The force of gravity

A new job and a series of events more art than monk have kept me from posting much here lately. There will be time soon, I hope, for more of the interviews, reviews, articles, and other things that give modest life to this project.

For now, something from Jerzy Grotowski, whose work attracts me more and more, and whose artistic lineage lives on in a veritable art monastery in Pontedera, Italy [1. As well as many other places. E.g. I marveled at Teatr Zar from Wroclaw a few weeks ago.]:

The force of gravity in our work pushes the actor towards an interior ripening which expresses itself through a willingness to break through barriers, to search for a “summit”, for totality. The actor’s first duty is to grasp the fact that nobody here wants to give him anything; instead they plan to take a lot from him, to take away that to which he is usually very attached: his resistance, reticence, his inclination to hide behind masks, his half-heartedness, the obstacles his body places in the way of his creative act, his habits and even his usual “good manners”.