The highlight of a very full and enjoyable day at the preconference of the Religion & Theater Focus Group was a presentation and workshop conducted by members of a project called "DeSoLAte/deLigHT" from Naropa, a Buddhist university in nearby Boulder. It's directed by Barbara Dilley, once a dancer for Merce Cunningham and interested in surrealism and early postmodern dance and performance, but at Naropa since 1974 studying and teaching "dharma arts."A square was marked out on the floor with red rope, and then people were invited to position themselves within it - but you had to meditate briefly with eyes closed, open them, and see yourself in position before you actually stepped into the square to assume that position (which might require some adjustment), so you were audience (and ultimately director) as well as performer; then you held the position for a while, "giving it away" to other viewers, and returned to your seat. After a few of these solos, we had duos - the first person proceeds as in the solo, but stays and we wait for a second person to be inspired to assume a position responding to it. Eventually the first person melts away (allowed to peek at what the other did along the way - often it's behind your back so you have no idea what's been done and people are seeing), then the second. Then a solo inspiring someone to place one of five "props" (a black hat, a 3-legged stool, a blue silk cloth, a bundle of sticks, a bowl of water) near the solo. Then person to prop to person, person to person to prop, and finally an open-ended process of placing yourself or a prop in response to something already in the square (or removing a prop), in which forms arise, combine and fall away like waves on the short. That's my analogy: at no point does anyone propose or revise an interpretation of what's going on. Words are not part of this picture.
The slow unfolding of scenes was thrilling and poignant and sometimes almost overpoweringly profound - each transformation a revelation shimmering with rightness and surprise. But nothing lasted, and ultimately the flow, and the occasional repetition of a configuration or gesture, became as impressive a part of the experience. That, and the fact that the props could fill the stage when left alone - they became cocreaters somehow.
DeSoLAte/deLiGHt (don't ask me about the capitalizations; I gather the phrase is from a book contrasting Zen and Tantra and arguing for a middle path avoiding the "nihilism" which would come from getting too attached to or affected by desolate meditation experiences as well as the "eternalism" which would come from fixing on the experiences of delight) described itself in its first iteration this way:
deSoLAte/deLigHT project initiates a year-long investigation into the creation of performance art based in the establishment of a culture. The culture will commit to creative processes that are enhanced by contemplative art practices, such as sitting meditation practice, instructions from the Dharma Art teachings of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, and images from general
systems theory. From this culture will arise an expression that represents the combined myths and stories of this moment-in-time. We will re-member, re-create and un-fold surprise.I was intrigued by our brief experience of it (I was one of the seven hardy souls who volunteered to participate). It teaches what the director described as "infant's eye" - seeing things without or before naming them - and an awareness of the enormous wealth of possible meanings anything has, meanings words would merely constrict; it enacts the wonder of transience, the miracle of shared creation and the delight in letting things go. Not radically different from improv I've done in the past, in some ways but in the Naropa context its power as a form of meditation and community- and culture-building are more explicit. I imagine it could be a very powerful thing indeed to do this every week with the same group of people. And maybe the same props, too! Best of all, a whole new (to me) angle on religion and theater!
