ovzaz016 Living Theatre, or the ontology of practice | scene change INTERVIEWS , THEATER Living Theatre, or the ontology of praxis LL September 4, 2015 by morgancrazy A long conversation with Gary Brackett on making communities, after the staging of Mysteries and smaller pieces in Carrara The show in ‘60 "In the Mysteries we have no more roles but we ourselves; They open the door to a subversive technique". So the Living Theatre had Mysteries and Smaller Pieces , exploding on the scene in Paris in 1964 shook the audience from the liabilities of their comfortable chairs tautologically until that moment separated from the space of ' action Without a plot, no characters and set design, with Mysteries Living Theatre overcame the division between life and art, political theater and protest theater, between actors and audience. The actors were left to cross, without the mediation of a story or fiction character, pain and tragedies of war, death, poverty, exploitation, and putting himself naked before the audience, the audience put in a position to ntps:ifcambociscenawordpross.com2015!08O4ving-thesire-c-dellotlogia-dlla-prassi-2/ wsaaa018 Living Theta, rhe anbloy f practic | scane change enter a space without defined limits, to participate and to live the same experience. The Living thus created the conditions with which would bring the theater outside the protective and privileged buildings, streets, factories, prisons, mental hospitals, in the favelas. Wherever there was poverty, desperation, maladjustment, marginalization, contaminating medium and message and leaving contaminated as a community, practicing for more than twenty years the message of liberation that launched. And today? We spoke with Gary Brackett , actor, director and general manager of the Living Theatre, in Italy to hold workshops, after the last show staged in Carrara. Born in 1960, after a degree in Political Science Gary Brackett, he moved to Boston, Paris and New York, where he painted and worked in theater and the production of political / artistic events. In this period meets the Living Theatre, with whom he collaborated since 1989, when the Living was established in Italy, to remain there until 1994, He currently lives in NYC where Judith Malina opened the new space-theater in April 2006, kicking off the season with the historian show The Brig by Kenneth H. Brown, directed by the founder of the Living. The show was then taken to the streets of the ‘Big Apple’ on July 4th of this year, precisely at Ground Zero, as a form of protest against the war in Iraq and the Guantanamo prison. Why then this back continuously in Italy? What are you trying to do? I'm sowing ... he replied with a smile. And in fact in the past two months he has ‘sown’ in different cities. In Naples, Bari, Udine, in these days at Forte Prenestino in Rome, wherever there is willingness on the part of actors or simply men and women, young and old, to create a group for a few days, a week, or more, is reborn a fruitful creative workshop to bring one of the Living show staged. So it was in Ancona earlier this month, where a group, triggered by the ‘Dreamcatcher’, in a very few days brought the streets of the city Resist now , against the globalization of exploitation and misery and so it was in Carrara ‘Mysteries and smaller pieces . In the salon Germinal , home to the historic Italian Federation of Anarchists in the heart of the city, a hundred spectators in a small makeshift stalls or on the ground along the walls of the large room, got involved in the Street songs leveled against the war in Iraq, against military bases, against exploitation, against property, against the decree-expulsion; in the deal, playing the voice in a circle with the actors, or the ‘horrific death for plague’ of Artaudian memory, the actors went to die at their feet. The day after the show curiosity , thirst for knowledge, the desire to ask, digging, discuss together is still a ldng and suggests a desire not to let the experience down. Mutual desire, indeed as even Gary considers the laboratory experience and spectacle held in Italy very fertile, so that seems to light up the idea of establishing a ‘house Living’ in Italy. So while we are still together at the home of one of us preparing a dish of pasta, without preamble I go directly to the heart of the problem. ntps:ifcambociscenawordpross.com2015!08O4ving-thesire-c-dellotlogia-dlla-prassi-2/ coovza016 Living Thetre, or the ontology of practice | scene change \discena files. wordpress.com/2015; In the Make room, 2007 Today it seems much more difficult to make sure that collective experience is rooted, you will meet many more obstacles in economic and institutional terms, and simultaneously it is also much more difficult to keep a group together for a long time; what is your experience from this point of view? This is a question that reminds me of what happened in Naples, for example. With a group of guys who wondered how to set up a structure that allows this group to continue ... and months later there was nothing, it has collapsed. Bologna, the same thing. Probably depends on when each is in his life, who is working, who is trying to graduate, and besides, in Italy it takes three years to get the funds for the theater. In the past I have already created a group here in Italy, a cultural association called theandric , from Julian Beck will, and did not give us any money, you have to stand up for three years before the state is moving, and this is terrible, they do not give any kind of support. I also called the Eti and we sent the video material, and the answer that came was like, "this smacks a bit ‘amateur theater", but as claim to know how our show to a video, is so differently from traditional .. Therefore, external difficulties, individual lives first of all, with different times and easy disintegration. How was it possible instead to live this experience more than twenty years, during the ‘60s and’ 70s? The Living had as connective tissue the anarchy foundations, non-violence, and put into practice all they can , from street theater in all situations, factories, slums, psychiatric hospitals, and when she starred in the theaters still worked to break the barrier actors / public, refusing to consider the public as, such, but rather interloquendo with each person. The premise of Paradise Now was the street theater, to the favelas of Sao Paulo, where they lived virtually without the state, because there was no water, there was no light, no public service, were virtually occupation. There has emerged that world of blacks, Indians, people at the lowest level in the social scale. And no money, living almost like hippies , collectively, have invented this incredible performances cycle entitled The Legacy of Cain , which ntps:ifcambociscenawordpross.com2015!08O4ving-thesire-c-dellotlogia-dlla-prassi-2/ a7saaa018 Living Theta, rhe anbloy f practic | scane change addresses the issue of violence, starting from a very simple question: Why are we violent? Why do we create social structures that determine the submission, and the other side are entered in the work of Sacher-Masoch to return gutted the sadomasochistic syndrome, not out of interest in the role of victim or perpetrator. And from there was born Seven Meditations on Political sadomasochism , because all our social relations, beginning with those inside their home, are based on the dominant-submissive relationship. And especially for the merits of the masochistic need protection that we pursue in our social dynamics, even when we delegate rather than being responsible for ourselves and our community, at par, to one other. The show has drawn seven points in which we are in bondage to one another: the state, war, money, private property, the sadomasochistic love, family relationships and social roles. And then they worked on the meaning of the revolution, creating small and big performances on those topics, in the streets, in the barracks, in the factories, going among people who do not go to the theater, to bring this message of peace, liberation, to say enough with capitalism, through their own way of life: as a free community based on anarchism So the Living himself was the answer. Ontology of praxis, as we say today, target practice. In the sense that in addition to the content of the shows, was that released the community that sent in his shows. And now there are these premises? For my part definitely. Judith has already given the maximum of what could, until the death of Julian. Then those are the years when everything changed. Then she and Hanon (Reznikov, actor, director and fellow J. Malina after the death of J. Beck, died shortly after this interview, May 3, 2007, ed) have decided to stay in NYC, where it is impossible to create a community A city where everything is possible and nothing is rooted ... Already, New Yorkers living with your head in the sand. Here in Italy, however, when they occur valuabie experiences, shorter or longer, but that's okay. Although so far are temporary, says TAZ ( Temporary authonomous areas, Bey Hackim, ed), is what the Living has always done, from ‘61 until the end of the 70 Now there are shorter periods, perhaps moments , as was the street show in Ancona, or the laboratory of a week we have done together to stage Mysteries , but they are flashes of light that pierce the darkness, they are seeds for me, that I continue to sow along with those He wants to come, along with those who accompanied me for a short stretch of road or who decides to do just the same path, as it has been for the g Theatre that gave birth Julian and Judith. Julian said that we are not free until we are all free, but we can be free by creating the structures that help us to live in a way more in keeping with what we are and we believe, although itis a fact temporary. ntps:ifcambociscenawordpross.com2015!08O4ving-thesire-c-dellotlogia-dlla-prassi-2/ a7sovza016 Living Thetre, or the ontology of practice | scene change /cambiodiscena files. wordpress.com/2015/09/6-tableauvivant tableau vivant Art can still have a social role to create the culture of a different company? We hope so otherwise we're all dead! And ‘terrible what is going on, he is going beyond capitalism but nobody says what is obvious, that if capitalism does not grow collapses, is its mechanism. Even the most serious economic studies that say? ‘We need to grow the economy, otherwise we're screwed’. But where does it lead? After 400 years, what has changed, if private property is the only model that we have, whether the nuclear family is the only possibility, and everyone is sitting closed in its shell, there is an idea of community, not no sharing. Every individual living alone, I work with Emanuele (cites such an actor of the group, ed), but I do not care for his house and he does not care about mine. So the idea of having an economically autonomous community, which can keep farmers or mechanical, or computer, or artists or actors ... it's a miracle ?. In the 60s there was an explosion of community, now if you talk about the community is the idea that you're probably a cult. The Living has been accused of being a cult. The mass media do not help in this, everything in the arts approaches to political and social issues is cloaked in something else ... Even the’ hip hop or rap or beat are sold at the market; Capitalism sucks everything, playing with that product and spits the mass, and perhaps a part of the message arrives, but without its radicalism: to live without money, without having to work 40 hours a week, that we can live in a more human way, without be subject to oil or to large companies. Bakunin said that scarcity is created by capitalism to get more profit, but today there is enough food for everyone, yet are created mechanisms by which the food itself is necessarily little to one side or too abundant another to feed the profits companies. This fuels the capitalist system, not humans. Capitalism is like a meat grinder that grinds what is the common good to spit out a profit for a few, but itis its operating system, not an ideology, a ‘necessity’. ‘We must free ourselves from the necessity. The same politicians then end up being enslaved to this system, because they need money for their campaigns and the structures that support them. Think of ntps:ifcambociscenawordpross.com2015!08O4ving-thesire-c-dellotlogia-dlla-prassi-2/ a7saaa018 Living Theta, rhe anbloy of practic | scane change Hillary Clinton, she has to kiss the ass of all of these companies to have enough money to make his campaign. She was one of the few politicians who 10-15 years ago proposed a free health care for all, but today no longer feel; the new Michael Moore film, Sicko , he says. Then she was censored, and can no longer say what he really feels in his heart, because otherwise it does not win, for how the American system. Let's go back a moment back to the idea of community you mentioned earlier, and the period in which you've been here in Italy, in Piedmont. Tell us how was that experience, how it worked at the time and because it's over It'a contradiction, because we had funds to renovate the venue we were assigned, was money of the European Community, then the province of Alessandria and then from municipality of Rocchetta Ligure, But in reality then we did not have the funds we as theatrical association, the center-left has turned their noses on our work and closed the tap. What year was that? '89 To 2004. Because the City was going to Forza Italy, but it is also an excuse, I believe, you know here in Italy, says the province 'E’ Rome that does not give us more money ', the common saying 'It' the province that does not give money ‘and in the end there were only debts and after two or three years there was no money to create anything. We were there without a penny, so what do you do ... and then there's us, that we are not a community today. With Julian Beck was a community moreover because he put to serve the group well as its ability to find money, he used his charisma to find money to everyone, from the rich, by the State, by the Communist Party, Arci, in order to support the company. His first goal was to support the group of people. And when he died that vision has remained an idea, but in practice it is dead, because that capacity has not been inherited, The political message you brought you think has influenced the ‘closing of the taps’? Yes, in Italy, yes, as I said, it seemed awkward to create what we thought, at that time at least. But in any case you believe in the possibility of creating a new group in Italy. Absolutely. But maybe we should start talking about what you need to do to lay new foundations. I take three fundamental aspects of the experience Living: the first is contained in the name - Living - practicing the message; the second is the indexing of ‘addiction’, an original point of view and valuable, however, for a discussion on the conflict and on the power. The third, resulting from this, is the need to build community, to break free from the "necessity" of capitalism, by economic necessity. From dependence, in fact. Which opens the economic autonomy of a community problem. Carrata, November 2007 and December 2012 ‘About these Ads (htps:/wordpress.comfabout-these-ads/) Capitalism Make Gary Brackett. Judith Malina’ Julian Beck's Living Theatre poverty exploitation TLAZ ntps:ifcambociscenawordpross.com2015!08O4ving-thesire-c-dellotlogia-dlla-prassi-2/ arovzaz016 Living Theatre, or the ontology of practice | scene change Blog at WordPress.com, ntps:ifcambociscenawordpross.com2015!08O4ving-thesire-c-dellotlogia-dlla-prassi-2/ co