Easter Saturday, Rotdornweg
Just got back from a very insightful discussion with Daniel and Kathinka (it’s Kathinka’s birthday, we visited them in the fields of Kaiserstuhl… the sun had already decided to immerse their meadow in shadow so we met on a nearby hill, again until the hills decided to get in the way of us and the sun… it grew immediately cold.). I don’t think that I can capture everything but here goes:
The essence is „Resonanz“ – the discussions and work we did are still „resonating“ with us. We were talking about how the present form of democracy is not capable of dealing with the modern crisises – Ukraine, Covid, global warming – although everyone is wracking their brains and trumpeting their concerns the needed decisiveness is sluggish or lacking completely. The danger lies, however, not in democracy – I pointed out not a true democracy but a representative federalism with a consumer-enticing mass media as main source of information for most everyone – but in a system that is based on economic concerns rather than on concerns
Coupled with that, the „establishment“ adjusted itself to the demands of the 60s and 70s, then tried to cope with the fall of the „iron curtain“ – The mechanisms and mentality don’t truly apply. The „Left“ has grown, in their own way just as dogmatic and judgemental (if they were ever different, I am remembering what Toller wrote) as the right. Certain thoughts cannot be thought, certain people cannot be trusted (For instance, if capitalism reacts to the pandemic crisis their answers cannot be good or valid because they are profiting from the situation… just because someone is making money doesn’t mean that an concept or a product (such as a vaccination) isn’t helpful and even necessary. )
The inability to act does not only rest with the politicians and the political system but in our collective mental states.
This is why projects just as „Resonance“, Franziska’s project, the idea of „Heliodrom Zukunftsarena“ are so „notwendig“ and yet so difficult to fund. „Sustainability Culture“ is simply understood as culture that is sustainably produced, not as culture that promotes through it’s form, concept and message the paradigmatic change necessary to address all these issues.
Here an important aside: WHAT exactly the paradigmatic change IS is not the necessary content of these cultural activities. The content is moving humanity’s minds and souls along, brewing together, allowing accident (Random Acts of Beauty), intuition and the rest of the world community (Gaia and her children, in other words) to create a nurturous environment. The FORM of change will manifest itself in that environment.
To return to the problem: the structures set up have difficulty with exactly what is needed. The old definitions of ART separate it from ENLIGHTENMENT and from EDUCATION. When a theatre piece sounds like „Umweltbildung“ because of participatory elements or the like, it falls through the grid, is not „culture“ ALTHOUGH exactly this kind of crossover redefinition is what is needed. Art, to be vital, viable and essential, must be allowed to be participatory.
Speaking, I was encouraged that we are on the right track.
Now: to „Konkretes Theater“ – I thought suddenly this morning (or was it yesterday) that I could use this time to concieve a solo production of „The Mysterious Stranger“.
I can move in two directions: One, continuing to explore and produce random texts, random choreographies and perhaps other random events (what other random engines are there besides dice? Tarot cards…. or any sort of card…), Two, explore how an existing story can give a guideline for a concrete production.
I just had an insight: concrete painting works with the dynamic of the visual… with the interplay of forms and colors that are not representing objects in the real world nor are they abstracted from such objects. Form and Content is one.
There is of course the other possibility: clown.