Well, it's about time to be heading back to my beloved Mumbai,
and leaving once again my ever-more-beloved Meherabad.
Things are quieting down around here in my semi-ashram home. The Argentinians left from right under my nose before I got a chance to embarrass myself with more bad Spanish. Tomorrow a whole slew of people are heading out, including significant pockets of wonderful Australians, Iranians, and Americans, as well as our beloved new actor friends from Japan and Spain by way of England. Bittersweet times for all of us at Meherabad. Saying goodbye to so many wonderful new friends, but basking in the glow of all the new memories and bringing forth of unbridled pure love and expression for Amartithi and Baba's birthday.
Things have been exciting and busy of late for me. Hence the lack of blog postings. Please excuse.
The whole month of February saw me preparing for, and executing a role in Meher Baba's birthday play, along with a lot of work in designing and building the sets. I actually built, along with a host of seriously awesome helpers:
-an eight-foot semi-cubist styled boat from scrap wood complete with mast and sail.
-two islands, adorned with paper-mache rocks on wheels
-a seven-foot cloud that was never used
-and a variety of other props and costume adornments, including a garland of time clocks and a baby.
I hope to get some pics and video up soon. So please stand by.
The play was, as always, an amazing experience that reinforced my belief that with Baba's help anything is possible . . . such as . . . putting together a play in three weeks with a thrown-together group of volunteer amateurs with zero experience, where a group of professionals in the same situation would take a year to get a result with half the heart!
I don't think it was until I was on stage, taking a final bow, looking out at the crowd who was standing on their feet applauding, sending their love and affection our way as we just stood taking it in, that I finally let it all go, all the preparation, the stress, everything that went into just providing my small part in putting the thing together so quickly. I almost started crying on stage it was so moving. What a blessing to be a part of it.
The play turned out amazing.
Just an aside - For those of you who are feeling a little in the dark right about now, let me just explain that every February 25th, for the last, oh 30 years or so I believe, those that have that have had the privileged of making Meher Baba's home their own home here in India, have put on a play in celebration of his birthday - February 25th, 1894. It is a play that is for him really in every sense of the word. Yes, us Baba lovers believe Meher Baba is just as alive as ever even though he may not be in a physical body any more. So the play is executed and performed for him.
Oh and PS. for those that are wondering, THIS is Meher Baba. THIS is where Meherabad, his and my home, is located. And THIS is what it's like. Oh and THIS is just great. Dig it?
I must say I wasn't sure about the play after reading the initial script. A lot of us were unsure about it.
This year was quite a departure from the plays that we have done at Meherabad for the past, oh 30 years. Most of the plays of the past have been historical or very literal dramas. This year was much more thematic, symbolic, visual, and movement-oriented in its storytelling. In fact, it was done in the method of something called corporeal mime. Something I had never even heard of until a couple months ago when we first started discussing the play.
As it turns out, this year, Allen, our usual director/producer/whatever-is-needed-to-make-a-play-happen man, handed over the reins to Steve Wasson, a longtime Baba-lover who, as it turns out, comes from a very distinguished background of experience in performance.
Again, I had no idea what corporeal mime was. Like most Americans (or people outside of France I imagine), the only mime I was familiar with was some guy with white face paint on acting like he was trapped in a box.
But as it turns out, mime is of course, much more than that. As it turns out, Steve runs a school in London called The Theatre de l’Ange Fou, International School of Corporeal Mime. Steve studied with Etienne Decroux, and basically continued a long traditional of corporeal mime, which is basically a form of acting that can incorporate spoken word, but relies heavily on conveying drama through the movement of the body.Anyway, check some of it here, because its quite different from what you would expect from mime. It was quite a pleasure to work with Steve and his two actors, Kentaro of Japan, and Jorge of Spain, who he brought with him to India.
It was also interesting to hear the reaction from people after the show. The word on the street was that the non-English Indians, Iranians, and Argentinians in the audience had really enjoyed it this year because it was possible to understand what was happening without words. Ironically, the people who could understand English perfectly said that they had difficulty following the actual words, but felt the visceral feeling of the actions and the visuals more than ever. Many people were moved to tears.
In other news:
- I remain hopelessly addicted to The Huffington Post. Why am I so into the best and most entertaining source of contemporary politics and news online? Probably because of awesome stuff like this. OK, and like this. But really, I don't think its healthy to be spending my time on it when I have the Avatar of The Age's tomb half a kilometer away.
- Driving my motorbike from my house to Baba's Samadhi today to take darshan, I stumbled upon a woman's push-bike race from Arangaon village to the MPR and back today sponsored by Prithvi, the wonderful NGO that is working to help empower the women and the farmers of the area. My friend and I waited at the finish line and shortly witnessed the winner crossing the finish line which was highly entertaining. Why? Because despite the crowd waiting for them to arrive no one cheered. It was highly strange and somehow really funny because of its absurdity. Indians never cease to enterain me with their bizarre behavior. Why was everyone waiting for them to finish if they weren't going to cheer? I just don't get it. Me and my friend were the only ones clapping.
- My friend cut my hair today, what do you think? I think its pretty damn funny.
- And finally, Stay tuned for reports from Mumbai. I'll be back at the art gallery Chemould Prescott Road, where we'll be having an opening for L.N. Tallur on March 5th. This guy's work looks nuts. Case in point, this (which we'll be showing) :
and this (which we won't to my knowledge):
His stuff reminds me of Nate Lowman's (of New York, and of Mary-Kate dating fame) crazy s@&#:
I'm curious to meet this Tallur cat because to me it seems like more of the same uber-art-nihilism in a way. More of Indian Art veering toward the international art-star standard of big and complicated and difficult to decipher without the use of the poetically obscure genre of art-catalog prose, which doesn't actually decipher anything except becoming part of the package of hitting the goal of fitting into some sort of feeling of big beautiful nihilism.
That being said, there is something I love about it. It is so damn beautiful to me.
Stay tuned.
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