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Special Section on G. I. Gurdjieff and
His Teaching Edited by Grzegorz Zió³kowski, Consulted with Tilo
Ulbricht, in Collaboration with James Moore
In his General Introduction Peter
Brook explains the motives for publishing in „Konteksty” a
section devoted to G. I. Gurdjieff and his teaching: „In November
2001, The Grotowski Centre in
Wroc³aw
organised a special seminar to enable Polish students and thinkers
to acquaint themselves with a vast subject – the teaching of
George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff. The considerable interest that the
three days of meetings and discussions aroused led to a powerful
wish to understand the subject more fully and more deeply. This
issue of ’Konteksty’ is a first attempt to respond to this
demand. It brings together the experiences of many who have devoted
a considerable part of their lives to following the Gurdjieff
teaching”. Gurdjieff was a „Greek-Armenian spiritual teacher who
remains an enigmatic figure and an increasingly influential force in
the contemporary landscape of new religious and psychological
teachings. […] He brought to the West a comprehensive model of
esoteric knowledge and left behind him a school embodying a specific
methodology for the development of consciousness”, Michel de
Salzmann writes in a biographical note included in the selection. [More
information can be found at the web-sites of The International
Association of Gurdjieff Foundations (www.iagf.org) and of Gurdjieff International Review (www.gurdjieff.org).]
The articles are grouped in six sections: Reception, Towards the Essence, Teaching, Belzeebub and
Movements, Gurdjieff –
the Man, and Bibliography. In the first
section, Grzegorz Zió³kowski writes about how little Gurdjieff
teaching is known in
Poland
. The situation is only now beginning to change – the first Polish
group supervised by a qualified teacher has been recently formed.
The author underlines that in
Poland
interest in Gurdjieff is mostly (but not exclusively) due to Jerzy
Grotowski for whom Gurdjieff constituted an important reference
point since the late 1970’s.
The second part is a collection of
texts based on speeches delivered at the „Towards the Essence”
conference organised by the Grotowski Centre in
Wroc³aw
(2001). For Peter Brook, James Moore, Laurence Rosenthal and Tilo
Ulbricht an encounter with Gurdjieff’s understanding formed a
central axis of their lives. In their capacities as a theatre and
film director (Brook), a writer (Moore), a musician and composer (Rosenthal),
and a scientist (Ulbricht) they present their own essential
perception of what this teaching means today. The third part, Teaching,
expresses the opinions of those who worked with Gurdjieff directly
and of the „second generation” of his pupils – as in the case
of James Moore and especially Jeanne de Salzmann; it is on her
shoulders that Gurdjieff placed responsibility for a continuation of
his work. Her guidance made it possible to develop and expand
Gurdjieff’s teaching and to draw together many of his pupils and
separate groups. She also supervised the translation and publication
of Gurdjieff’s written works. Over
a period of forty years, Jeanne de Salzmann worked tirelessly with
her pupils to preserve and transmit the exercises and dances
originally taught by Gurdjieff. Her First Initiation is a pitiless critique of those human beings who in
reality ‘are not what they believe to be.’ Only the acceptance
of this idea and observation without preconceptions can place women
on the path leading towards truth – Jeanne de Salzmann firmly
states. Thomas de Hartmann and P. D. Uspensky also belong to those
who met Gurdjieff (already in pre-revolutionary
Russia
) and collaborated with him. The former helped Gurdjieff to
translate his musical ideas into actual notes on paper. „De
Hartmann’s musical credentials were impeccable”, Rosenthal
writes. „He had studied at the Moscow Conservatory with the
well-known Taneyev, as had his contemporaries Rachmaninov and
Scriabin. He became not only Gurdjieff’s lifelong disciple, but
also his devoted collaborator, dedicating his deep musical
sensibilities to the realisation of Gurdjieff’s musical ideas”.
„Uspensky will be chiefly remembered for In Search of the Miraculous, published posthumously in 1949 and later in several
foreign languages under the title Fragments of an
Unknown Teaching. This work is by
far the most lucid account yet available of the teaching of G. I.
Gurdjieff, and it has been a principal cause of the growing
influence of Gurdjieff’s ideas”, John Pentland adds in a
biographical note on the Russian philosopher and thinker. The
section contains fragments of their principal books: De Hartmann’s
Our Life with Mr Gurdjieff, written with his wife, Olga, and Uspensky’s In Search of the Miraculous (a selected fragment focused on remembering oneself).
Texts by Michel de Salzmann and Henri Tracol, which come next in
this section, concentrate on different aspects of the teaching. De
Salzmann’s article: Seeing: The Endless Source of Freedom, which demonstrates the psychological background of
the author, puts emphasis on the quality of seeing: „As one begins to realize that
the fundamental aim is to become aware of the whole of oneself, then
the sacred quality of ’seeing’ becomes as important as what is
seen, and a balance begins to appear „. It should be highlighted
that from 1990 until his death in August 2001, Dr. de Salzmann
directed the network of Gurdjieff foundations, societies, and
institutes around the world. In his Remembering Oneself Henri Tracol,
President of the Gurdjieff Institute in
France
, evokes Gurdjieff’s lucid remark: „When you remember oneself,
what exactly is it that you remember?”. His text testifies to the
multifaceted questioning conducted by the author. In a chapter
entitled The Revelation in Question from the biography Gurdjieff: An Anatomy of a Myth James Moore pauses in his narrative on Gurdjieff’s life to present his
teaching as a multilevelled structure encompassing not only the
totality of human existence but also cosmology and a vision of the
entire universe. „Gurdjieff’s ideas and methods, in all their
breathtaking scope, are constellated around the idea of conscious
evolution”, accentuates the biographer. He concludes his
exhaustive account by declaring that „If this man cannot be
understood without his teaching, neither can the teaching be
understood without the man”. Gurdjieff’s teaching is transmitted
directly by his disciples and followers whose working tools include
the writings of their master and special gymnastics known as
Movements. A distinctive place among the books written by Gurdjieff
is reserved for Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson, first published in English in 1950, i. e. a year
after Gurdjieff’s death. It is, as Michel de Salzmann notices, „an
unprecedent vast and panoramic view of man’s entire life on Earth
as seen by beings from a distant world. Through a cosmic allegory
and under the clock of discursive anecdotes and provocative
linguistic elaborations, it conveys the essentials of Gurdjieff’s
teaching”. The next section focuses on the word and the dance as
the vehicles of teaching, and includes texts by Henri Tracol (Thus Spake Beelzebub), who together with Jeanne de Salzmann worked on the French edition of Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson, and by Joanna Haggarty (Some Aspects of Movements) and Pauline de Dampierre (The
Role of Movements) who taught the
sacred dances for many years. The section on Gurdjieff – the Man encompasses a
short comprehensive biographical text by Michel de Salzmann, written
for Mircea Eliade’s The Encyclopaedia of Religion, and three testimonies by Gurdjieff’s pupils from
different periods. In Boyhood with
Gurdjieff Fritz Peters, a boy when he met
Gurdjieff in Prieuré (south of
Paris
) during the 1920s, describes how strongly the master emphasized
incessant work on developing one’s self. Tcheslaw Tchechovitch’s
vivid evocation (The Dvadsatniki) of Constantinople in 1921, when the town teemed with refugees from the
Bolshevik revolution in
Russia
, shows the importance attached by Gurdjieff to the fact that those
around him were responsible human beings capable of overcoming
obstacles created by historical turmoil. Henriette Lannes in To Recognize a Master,
addressed to Gurdjieff’s pupils in 1957, on the eighth anniversary
of his death, evokes the impact of the master’s force which she
experienced in direct contact with him during the 1940s. True
teaching is validated by the quality of the teacher’s presence.
The selection ends with the editor’s bibliography of sources on
Gurdjieff in Polish and with text of Michel de Salzmann. This view
is further enhanced by Michel de Salzmann in his valuable guidelines
to those readers who can easily become lost in the abundance of
Gurdjieff literature. In the closing section devoted to written
sources De Salzmann stresses „the awakening power emanating from
his [Gurdjieff’s] presence” and points out that „All those who
approached him were marked indelibly by the experience”, adding
that „A definitive characteristic of a living teaching or
’way’ is that it cannot be found in any book”. He acknowledges
however that some books can be helpful as support while working on
one’s self, as well as that „testimony is a necessity”. His
sober remarks on the position of the written in understanding
Gurdjieff’s teaching can be revealing especially for those who
tend to confuse definitions with the living process of transmission.
14th Session of ISTA
The
Wroc³aw
session of the International School of Theater Anthropology (ISTA)
was held on 1-15 April 2005. The author of the project was Eugenio
Barba, director and head of the forty years old Odin Teatret
company, which every few years gathers in assorted places all over
the world a group of researchers dealing with the theatre in order
to jointly delve into the secrets of the art of acting. The prime
objective and premise of the functioning of ISTA is an extensive
theoretical and practical study of the manners of creating a
theatrical spectacle. Barba and his coworkers try to capture the
essence of the origin of that which may be described as the
phenomenon of theatrical qualities by applying scientific research
methods and so-called theatrical quests. The articles entitled „ISTA-
Wroc³aw
2005”
document the workshops, spectacles and lectures which comprised this
year’s session, enhanced with an attempt at a meta-reflection on
the meaning and premises of the Barba project in general.
Henryk Jurkowski
Craig in the World of Ideas
This summary of the book Œwiat Edwarda Gordona Craiga. Przyczynek do historii
idei (The World of Edward Gordon Craig. A
Contribution to the History of Ideas, in print) contains numerous
statements fully documented in the publication. The author embarked
upon a verification of many of the terms proposed by Craig, i. e.
the theatrical artist. Contrary to commonly held views, Craig did
not ascribe it to the director, but had in mind an authentic artist,
regardless whether the latter fulfilled the functions of the author
of the staging, the director or merely the stage designer. The
aversion expressed by Craig in relation to ready texts (e. g.
Shakespeare) was the outcome of the same premises – an „artist
of the theatre” should mould his output from the beginning to the
very end. Craig regarded the work performed by painters and graphic
artists, who decided about every detail, as exemplary, since it
involved selecting the material over which they subsequently
dominated. This approach proved to be a source of conflicts between
Craig and genuine actors, by no means complaisant. Naturally, he
appreciated outstanding actors, capable of transforming their
personality and body. Nonetheless, he envisaged the possibility of
creating a theatre which would apply assorted means of expression.
In 1905 he planned to open the International Uber-marionette Theatre,
with a seat in Dresden. The withdrawal of promoters compelled Craig
to focus on his conceptions by conducting a theatrical laboratory
and school in Florence. This was the period of the origin of his
first (unpublished) texts reflecting his interest in the theatre of
the ritual and the mystery play theatre. It was also at that time
that Craig presented his famous essay The Actor and
the Uber-marionette, issued in the
debuting periodical „The Mask”. This was not merely an attack
launched against the egoism and mediocrity of the art of acting, but
a manifesto in favour of the theatre of the ritual, inspired by
publications about the primeval religious rites of India. It was
also a demonstration in favour of the plastic arts theatre, which
placed the dynamic plastic metaphor in the forefront. Craig
transferred elements of this approach to his scenarios intended for
the puppet theatre. His reflections on the theatre (with a
predominance of objective elements over subjective ones) remained
influenced by Nietzsche, from whom he also probably fostered the
term „uber-marionette”. This was not the only inspiration! He
also borrowed animosity towards
realism and the social service of the
theatre, which is not to say that he did not support social
solidarism and even state institution benefits for the sake of...
the theatre. Neglected by the British theatrical milieu (throughout
his whole life Craig dreamed of being appointed director of an
English theatre) he valued all signs of recognition by fascist Italy,
Soviet Russia and even the victorious Third Reich in occupied Paris.
E. G. Craig was a complicated man, frequently inconsistent and naive;
at the same time, he remained a creator gifted with extraordinary
imagination, whose impact upon the twentieth-century European
theatre appears to be still insufficiently studied.
Henryk Jurkowski
The Art of Acting as an
Expression of Philosophical Dualism
In order to resolve an inquiry into
the character of theatrical mimesis the author examined all the „mimetic”
impulses which constitute either a certain context or the sources of
theatrical performance. The text starts with a reflection on the
conception proposed by Huizinga, i. e. to treat playing in general
as a source of human culture (homo ludens). This introduction is the reason for an analysis of children’s games,
whose point of departure is the activity of an infant who, deprived
of the mother’s breast, tries to dominate the objects which
replace it. In this manner there opens up a domain of psychological
analyses which lead to the notion of art according to Freud, Jung
and, predominantly, Nietzsche. All these authors perceived art as a
phenomenon of the objectivising „I” which, in the opinion of
Jung, produces myths and thus parallel worlds in a confirmation of
man’s inclination towards mimesis, mentioned already by Aristotle.
The existence of the phenomenon of mimesis is also attested by
contemporary anthropological research which, following the example
of James Frazer, acknowledges that mimesis possesses magical and
pragmatic functions. Michael Taussig drew attention to mimesis
conceived as a manner of existing with the Others, which implies the
multi-functional nature of emulation. Otherness possesses also a
specific internal dimension, disclosed in the use of persons
deformed mentally or physically as representatives of supernatural
forces. Such an attitude yielded the inveterate tradition of the
mythical jester, whose functions were subjected to assorted
transformations, and provided an example of the presence of mimesis
upon the borderline of reality and daily life. A distinct issue
involves the application of the mask as a likeness of the Other, to
be tamed and taught how to establish contact. In classical tragedy
the image of the Other persisted up to the time of pertinent
critical reflection, as in the case of every depleted myth. In the
theatre, the mask lost its sacral functions, making way for the
human actor, a fact which evoked a new situation. As a rule,
psychologists associate the act of creativity with echoing the
divine act of creation. The actor is deprived of such opportunities,
since he is not a substance that could exist beyond him. (The only
exception is the puppeteer who employs artificial substance). The
ensuing complicated situation demands that the actor define the
degree of his involvement in creating the depicted world. One could
say, therefore, that the actor (or the performer as such) enjoys an
extensive scale of possibilities defined by a chance for a dualistic
or monistic conception of the world. The former vision originates
from Plato, and claims that all that which we produce is a
reflection of the world of ideas. The actor’s role and his
impression of a character in a play correspond to this approach. The
monistic vision based on Fichte’s idealism, which assumes that the
source of all phenomena lies in the uniform spiritual „I”, makes
it possible for the actor to regard himself to be the gateway and
path towards becoming acquainted with the world. The dualistic
vision in the actor’s performance is confirmed by the metaphors
devised by Diderot, Antoine, Mikhail Chekhov and, naturally, Brecht.
The monistic vision springs from the deliberations of Artaud, the
„Living Theatre” and Grotowski. The whole issue, however,
becomes even more complicated in a situation when the initiator of
the conception of the actor’s performance is the director, and
especially when he treats the thespian as material for his own
visions (Kantor). In those cases, the dualistic visions harboured by
the director (I, the creator – they, the actors, my material
creation) does not have to concur with the stance of the performers
who find their own justification for the situation in which they
found themselves. These are the complications in the existence of
mimesis which one simply cannot foresee.
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