Bill Taylor on Grotowski and the Vision of PSALM
| "In fact, since I was nine, my first point of orientation has been the great figures of Hindu techniques. And it is this first center of interest (how one works on oneself with someone else, so to speak, in the performative context) that afterward traversed theatre. In the course of my life I always looked to frequent people that were in an unbroken relation with this or that technique or tradition. And there, in different fields, I received a direct transmission. I have been helped a lot in my life from this point of view. There are also certain figures or “elders” for whom I feel an enormous gratitude. In Central Asia, in India, in Latin America, in China, in the Caribbean, I met people like this. I did not ask myself, “Is it theatrical or not?” but rather: “What do they know practically, these people, about the possibilities of the human being?” " – Jerzy Grotowski ([1995] translated by Mario Biagini) |
"From 1977-1982 I had the good fortune to work with Jerzy Grotowski and the members of his Laboratory Theater at their facility in Wroclaw, Poland and at my facility, the OHIO Arts Center, in SoHo, NYC . When I met Jerzy in 1973 I had already studied his book Towards A Poor Theater and trained in the techniques it rested upon with my teachers, Lloyd Richards and the members of Peter Brook’s international ensemble, at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. By the time I got to Poland in 1977 I had been introduced to Grotowski’s Para-Theatrical research by Andre Gregory and the actors of his Manhattan Project ensemble but my exposure to these ideas had not prepared me for the depth of connection I experienced with Jacek Zymslowski and the work of his Night Vigil and Mountain Projects.
Following my first participation in Jacek’s work in Wrolcaw I returned to New York City and from 1977-1980 I studied the work of Grotowski in his past and current researches as the central topic of my Master’s thesis in Psychology. No sooner had I completed that effort than I was invited to return to Poland to witness Jerzy’s Theater of Sources research opening. As a participant in Theater of Sources I was to test Grotowski’s hypothesis on the physical techniques of sources from diverse traditional cultures and their propensity to induce the state of consciousness which C.G. Jung proposed as “Synchronicity”. My test of that hypothesis then had and continues today to have a profound impact on my life.
On returning from my second visit to Poland in 1980 I was offered the position of Producing Artistic Director for the newly established OHIO Arts Center in SoHo. Among the artists I invited to take a central role in the theater programs of the Ohio’s Performance Space was Jacek Zymslowski, Grotowski’s principal collaborator during both the Para-Theatrical and Theater of Sources research periods. Jacek and the members of his team were in residence conducting the extraordinary work of Vigil in sessions at the OHIO Arts Center from 1981-82.
As a consequence of my experiences with Jerzy and those he led I found myself time and again confronting the disparity between my career in contemporary American theater and the beckoning portal of his evanescent theater of the numinous. After 20 years of work in theater I crossed the threshold into the realm of inter-disciplinary human research to study one set of ancient physical techniques belonging to “The path of return”.
Since 1983, following discussions with Jacek, Jerzy and colleagues who were also profoundly influenced by their own exposure to the work of Theater of Sources, I have busied myself with the in-depth exploration of the performative techniques practiced as the primary focus in the day-to-day life of Sufi communities in the United States, Turkey, Asia and Africa.
The ‘turning’ of the Mevlevi Dervishes, the ‘howling’ of the Jerrahi’s, Halvet, Sobhet and Zhkr are among the physical techniques practiced in these communities. The masters of these traditions are among those now living on this planet who strive, as Jerzy did, for knowledge of that point of “unbroken relation” with the numinous state of consciousness at the heart of their tradition. I have been, as Jerzy was, graced with “direct transmission” from these people and they have taught me something about the possibilities of the human being.
Many years after immersing myself in these traditions, I am able to see beyond the religious and cultural trappings of these techniques to something that lies at the heart of these and many other practices. As a consequence of a certain degree of distance from my work with Grotowski and my research since that time on these specific techniques, it has become possible for me to assess many of my experiences under the light of scientific clarity by relying on something of the same dispassionate scrutiny with which Jerzy was able to isolate the nucleus of the source techniques he researched.
One of the most powerfully illuminating aspects of the work of Theater of Sources was the growing awareness that each technique I tested carried me, through the application of a separate psycho-physical regimen, to a state of consciousness in which it became possible to discover ’movement which is repose’. Moreover, I found that cumulatively, when working in the natural environment, these techniques induced a state of consciousness in which it became possible to have a direct experience of unity as the abiding reality shared by all that is alive. The awareness these practices fostered verified Jung’s postulation of ‘Synchronicity’ but in the direct experience what Jung saw as "a universal acausal connecting principle" translated as a communion; a consciousness of unity to the extent that every life shares the same heartbeat, a pulse, an on-going, uninterrupted rhythm or, as if all life is joined in one respiration. It was an experience of bumping up against a boundary fundamental to human existence – an axiom. Yet this state is somehow generally missing from daily human conscious awareness; a forgotten fact missing in contemporary scientific and cultural formulations of reality and the place of humanity within that reality.
Running, walking, moving, in repose, through the woods, fields and hillsides around Jerzy’s ‘camp’ in Poland a unique state of consciousness arose. It was as an harmonious awareness of every form of energy within a given terrain. In this state it became possible to inhabit the spatial world in completely ‘non-ordinary’ ways. It proved to be entirely possible, for example, to run while blindfolded in the dark of the night down a narrow road, lined to either side with trees and bushes, as fast as possible ‘knowing’ where each foot should fall, to consistently avoid all potential mishap entailed in the proposition.
To the mind this action should be calamitous but as Jerzy had discovered in the state of consciousness ‘before differences’ that distinguish between ‘my being’ and ‘life’ one enters a source-consciousness belonging in common to all that is alive. In that state ‘seeing’ a path to run through the woods on needs no eyes. One discovers a ‘sight’ within sight that operates beyond the mechanism of the human eye.
The question which lingers from those experiences and persistently presses for a response (As Jerzy knew it would for those who visited him that summer.) is still, what does this reveal about human possibility? For me Jerzy’s ‘test’ of Jung’s hypothesis on the human possibility to enter a state of Synchronicity affirmed the existence of that state of consciousness and confirmed that it could be induced as an outcome of working with these physical techniques from the traditions of diverse cultures around the world.
What I have come to realize since that ‘test’ of Theater of Sources is that the experience of the state of Synchronicity as a possible state of human consciousness points to a much larger and more important capacity within the scope of consciousness possible for human beings than is currently acknowledged as a central component of our reality by science or put to use in contemporary society. The ‘original’ connection of the human being to the natural environment has been for the most part forgotten. The state of Synchronicity which Jerzy described as, "a state in which one of two possibilities exist: either the natural environment is in harmony with the individual or, the individual comes into harmony with the natural environment" is only a partial description of the phenomenon under consideration.
Source-consciousness is a state existing ‘before differences’ and it is something that can become the ‘unbroken relation’ of the individual to the world. The core of the ancient physical techniques themselves form a portal through which the individual can pass to enter the awareness of the unity of all life. Once within that state the perspective it affords can itself become a permanent consciousness that of necessity alters the actions of the individual in the larger world. In society this possibility is not typically acknowledged except as a utopian ideal. In the absence of any systematic practice to actively re-member “our first home” - the connectedness of all lives, all life on our planet now suffers intensely.
Looking back at Grotowski’s researches they are his response to this diagnosis of the malady which plagues contemporary society. His researches, his ‘prescriptions’, were an attempt to recover the psycho-physical techniques within the sources, theatrical and trans-disciplinary (Stanislavski – Nunez) of ritual practices from the history of human culture that bear witness to this axiom and bring it back into the forefront of human consciousness, one person at a time. His focus was inviting others to have a direct experience of intrinsic human actions/’doings’ that embody the sanctity tacit in our ancient memory of the unity shared by all lives. In this he gave theatre back its power but he also gave back to “one works on oneself with someone else” the tools to progress. Grotowski wanted to give his audience/participant/tester/observer, the opportunity to discover for themselves that point of unity and be transformed by this knowledge in their own lives. As the heirs to his legacy, it remains for us to complete the cultural revolution begun by Grotowski and the members of the Polish Laboratory Theater.
There is a need for a larger body of work, made complete by a new language for articulating these possibilities, within contemporary culture that generates a greater awareness and appreciation for the power and significance of these states of consciousness - for the axiomatic fact of human possibility they disclose. The need is to conclude the liminality that persists and has become prevalent in our world. It requires that there be an end to the dual perception of these states of consciousness in which we address them not as they have been shown to be – ‘the original home’ of the human being but as something mystical, illusory or ‘non-ordinary’ in human experience.
In 2004, twenty-five years after Theater of Sources, The Philadelphia Society for Art, Literature & Music was begun. It flowed like a river out of collaboration with Michael Green’s Illumination Band to help facilitate the transposition of the eternally resonating words of the 13th Century Persian Sufi poet, Jelaludin Rumi as they have been translated by our friend, Dr. Coleman Barks, into contemporary songs based in the strains of music from the American south.
On the Path of Return it is said that Beauty is the original language understood by every heart. At PSALM we present cultural experiences to engage others in programs that combine the beauty of the Arts with the clarity of the sciences to illuminate the point of unity within diversity... as Rumi said 800 years ago, "Let beauty now be what we do."
The premise for founding the organization was a desire to research the contemporary manifestations of the Sufi tradition which Rumi is largely credited with having inspired. Departing from the contemporary manifestations of the Sufi tradition as they exist in North America PSALM’s Full Circle Project undertakes a journey of return to the regions of the world where the Sufi tradition was begun to seek direct experiences with the living masters of these physical techniques and document their understanding of these practices. Using a trans-disciplinary approach to the subject that integrates the contributions of artists, musicians, scholars and scientists PSALM made its inaugural presentation of the Full Circle Project at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia. The program, One House, Many Doors, was PSALM’s contribution to the global celebrations that took place throughout the world in 2007 to commemorate UNESCO’s International Year of Rumi marking the point of departure in the Full Circle journey to the east where the past joins to the present.
As work on Phase Two of the Full Circle Project progresses towards its discovery in the realms of human possibility PSALM honors the men and women of the Polish Laboratory Theater whose legacy of trans-cultural interdisciplinary explorations are the inspiration for much of our efforts.
It is planned that throughout 2009 PSALM will present a series of seminars and practical demonstrations on the work of Grotowski, past and present. Please visit us again at www.grotowski-psalm.org for more details on these and other Year of Grotowski programs."
– Bill Taylor, Executive Director and Co-founder, The Philadelphia society for Art, Literature & Music (2009)
