open letter


... just finished reading Jacob Wren “Authenticity is a Feeling” on the plane to Seoul ... in fact read the entire book on airplanes ... what sticks the most is the passage describing going to a round dance:

“ ... that this was what I’d always been looking for in art. The way everyone could participate or not participate, how the dancing and singing and drumming was just going on in and around us, part of daily life, and at the same time we were all always part of it. (Well… I wasn’t but everyone else seemed to be.) Since, of course, this wasn’t only or even mainly art, it was culture in a larger sense. ... I couldn’t help but think: wasn’t this related to what I’ve always been working on. A performative feeling of community where the performers were no different from the audience, where everyone knew the rules yet engaged with them in some way where the rules barely seemed to matter at all. I was of course watching all of this as an outsider and a settler. I had no idea what it was like for the others here who did this every week or every month. It seemed like a regular part of their lives.”

... the week long Sundance in Northern Saskatchewan provided me with similar feelings ... yet something quite different ... find myself searching something beyond community ... where there are no outsiders ... we are all part of this regular life ... this insanity of building walls/borders/territories to protect/defend/conquer creates insiders & outsiders ... 

 ... i long for the actor to be keepers ... fearless keepers of knowledge, stories, songs, dances and objects ... keepers incarnating imagination ... playing fearlessly ... you may think actors act ... it is more accurate to say actors by acting through their playing learn to share ... actors act to see what things are like when acted ... living experience in action ... 

... once in a while I think we know everything and realize nothing ... maybe that’s foolish ... the soul’s breathing is in the body ...

... a thought ...  a speculation  ... although have not witnessed most of the present day work of those I know or any PMR-Art piece ... i sense a connection ... a connection between those I dare to call collaborators and what PMR describes in their collaborations ... not sure ... the speculation also comes from recent workshops ...

... once entering the academic realm ideas/mind/concepts/talk take presidence over other ways ... material is offered ... i solicit resources & writings from my collaborators ... too often they lie dormant in the computer ... do hope all you researchers find the work provoking all areas of your creative being ... wish to see the ghost in the pupils ...

… ”everyday, everyday, everyday/ the there is tomorrow/ here is not the place/now is not the time” ... fragments from Autobiography of Death by Hyesoon Kim ... waiting ... always waiting ... why is it that we are dragged into being ... a circulation ...

 ::Note:: ... this letter is unfinished ... most everything i write & do is frustratingly unfinished ... i learn to live with if ...

Location: Seoul, South Korea

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