"Confucius said, "At fifteen, I aspired to learning. At thirty, I established my stand. At forty, I had no delusions. At fifty, I knew my destiny. At sixty,I knew truth in all I heard.At seventy, I could follow the wishes of my heart without doing wrong.""(Analects of Confucius | Book 2, Verse 4)

:: note :: . . . destiny = learning + standing without delusions . . . rendering is the work of distilling play (the learning governed by the play) to its essence . . . my destiny = investigate the elements of tempo, iconography (the shared poemagogic images), movement patterns, sounds . . .

"My own single favourite artistic moment of the year came courtesy of a Brooklyn-born rapper playing an intensely demanding role on the London stage with a self-assurance that was disarming: Dante Terrell Smith - aka Mos Def - ably aided by Jeffrey Wright, was startlingly charismatic in Suzan Lori-Parks's Topdog/Underdog at the Royal Court."

"To overhear two young members of the audience wanting to check out a hiphop album as a result of a trip to the theatre was to realise that the ebbs and flows of cultural conjunction are moving in gloriously unpredictable ways. Long may it continue."(FT. com | Arts & Weekend / Art, music & theatre | The year that culture became popular By Peter Aspden Published: December 29 2003 )

"At the end of 2003, English Canadian theatre may be competing on the world stage and all the rage in Germany, but for a sizable demographic on the home front, its very existence is in doubt. No art form can afford to ignore new audiences, and as its stalwarts get considerably older and remain steadfastly middle-class, -- the challenge for Canadian theatre goes beyond creating new works or reinterpreting classics to inviting (seducing, bullying even) new audiences."(The Globe and Mail | Entertainment | A season saved by acting By KAMAL AL-SOLAYLEE THEATRE CRITIC Saturday, December 27, 2003)

(both via Best Of 2003 | Arts Journal IssueTracks)

:: note :: . . . two widely divergent opinions from different nations . . . popularity is overrated and often used as a simple scale for immediate success . . . quality work will etch its way into the collective memory of history whether popular or not . . . influencing the committed few deeply . . . i react, even strongly, when something touches the surface . . . that reaction is in the realm of the popular . . . that tactile sense does stimulate and create a notion of 'aliveness' . . but when emotion and argument are harnessed into a wish to see more clearly into oneself - then something in the mind burns (paraphrasing Brook) . . . i long to burn . . .

"... And in the novel, as in life, whether he lives or dies depends on which story he believes."

"And this I do believe."

"Which is why I tell these three stories over and over again. the story of the time my son and I came to Canada. The story of my short career as a basketball player. the story of an old man and his garden. "

"And there are others."

"I tell them to myself, to my friends, sometimes to strangers. Because they make me laugh. Because they are a particular kind of story. Saving stories, if you will. Stories that help keep me alive."

"Of course, you don't have to pay attention to any of these stories. Louis's story is not particularly cheery. Alexie's story doesn't have a demonstrably happy ending. Neither participates fully in Western epistemologies, and my three don't have a moral centre not are they particularly illuminating."

"But help yourself to one if you like."

"Take Louis's story, for instance. It's yours. Do with it what you will. Cry over it. Get angry. Forget it. But don't say in the years to come that you would have lived your life differently if only you had heard this story."

"You've heard it now."(Tomas King | The Truth About Stories | A Million Porcupines Crying in the Dark | 119)

:: note :: . . . saw the love,spirit & sex trilogy: Lovers, Too much flesh, Being light . . . took me to dogme95 & here . . . the concept although intriguing wasn't able to sustain either in a 'filmic' nor 'ideas' way . . . the performances were superfical and surface oriented illustrating a simple narrative . . . as études with more care, thought and development they promise a deeper, fuller work much like the Three Colours Trilogy . . . to embody the diverse elements into some unified, consciousness might even evoke The Apu Trilogy, written and directed by Satyajit Ray . . . still a bare & rough quality leaves a mark on the eye even if it is an irritation . . .

"'Time,' says Jorge Luis Borges, "is the substance I am made of. Time is a river that carries me away, but I am the river...." Our movements, our actions, are extended in time, as are our perceptions, our thoughts, the contents of consciousness. We live in time, we organize time, we are time creatures through and through. But is the time we live in, or live by, continuous [~]like Borges's river? Or is it more comparable to a chain or a train, a succession of discrete moments, like beads on a string?"(THe New York Review of Books | Jan. 15, 2004 | In the River of Consciousness By Oliver Sacks)

Which way is the separate way? To fall.

A hermetic existence of unparalleled narrative disillusionment.
A very personal increasingly gnomic protest.
A desperate exorcism of ancestral imagination.
A finding of intentions.

Sentient beings are numberless; we vow to save them all.
Delusions are endless; we vow to cut through them all.
The teachings are infinite; we vow to learn them all.
The way is inconceivable; we vow to attain it. (Four Great Vows)

give meaning to the pain that prevents movement no meeting in text just move through the pain it is not a metaphor

Workshop | December 18 - 23, 2003 | training Reflection Day 1: 7 - 10 pm

- brief intro - warm-up breath exercises (standing, shoulders, wall) movement (hand wave & push-pull) integrate into full breath - dynamic push-pull space - vibrational research from lying to stand - listen to song - resonating exploration through "Summertime" song (abdominal, chest, throat, head resonation) - contact work using mirror & vibration

Day 2: 7 - 9 pm - brief check-in - introduction of twelve basic poses: (stand, arrow, sky, earth,horizon, candle, curl, lean, earth bow, cat, shoulder stand, forward roll & backward roll) - dynamic pose space - vibrational research from lying to stand - listen to song - Motions reflection

Day 3: 7 - 10 pm

- check-in - review pose elements - dynamic pose space - vibrational research - push-pull individual voice research moving towards interaction - Motions (stand, primal, center, transition, horizon, transition, bow) Cycle

Day 4: 2 - 5 pm

- half moon - physical spinal movement from lying to stand integration of push-pull from spine center free movement (avoiding exercises) partner connection (call/response) - following - half moon - vibrational directional research - vibrational center um / ma - the walk - review of Motion elements

I was thinking of a series of dreams
Where nothing comes up to the top
Everything stays down where it's wounded
And comes to a permanent stop
Wasn't thinking of anything specific Like in a dream, when someone wakes up and screams
Nothing too very scientific
Just thinking of a series of dreams
(Bob Dylan | Series of Dreams)

"The obsession with power, will and hierarchy in Peter Jackson's film trilogy adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's epic The Lord of the Rings fuels its dangerous topicality: a vindication and veneration of empire. "(Open Democracy | The Return of the King: Tolkien and the new medievalism | K.A. Dilday)

:: note :: . . . hmmm . . . had some thoughts during first of the trilogy but don't even wish to see the rest . . .

"In this unique work, a group of village idiots during the plague in medieval Europe are forced to enact their own mass due to the sudden death of their beloved pastor, an extraordinary man who had given them shelter and trained them to sing. Though it sounds grim, the piece is full of buffoonery and comic audience participation. Combine this with choral singing of sacred hymns and chants from the 9th through the 17th centuries, and you get a work which travels from the ridiculous to the sublime. Fool's Mass premiered on December 19, 1998 at the Grace Church Chantry, where it has been performed every December since."

"It became clear during the development of this piece that there were many levels of symbolic representation at work. The nature and essence of being "poor theatre" artists in this society was thrown into sharp focus by the death of Jerzy Grotowski, a mentor for company director Matt Mitler and inspiration for all. It became painfully clear that, as a group, DZIECI had truly lost their pastor, and the piece was dedicated to Grotowski"

"Fool's Mass also honors the marginalized communities DZIECI works with in hospitals and clinics. "(Dzieci | Fool's Mass | A Note on the Production)

Didn't have to dream to be visited by ghosts . . . Demons haunt whether wide awake, asleep, unconscious or terribly aware . . . Apparitions knaw at the sides of memories . . . Spit and shout at traces with angry mutterings in broad daylight . . . Don't see spectres?

It takes training to keep phantoms alive . . . Rage dream . . . The culture of bruising breaking the will . . . Compelling ancient & modern pummelling . . . Spook pugilism in one minute nineteen seconds . . . Blood and gore . . .

Hurt?

See it in the eyes . . . Raw rhythms of destruction and war . . . Elemental, visceral drama experienced at the illegal edge of death . . . Alive unravelling outlaw perception . . . Face bleeding mortality.

Caught me cold.

Seeing the black light.

"The most innovative example of the form -- so far, at least -- was ''The Angel Project,'' by Deborah Warner, which came to New York as part of the Lincoln Center Festival in July. Ticket holders arrived at a precise, prearranged time at the tramway stop on Roosevelt Island. After a few solitary minutes, a golf cart drove up and carried each one away to the abandoned, vine-covered tuberculosis hospital at the south end of the island. From there, one by one, audience members were sent off on a silent journey through the city, with no guide except an enigmatic 15-page book of directions. The two-hour trip concluded on the 63rd floor of the Chrysler Building, where wind whipped through the open windows and actors wearing battered wings sat staring out at the city below, occasionally turning to make eye contact with audience members -- whose reactions ranged from delight to disgust to tears."(NYTimes | Magazine | Theater for One)

How do we get out of Iraq? (Guardian | Special Reports | Part I & 2)

"Your Touch," from Carrying Place
In other centuries, other creatures'
fantasies, on a prehistoric day dense
with heat, some small mammal
brushed the neck of its mate
and ushered in our possibility.

When you have found the place
between my shoulder and
my head, that tough band
that runs in my family
up the neck, you will reach through
the veil of my hair, and press
the weight of history
upon my skin.

You will touch me and
I will remember my first lesson
in evolution: in caves there are fish
who have lost their eyes.
In the dark grottos, the deep waters
they need only touch.

Builders poised on the upper beams
of a tower hauling themselves
into the immaculate
openness of space,
we push into each other, blind
to the future we penetrate.

- Esta Spalding

(via Anansi Press poem of the day | Dec 13, 2003)

"Perception is an evolving, learning-on-the-job process. It thrives on new input and on education, which is what a prolonged and repeated experience of art, particularly unfamiliar art, is. Korean art has been largely invisible in the West, so we all have a lot of catching up to do. The Asian Art Museum, which has been lighting the way to Korean art and culture for years, continues to do so in these admirable shows. Now it's time for other institutions to pick up the torch."(NYTimes | Arts | Korean Art, Serenely Unconcerned, Finally Gets a Chance to Shine)

"My approach to making ceramic art has been profoundly shaped by over fifteen years of experience living and traveling throughout the polar regions - "(Kent Swanson: Works inspired by polar terrains)

"There is a greater understanding of the Korean aesthetic. The beauty of 'naturalness', those characteristics unique to clay as a material and the clays essence as part of nature; and the beauty of aliveliness' that passes from the potters to the viewer. Using these qualities of clay without exaggeration or over-extension. The Korean's people understanding of their own art is emotional. The Western approach to the world is logical, bringing about a trend in ceramics aimed at perfection of structure, meticulous decorativeness and a high concern for function. This is seen as incomplete as an artistic goal and with the preservation of Korea's own sense of beauty, the Korean artist gains an aesthetic advantage of freshness over rigid impersonality raised by modern rationalism."(The development of ceramic art in the Republic of Korea: A journey)

"When we began our textwork, things began to change. There was a lot of sorrow in peoples stories, including my own. When Raymon began to have us do our sourcework and textwork alone, there were a lot of tears, and a lot of confused faces. We didn't know what to think. We didn't even really know what we were doing. But we did it. At the time, it seemed like we were doing the impossible. I didn't know my voice could get so loud. I didn't know anyone could do what they did. But I suppose none of us ever really thought of trying it either. The last two classes, we performed out our class "dream" It was amazing. I watched my classmates, my friends, do what I never thought we could do. Eveybody was somebody else. We had developed out characters, without even knowing it. Characters so strong that we could hardly remember what we did by the end of it. It was beautiful."(student reflection)

"Behind the specific rights and wrongs of this case, however, Aguirre has put her finger on a problem that is simmering beneath the surface of mainstream Canadian theatre: In a country that is increasingly racially diverse, the on-stage faces continue to remain almost exclusively white." (Globe&Mail | Entertainment | Fix the colour code in Canadian theatre | By KATE TAYLOR Saturday, December 6, 2003)

GREETING

Charles Dickens wrote the Christmas Carol in 1843. Since then the cherished story has been adapted for the stage, the cinema both silent & talkie and television. We welcome you to our version - a little fantasy of colour, music, dance and spirit drama. In the end we are asked to pay less heed to work & wealth and more to worship & wonder. We are invited to pay less heed to commercialism & consumerism and more to charity & caring. God Bless!

"I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it. Their faithful Friend and Servant, C. D."()

:: note :: . . . probably in schools everywhere . . .

"AUTUMN | It has taken many accidents, many surprising coincidences (and perhaps many efforts), for me to find the country which, out of a thousand, suits my desire."(Jyanni Steffensen | Her feet covered many cocoons... )

:: note :: . . . so many rich phrases to be undoubtedly stolen . . .via fAf :: Ezine

DUNLOP GALLERY UPDATES

:: note :: . . . original posting requires updates . . . not wishing to fall victim to a first posting and then ignore the developing story . . .

"Canadian artists are among the country's lowest paid workers and, since 1970, the National Gallery has voluntarily paid to exhibit an artist's work. Canada was also the first country to pay artists to publicly exhibit their work."(CBC Arts | Virtual rights questioned by artists in Ottawa )

:: note :: . . . Porcupines and China Dolls by Robert Arthur Alexie has been haunting me these past days . . . no book since Thomas King's Green Grass, Running Water has had such an engrossing effect . . . King's book became my christmas present of a couple years back . . . some how Alexie's book will not be given to anyone . . . recommended perhaps but not given . . . the writing is terse, direct, graphic and powerful in a voice full & throaty which rips into the heart and at the same time generates warmth & healing much the way the voice of Tom Jackson does in his singing . . . layers of silence behind the words are exposed in bold and simple textures . . . The Dream World & the legends, beliefs and history . . . The Awakening from a typical night of lost souls & famous last words & deep dark secrets into disclosure . . . The Real World returning home & the missed opportunities & the secrets, lies, truth & new beginnings . . . these are code words for a rite of passage (of initiation) . . . there is an initiator & nothing happens "just because" . . . there was a silence "a million pocupines crying in the dark" . . . now "Its time" . . .

"The old wolf had been sitting on the ridge watching. When the drums started, he stood as though something was calling to him. Whatever it was, he didn't stop to ponder its origin. He went on instinct. He circled, then slowly came into the herd from the north. The herd moved up over the ridge and into the sunlight"(Alexie. Porcupines and China Dolls p 223)

CyberPunk Magazine from Russia

"I worry this is more than theory. One of my biggest fears is that I am right about all this. I worry that our entire existence is nothing more than a virtual reality in some other beings' cyberspace. I cling with every ounce of sanity I have to the comforting notion that, "No! I do exist. I am not a figment of someone's imagination. This world is real," and I am glad that I never took any philosophy classes."(cyberpunks.org | Paranoid Delusions:Consciousness and the Future of Multimedia)

via ArtNodes & Context Weblog

"Few people can formulate original points of view, but those who do are definitely worth listening to, says Stephen Bayley, with feeling"(Telegraph | Arts | Opinionated - and proud to admit it)

"What Gadamer is after is some kind of permanence within change; he has seen the temporality of human works, their immersion in time and, seeing it as their essence, he sees developing out of history a culture, a language, some sort of commonality which somehow subsists and assures continuity without repetition, a permanence amidst change, a being within becoming. Gadamer calls it tradition; it both certifies and is certified by great works without being narrowly legislative of them. He says of the writer that he never "freely invents his plot, however he imagines that he does." Thus there remains some truth in the old mimesis theory since the "free invention of the writer is the presentation of a common truth that is binding on the writer also." Is this deterministic?"(G.T. Karnezis | Gadamer, Art, and Play)

:: note :: . . . two of the best wood s lot & OLDaily send me to new territory . . . thanks

Peasant Widow's Fall

"Statement:The source of this work was a novel from my childhood. Set during the Asian feudal times a peasant widow led a life of untold hardship. Her travails scorched my impressionable pre-teen imagination. The image of a widow in extreme agony needed releasing. The work proved exhausting. Painting thirty-five masks, getting up at dawn for the installation, fighting the cold while hanging the masks and finally sheltering the doll from the harsh, biting wind pushed my endurance to the limits. The telling moment was minutes before her unveiling I asked. "Are you able to stand here alone against the wind?" A voice clearly answered, "Yes, if you return to unbind me." The work had taken on a spirit of its own."(Iryn)