7/23
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| Myrto, Bob, Mario and Katherine |
We finally
sit down and talk with the reGroup theatre folks to try and finalize their
contract. There have been some bumpy places but I still have respect for what
they are doing in trying to reclaim the legacy of the original Group theatre and I am
anxious for them to have a good run for
their Texas Trilogy, which I haven’t seen since my Tulsa days.( http://www.atexastrilogy.com/home.html)
There is enough shared culture on both sides of the Red River to have made a
real connection with the Tulsa theatre community.
People from
the Work Center are arriving and setting to work for tonight’s open conversation
on the intersection between performance and spirituality.
Last night
while they were singing, a couple wandered in and asked what was going on. I
told them it was an open choir singing songs from the old southern black church
tradition. They listen awhile, see the bare feet and the dancing circle and look
as if they’re not quite sure.
Pat O in for
our weekly meeting. We have to get Danielle’s job replacement description
finalized. And keep moving towards finalizing our construction manager
contract. And doing whatever’s necessary to expedite getting the stop work
order lifted. But underneath it all, there is progress. We are moving forward.
****
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| Starting off with music |
A crowd is
gathering in Mc Alpin Hall for Performance and the Sacred: a living exploration
of community and practice. The event begins with a round if singing. People
drawn up and into the moving circles.
Jeremy G gives us an overall introduction and I set the context for
West-Park as a sacred space.
There’s a
lot to talk about beginning with the theme for the evening.
* I remember
when we were working with the accordionist extraordinaire Bill Schimmel (http://www.billschimmel.com/) every
Sunday. Other of our house musicians complained and said that it felt more like
performance than worship. Katherine responded that all worship is
performance, it’s a matter of what kind
of performance. So I argue that there is
no distinction between performance and sacred.
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| Jeremy G welcomes us |
* Jeremy M
argues that for himself as a recoding artist, performer and church musician,
for him there is a difference.
* Katherine
says that ultimately it’s an issue of intention.
* The issue
of repetition comes up. Mario talks about working on some pieces for 10 years
before they are ready. I say that repetition can be an effort to recreate an
experience. To do it so many times that it becomes embedded. Like a recipe. You
may need to do it 10 times before you know it well enough to take it off in
another direction. It’s when the word is
fully incarnated that the door to the deeper place opens.
* There are
folks here from St. Augustine, a Roman Catholic Church with garifono members,
women in African print and turbans. All you need for your church to grow, says
one woman, is good music. One good singer. And feed the people good food.
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| Mario tells us about the Work Center |
* We have
good food, donated by our neighbor Barney Greengrass, arroz y habichuelas from
Flor de Mayo, Mario’s favorite spot, and a giant pan of shepherd’s pie from our
home base, the Gate. Generous neighbors...enough to feed us all and more...
* There are
people from the Manhattan Church of Christ, an evangelical break away from the
Disciples. They have a strong program with the homeless. But what is their
theology? Where are they vis a vis lgbtq? Women? That is important to me.
* The question
of context comes up. The music Mario uses is from the American south.
African-American Christian music. Some of the seed group members are Buddhist.
Jewish. Hindu. Secular. They are wrestling with what does to mean to sing words
they don’t believe and still feel moved? Is thee something inherent that in the
music that has meaning deeper than the words?
* I press
the context discussion in an other direction. The music they sing comes
form a context of struggle, From a
project of creating liberated space in the midst of slavery. Oppression. That
sustained people in the struggle to make that liberation concrete. What does it
mean to remove that music from that context?
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| Myrto makes a point |
* Mario
suggests that we are all involved in some level of struggle, even if personal and
internal. That’s not enough for me. We live in the midst of the agony of Gaza.
Of tens of thousands of children crossing the US-Mexico border. Of a black man
on Staten Island choked to death for selling loose cigarettes. Does this
experience of singing and/or performance challenge one to engage? I recall that Thomas Merton said that when
one begins in true meditation, one ends in revolution.
* Also at
stake is community. At last week’s Petefest, in honor of Pete Seeger, I finally
got it. When I was an early folk-singer, I hated sing-alongs. I wanted to slay
you with my songs. But I realized that Pete had an intention. (That word again)
to create a sustaining community of struggle through shared song. That his
sing-alongs, the very act of communal singing, had concrete political content.
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| Katherine does too |
* And I
pushed the community question further. As I see it there are two agendas. One,
the relationship with St. Augustine, the Manhattan Church of Christ, existing
faith communities, is dialogical and dialectic in nature. The other has to do
with creating new communities. To ask those who have been attracted to the
weekly practice of singing what the next step would be. What would it taken to make a commitment
of mutual accountability to each other? To become a community that would reach out in service,
in struggle? I offer to assist that process for anyone willing to undertake it.
* For me, I
now that the church as I have known it
is over. Something new must be born. I want to help midwife that new reality.
Is something here part of that new birth? Is there a new community waiting to
be born? We’ll review it all next week before Mario returns to Italy.
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| Saying goodnight after a great conversation |
****
Open mic
starts late out of courtesy for the
discussion going on upstairs. There’s at least one new singer-songwriter named
Jesse.
I do a late set after Joel, Pat O and Mandola. But the real moment of
the night is Alex,
back again. Getting ready to head back to northwest
Arkansas, territory knew well in my
Tulsa days, to record her first EP in Kansas City. She wants to play some
songs. Get some video. For her kick-starter campaign. I’m elected to take the
video, which I do until her battery runs out. There is something raw and
untouched in her voice. I look forward to us being a community of support as she ventures out. We’ll
publicize the campaign as soon as it is on. RL invites her to join him on Stay
Awhile. And she does. Smiling all the while.
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| Jesse |
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| Alex |
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| Stay Awhile |
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