Through the Cult of Fear
November 5th, 2010
9pm
This is a ritual performance featuring two dancers, (Arun and Markandeya,) an electronic soundtrack (by IntergalactErrorist), and a chorus of three members who will be delivering all of the voice.
It includes sculptural props and handmade, printed liturgical vestments created specifically for the piece.
About the Piece
“Through the Cult of Fear” is a Dream-Enactment, a ritualized dance showing the indoctrination of the original, primal human soul into the enslavement of control by organized religion. In this story, humanity’s original free state is represented by the naked Dancer who opens the performance with a graceful series of Qi-Gong like movements in salutation to the forces of the Living Cosmos. This timeless natural ritual attracts the attention of the phantom-like Bishop who psychically seduces and vampirizes the Dancer by introducing him to an idol called The Fetish and instructs him how to slavishly worship it. This Bishop is portrayed as a Mind-Flayer, a creature recognizable from the game Dungeons and Dragons and also reminiscent of the imagery of H.P. Lovecraft. This confusion of fiction, established religion and myth is deliberate. What beautiful and horrifying, what liberating and disempowering things rise from the human imagination.
Through deep remembrance of ancient, organic wisdom, this state of psychic disempowerment is overcome. By recalling the motions and the chant with which the cycle opened the fear-spell is transcended by the Dancer and all of the characters are integrated into a new, inclusive mandala. All of the words of this performance are delivered by a Chorus who represent all of the voices passing through the human psyche. The final arrangement of Dancer, Bishop and Chorus represents the circle of possibilities arising from the primal mind overcoming its imprisoning domestication yet integrating the arts, skills and stories through which it has passed.”