Saturday, November 28, 2009
Our last morning's visit in Cracow was not accidental at all.
Years ago i saw a performance in the Edinburgh Festival by a Polish company called Cricot, led by their director, Tadeusz Kanotr.
It was called "Dead Class" and though I cannot say it gave me any pleasure, it made the profoundest impression on me.
My companion, who also saw it, and saw it as one of those profound and powerul theatre experiences one never forgets, remembers it in 1983.
Or when i was so crucially and painfully engaged in finding my voice.
After his death in 1990, the theatre ceased to function as a creative force, and the space remains as a clearly seldom visited museum. Our arrival seemed to be a source of some surprise; a young woman had to go down and open the space up for us specially.
It turned out there was very little down there: a video of Kantor directing a rehearsal, with a look of profound suffering.
And what might have been a stage set: 3 of four plain wooden doors, mysteriously ajar in a twilight.
I loved this space, and spent a long time sitting in it. feeling utterly at home.
At the entrance to this museum was a quotation from one of his writings, which perhaps was chosen because it summed up his values and his search.
It could certainly also sum up mine:
"Nightmarish malls have become the temples of a new deity of consumption and materialism.
I am listening carefully to that inner voice...
ONE HAS TO STAY UNFAITHFUL TO THIS NEW TEMPLE AND THIS NEW GOD AT ALL COSTS!
My creative work, whose roots are grounded in the subconscious, "understood" this inner voice and command much earlier and quicker.
The intellect goes through and becomes aware of a different and NEW STAGE OF COGNIZANCE
SPITIRUALISM
SPIRITUAL IMPERATIVE
PREMONITION OF THE OTHER WORLD
THE MEANING OF DEATH
THE MEANING OF THE "IMPOSSIBLE"
"AN IMPATIENT WAITING AT THE DOORS"
BEHIND WHICH
THERE ARE REGIONS
THAT ARE INACCESSIBLE TO OUR MINDS AND CONCEPTS..."
Tadeusz Kantor
Years ago i saw a performance in the Edinburgh Festival by a Polish company called Cricot, led by their director, Tadeusz Kanotr.
It was called "Dead Class" and though I cannot say it gave me any pleasure, it made the profoundest impression on me.
My companion, who also saw it, and saw it as one of those profound and powerul theatre experiences one never forgets, remembers it in 1983.
Or when i was so crucially and painfully engaged in finding my voice.
After his death in 1990, the theatre ceased to function as a creative force, and the space remains as a clearly seldom visited museum. Our arrival seemed to be a source of some surprise; a young woman had to go down and open the space up for us specially.
It turned out there was very little down there: a video of Kantor directing a rehearsal, with a look of profound suffering.
And what might have been a stage set: 3 of four plain wooden doors, mysteriously ajar in a twilight.
I loved this space, and spent a long time sitting in it. feeling utterly at home.
At the entrance to this museum was a quotation from one of his writings, which perhaps was chosen because it summed up his values and his search.
It could certainly also sum up mine:
"Nightmarish malls have become the temples of a new deity of consumption and materialism.
I am listening carefully to that inner voice...
ONE HAS TO STAY UNFAITHFUL TO THIS NEW TEMPLE AND THIS NEW GOD AT ALL COSTS!
My creative work, whose roots are grounded in the subconscious, "understood" this inner voice and command much earlier and quicker.
The intellect goes through and becomes aware of a different and NEW STAGE OF COGNIZANCE
SPITIRUALISM
SPIRITUAL IMPERATIVE
PREMONITION OF THE OTHER WORLD
THE MEANING OF DEATH
THE MEANING OF THE "IMPOSSIBLE"
"AN IMPATIENT WAITING AT THE DOORS"
BEHIND WHICH
THERE ARE REGIONS
THAT ARE INACCESSIBLE TO OUR MINDS AND CONCEPTS..."
Tadeusz Kantor
Labels: the half open door of death
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