Notes

Does a mask only hide us, or can it actually allow us to reveal who we truly are? This was a question that arose for me as we discussed a poem titled “Life While-You-Wait” by Wislawa Szymborska. The poem starts with: Life While-You-Wait. Performance without rehearsal. As a musician, my initial interpretation was that of a musical performance. But as I continued to read the lines: I have to guess on the spot just what this play is all about. Of course, I connected it to Shakespeare’s famous lines “All the worlds a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” This idea of life as an improvised play that we are all playing a role in, is something I’ve connected to since I was young. As a musician who prefers an improvisational performance over one that is rehearsed, I realized it’s much easier to improvise with music than in a play. This was brought to life for us by our guest speaker who joined us today, the well known French comic book artist and animator Jul. Among many other things, Jul is currently writing and creating an enormously successful and popular animated series here in France called Lucky Luke, which was known by most of the non-westerners here at Culturistan. Jul also had worked many years at Charlie Hebdo and many other projects. He shared his unique approach to humor where no subject or topic is off limits. He felt comedy is the best tool to neutralize issues that would be considered taboo to most. Hearing about his process of creating his work was inspiring as well as absolutely hilarious. It was such a nice respite from our deep philosophical and introspective discussions we’ve been engaging in here. One of our readings in preparation for Culturistan was the Greek tragedy Antigone. Not something anyone would consider having any comic overtones. But Jul showed us differently. We were broken up into groups of two or three and given about thirty minutes to create a skit as a contemporary comedy. Jul gave us each theme that was, of course, hilarious and sent us on our way to write and then ultimately perform it for the rest of the group. I think it’s safe to say I won’t be pursuing any acting gigs anytime soon! But it was nice getting out of my comfort zone and to be reminded not to take it all too seriously. And as the last stanza of the poem states: The machine rotating the stage has been around even longer.The farthest galaxies have been turned on.Oh no, there’s no question, this must be the premier.And whatever I do will be forever what I’ve done.

Masks~ which masks do you wear? Are you even aware of the costumes you adorn yourself with or the roles and costumes you oppose on others to wear? What happens when we don’t play the roles correctly? When the line is drawn between manipulation and simply good strategizing blurred, when it comes to making one’s goals come to fruition? There is a vulnerability in being and living in a body, it possible to straddle the worlds of the imaginary and real and create a new reality? There is not only one domain which I wish to occupy, connecting and engaging through all of our senses, maybe it is possible to interact with multiple heritages, histories, and stories in parallel with our own without suppressing the difference.

It’s Sunday, Day 4 at Culturistan. The work, the thinking, continues to intensify and so we start a little later than usual. Most of us take the opportunity to catch up on sleep and tread a little more softly. Today’s sole reading is ‘Life While You Wait’ by Wislawa Szymborska. We all agree that we are ‘Ill-prepared for the privilege of living/…can barely keep up with the pace that the action demands.’ But we don’t on agree on whether we ‘loathe improvisation’. ‘If only,’ Szymborska continues, ‘I could just rehearse one Wednesday in advance, or repeat a single Thursday that has passed! But here comes Friday with a script I haven’t seen.’ If only. All of us at some point thus far have expressed this sentiment. But the play must go on. Prepared or not, the stage is set, ‘The props…surprisingly precise’. The poem is a metaphor for life, and the reality of our daily joys and dramas. So far, so obvious. But, as ever, Ahmad pushes us to explore it more honestly — are we improvising, even performing, for everybody here? What masks do we wear in life and in work, and especially when the improv’s not working and we’re scared? In and of themselves, masks are not negative or positive. We could use ‘costume’ in place of ‘mask’, the resulting nuance of which might make it more palatable (whereas masks hide our eyes — windows into our souls, yes? — costumes cover our bodies). Either way, some people need more, others less. And we wear multiple masks and/or costumes for multiple roles. If we’re aware of which ones we’re wearing, and when, and why, perhaps we can use them to better our performance in all the roles we have to play. Appropriately, the poem brought us to an incredible afternoon with Jul, who regaled us with the story of how he came to write comics, and particularly the resurrection of Lucky Luke. Jul also screened several episodes from 50 Shades of Greece, his new series on Arte, which is a commentary both hilarious and critical on contemporary society and politics through the lens of the stories of the Ancient Greek gods. This set the bar rather high for the next segment of the day — three groups each putting on a performance of Antigone, with wicked inspiration from Jul. Yasmeen and Iason played Antigone and Ismene respectively, each sending up their own (‘authentic’?!) personalities and interpersonal dyanamic to laugh-out loud guffaws from the rest of us. Carrying over the in-jokes, Estephania, Tara and I played out what to do with Polyniece’s uncovered body — should we reduce (let it be devoured by vultures), reuse (offer it to Cannibals…

12 pagan gods parachuted into the automated 20th centuryBlinking at the profusion of screens; blinking at the replacement of essence with speedFlummoxed by the banishment of relations by technological crutchesInhuman transactionality The gods noticed that the most exploitation Happened in the space where human relations had frayed the mostThere, the awesome bulldozers of neoliberalismWere at their busiest dispossessing communities, privatizing and extracting value (But all is not lost – a wag said – when hollow emotionality can sluice into the emergent gaps!)Hollow, nevertheless. Repelled by the artificiality, their initial amusement at the weirdness rapidly clottingPost-haste they reentered their car, headed back to the train station Perhaps Olympus might still be there; a redemption of sorts.

Today marks Day 4 of Culturistan, and the schedule today was quite different than any other day. We started the day by reading a poem called “Life While You Wait”. The poet talks about his wish to be able to rehearse before the performance of a day but that he has no choice but to live in the present moment. He touches on the aspect that life is not a dress rehearsal, but instead the live premiere, which captures all of our mistakes and lessons. We talked about whether we wear masks and costumes, whether we’re aware or unaware, in all aspects of our life. I believe this to be true, as each moment requires some amplifying or dimming aspects of ourselves. The human mind has limitations as we’re always primed to survive at our lowest common denominator, and being on the outside of a group creates feelings of fear and even death, so our survival mechanism is to use the part of us that is required to survive in a group. Later in the day, we met the French cartoonist Jul, who was incredibly interesting and funny. He directed us to perform a few minutes of the play Antigone using satire, and it was a lot of fun to experiment with this form of art. It’s not often that we are required to use play in our work, as playfulness hasn’t been rewarded for much of my career as it implies a lack of seriousness. I plan to bring this layer of playfulness and laughter to my work when I’m back in the United States.

The masks (or costumes) we choose to wear Today I wear pink as to match the blush on my cheekfrom the glare of the boy across the room Today I wear blue as to match the coldness of my fingernailsfrom the stormy skies that broke our shelters Today I wear red as to match the cherry stains of my lipsfrom the orchards we hid in after the rain Today I wear yellow as to match the sun burned highlights of my hairfrom the longs walks to find home Today I wear white as to match the eagerness of my eyesfrom the wait of his reply Today I feel nakedas there is no act from where I take my clotheshe stares at meOh how I feel the need to put something on

The stage Today I feel safe. Sure to be walking even through the spaces that I do not know. Safe of this space, my space. However, I believe fervently that all spaces are different and that each one has a way to cross it and live it. I take this opportunity to put myself in each of those spaces and live it as it needs to be lived. Each of them has its own objects and their own characters. Each one comes with different sensations. But all of them are part of a whole. From a staging that combines all its versions. And all those characters, all those scenarios, all those costumes, all those movements, belong to me. I am the main character and I go inside knowing that improvisation keeps my character alive. Maintains its creativity at its best. “The machine rotating the stage has been around even longer. The farthest galaxies have been turned on. Oh no, there´s no question, this must be the premiere. And whatever I do Will become forever what I´ve done”Life While You Wait by Wislawa Szymborska The life is not a rehearsal, it is the premiere.

Culturistan asks its residents to linger and exchange in social spaces through readings, shared meals and environment. It pushes its residents not only to observe but also engage and reflect on the how storytelling, poetry, and other texts are situated in relationship to culture, place, race, class, and gender and for Class 1’s cohort~ centered around the theme of authenticity. Today I shared with my fellow residents a presentation using my dance work discussing the concept of performed heritage: Are humans mere brains contained in useless and meaningless vessels? No. We are living, breathing, moving creatures and this fact matters, not only for how we think about ourselves in a moving world but also how we think about thinking itself. What if we were to start the discipline of history from the stance of bodies moving? In a world of economic, cognitive, ideological and political hegemony. Who holds a monopoly over ‘knowledge’ and critical thought? Might dance be an epistemological approach to critical thought? How can we learn from and through the act of moving? If we could learn to think on our feet, invoking critical frameworks, might we be able to sense how power moves and in turn choreograph our resistance to it? What strategies and sacrifices are we willing to make in order to reach our end goal? Is authenticity always the most valuable ingredient?

Today marks Day 3 of the 9-day Culturistan program. Each day here feels like a month, mostly because time moves far more slowly when you’re contained in one location where we are, which is far out in the countryside. Rather than worrying about jettisoning from place to place or meeting to meeting, we are moving between two buildings that are only 1-2 minutes apart. We start each day by dissecting a series of readings, while our afternoons are filled with different activities and a presentation by one member of the group. These presentations have proven to be wild cards, both for the presenter and audience, because it requires little to no planning and becomes more of a real-time representation of where one literally is with their work and creative pursuits. Today’s readings included one piece of poetry followed by a few pieces of prose. The first piece – “The Real Work” was a rather short poem but smacked of what is known but usually not acknowledged — namely that our real work arrives at the moment in which we are most baffled and unsure about what to do next. The next reading was “Trying Out One’s New Sword” by Mary Midgley. This article felt controversial to me because it could be perceived in a multitude of ways, some of which probably doesn’t add a tremendous amount of value to modern society. However, the idea that our small window of exposure into different cultures doesn’t give us the right to assign any real critiques about it. Cultures are far too complex and dynamic to label or assign judgment against — even for an individual who has grown up within the confines of culture. We are only left to perceive cultures based on our limited perception which is riddled with filters and preconceived ideas of the world. The words of Socrates “I know that I know nothing” seems most appropriate when assessing a new culture or ideology that doesn’t fit within our limited understanding of the world. On the other hand, according to epigenetics, and Freud’s theory of the collective unconscious, humanity has an internal sense of knowing, a shared history that we have inherited from each other. We can tap into this collective unconscious if we allow ourselves the space to communicate without words and instead rely on intuition and feeling. After all, the majority of communication is nonverbal. We next spoke about “The Woman Behind the New Deal” about a social worker, Frances, who starts to compromise certain aspects of herself in order to push social reforms through Tammany Hall. She collaborates, first hesitantly, and then more determinedly with the political leaders whose values are different than her own. She…

One of the first major shifts of thinking for me that has happened here is realizing I can have a relationship with a person but have a different relationship with their opinions. I think so much of what we feel about topics and subjects are based on our own experience and personal history. I used to base my sense of someone first on what they think rather than seeing who they are. One reason for this is we are given the space to feel completely safe sharing anything with the group without fear of being chastised, dismissed or ignored. Each of is given the opportunity to fully express our ideas and interpretations without being interrupted. Another is that we start from a place of mutual respect. Once we leave the discussion group, even if some of us have offered views that may challenge others, we see it’s nothing more than that. Given the time to process, I see that being challenged is very different than feeling threatened. In an age of constant news feeds of ideas and information, we can no longer assume to be true, we may feel that our opinions are something we need to protect rather than expand. As we feel things we have held to be true being challenged, we instead feel threatened because we are told we just don’t know what is true anymore. This is the result of our digital news culture. If there is something that challenges our core sense of belief, we are told it’s fake news. Though this can be true, it seems that now if our ideas are challenged from even an authentic source,  instead we feel threatened and now have to protect our core beliefs at any cost instead of engaging in dialog. So we surround ourselves with those who feel the same way while designing our constant flow of news and information to only reinforce what we already feel to be true. Even if that information turns out to be completely untrue. Instead of just being challenged to expand our own belief systems, many of us now shut that option down and instead feel scared that our sense of truth is being threatened. How this has happened was conveyed brilliantly through an article we discussed today titled “The Unbelievable Story of the Plot Against George Soros” by Hannes Grassegger. It’s a fascinating breakdown of how we have we have arrived at a place where even a universal truth is no longer accepted as absolute. Where truth can be manipulated and strategized as long as there is a common enemy to protect ourselves from, making us scared of not just what we read but what we think and feel.