, kind of like the missing equation. Three forces: gravity, positive, negative energy but we’re still looking for the missing equation to tie them all together. That’s like: economics, gender (sex, sexuality), power. Three forces that make the world what it is today, but we’re missing the equation that ties them all together (would that be truth? an intelligent universe, that balances itself out, or tries? Correcting, countering, so that everything happens. Every mythology, destiny, desire, possibility, paradox is played out. (It all happened simultaneously but now (now that there’s a now and at the same time) we have to be here to see it. To bear witness.)) Infinite. As is the definition of the universe. Not good or bad. Just what is, and the point being that everything that could ever be happens. Just to see. “the purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost..” To find the perfect balance of the scales which is truth, justice, the existence of everything and its opposite. I’m just guessing, but I think, that’s the project of the universe or god. And also, by universe, perhaps I just mean us. Collectively. And if there is no “god” then that’s still sufficient for me to carry on). Let’s try to articulate this missing equation. It’s abstract so we’ll have to appeal to the senses. But be specific. When you lie, it’s not just what you say, it’s how you say it that’s just as much part of the lie. Pleasure. Fun. Follow your sense of truth. Truth to me is pre-moral. It has nothing to do with right or wrong or good or bad. So you can’t do any of those things: right wrong good bad. Sounds, visually, anything that subverts linear logical “left brained” thinking? Literal conscious understanding, this dependence on left brain functioning and linear logic is a device of power used to prevent us from accessing our diviner natures and constituting the utopia of equality embedded in our dna. So we’re going to use sounds, our bodies, sensations, images, gesture, tone, rhythm, touch, vibration, passion, taste, energy, memory, anything you can think of and anything that comes to you. Transporting other people by transporting yourself. If you’re having an experience I believe that people are naturally empathetic enough to understand and relate. It’s perhaps pre-verbal. The baby. An incarnation of nature, before society and self-consciousness. Fig leaves.
So esoteric
A lie so good: The lie is that I was a poor hooker, now I’m a performance artist using my past as material to enlighten, embolden, and empower our race.
Pop culture as performance art. This is performance art: the musical. Perf. Artists using the established conventions of musical theater, inserting music, dance and transporting, transcending. Done with a commitment to how we make music, how we’ve made music in rehearsal, not literally as in a showtune, experimentally as in what we’ve already done in those exercises that start with just walking around the room
If you can use inspiration just look around you. Ensemble work is so beautiful in that way that it lifts you out of yourself. It’s like having a kid. And everyone says I never knew it would give me so much perspective. All my needs have vanished. I serve a greater thing now. Especially such a great ensemble, that’s so brave, and taking such risk and offering so generously. Be there for them as they are there for you. It’s the least you can do. This is one good solution to the narcissism of the artist.
Expectations | No mistakes
That’s why I love stream of consciousness. You’re doing it right if you just keep writing.
Edie’s revolutionary costume for today (is? Mesh black shirt, eyeliner, glitter, the silver pants)
Try to use every feeling. Perform every sensation. Every repression. Denial, truth.
A huge sensory experience. A hugely sensory experience. I don’t want to say overload because I don’t think that’s possible, and if it is I’m not thinking of anything with negative connotations. But I definitely want it to be uncanny, to exceed/transcend normal experience, awareness, comfort, expectations, limits. I want the brain to be so overwhelmed it begins to function automatically. Naturally. Releasing the audiences subconscious as well, or more specifically, their subconscious observer which will follow subjective coincidences, which I believe are holy, and will gather the most personally relevant and meaningful information/experience for the listener. Beginning a process that hopefully..
Picking up on the energy of the group, what do you see around you, where is the energy moving, what are people doing, what is more than one person doing?
Really go for it. Try to get them to understand everything I’m saying/mean using everything I have, every impulse encourage and perform
There’s a circular theme. Baby/moments before you die. Using this piece I started the class with in a way, the thing I made just before I started this class, and ending with it. I think it’s informed my work so I’d like to bring it full circle, or at least form the beginning of an infinity symbol
You have to be really willing to get into it. Body open, chest outJ engaged. Receiving. Willing to plunge to depths of intensity, but not to manufacture it, deal with surprise, and follow your sense of truth and discovery, reveal your self all the way down, from the bottom up.
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