Multidisciplinary Show in Lisbon: "Once Upon a Time" at Maria Matos Theatre by LX Dance Group

Just as a cats brain appears to be tickled by certain types of movement, so the brains of many humans appears to be tickled by beauty - giving us a sense of pleasure that I tend to think once served some primordial purpose. Perhaps it still does.

I've also noticed that not everyone appears to share this sensation; humans divide themselves in many ways and one quite striking division is between those who think we ought to survive at any cost, however cramped and crowded, ugly and distasteful the world becomes; and those who prioritize the quality of human life and the life of all other flora and fauna. For the former, beauty appears to me to be a lesser consideration. For the latter, it is of paramount importance.

So if you have beauty in art, for me, you need no other excuse. If you 'deprioritize' beauty and dismiss it as 'sentimentality' you do need some other excuse.

Art for art's sake is an understandable reaction against overbearing ideologues and political activists of every stripe, but beyond that I suspect art cannot separate itself off completely from life. However, the idea of it being useful for any purposes misses the real point of art, which is precisely that it is not useful. Pure science is not in itself useful either, but it might become useful when it influences human practical activities. I think the same applies to art (Dance, Music, Painting, Literature, Opera, Theatre, etc.), although perhaps in a different way. It can help shape our responses to things. Think for example of Hamlet, after Horatio has said, "So Rosencrantz and Guildenstein go to't." and he replies, "Why man, they did make love to this employment. / They are not near my conscience. Their defeat / doth by their own insinuation grow. / 'Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes / between the pass and fell incensed points / of mighty opposites." Such lines have a kind of application in practical life, even though they are contained within a play and their validity depends on how well they fit into the play's fictional context. There are two aspects here. One is purely aesthetic, while the other one is connected to the world outside the play as well. And, ultimately, the one can't be divorced from the other.

There are several examples of how things we humans do with the most beautiful of motives can so often end in an ugly mess when we sacrifice beauty for practicality or other excuses (waking up everyday to go to work for example). Oscar Wilde could have chosen the practical route, hidden, lied, recanted, done and said anything to save his own skin but he didn't. He wasn't prepared to sacrifice beauty and that's probably why he is remembered and revered. I'm mainly seeking to illustrate the differences between the pleasurable beauty of the aestheticism, derived, as it was, directly from nature (all art - even an accurate portrait - is strictly speaking an "abstract painting", since it is abstracted from nature) and other kinds of beauty we're more familiar with since the 20th century.

For example, that rational, pared down, minimal "machine for living", function before form, detail-less beauty for detail-less minds, empty white box and concrete cube type of beauty. Or the "ugly" beauty of the chaotic - detritus as art, melted carnage, etc. Or "banal" beauty - the mind-numbingly mundane in an art gallery, potted cacti, Tupperware, a recreated 50's living room, that kind of thing.

For me, the one 'abstracted' from nature, is a purer kind of pleasure. The one abstracted from excuses of our own invention not only lacks nobility but also smacks of self-justification.

For those who questioned the (im)morality of his "ethics" Nietzsche would presumably echo Whistler. Nietzsche's master was truth; beyond good and evil; telling us what morality was/is/could be, not what we wished it was/is/could be. 

Telling us that God was absent; that we're on our own in an indifferent universe; that life in general was a momentary minuscule fluke of nature. That we created our world and died failing to sustain it; what a futile act of doomed defiance! But laughing and dancing all the while as he pointed to the paradoxical contradictions in all he said, in all our efforts to find wisdom, to learn, to gain knowledge, to live a good life.

Part of our modern (in a general sense) understanding of "art," allows for considerable social status for the person who makes it, if the maker, or what is made, can persuade someone of its value. That value, of course, may be very transient. The status that society allows an artist is also historically and culturally variable. The ideal of creative freedom is far from universal, but it is true that most societies acknowledge that "artists," in whatever medium, can access a peculiar power.

However times and places define it, "art" as we now rather vaguely understand it, is culture created and presented in a visible and audible form. It can mean whatever anyone wants it to mean, from its creation onwards, and it's neither good because it was made/collected by someone with the noblest motive, nor bad because it was made to advertise a corporate product.

Perhaps a better and shorter way of saying this, is that certain things are not quantifiable, because you are dealing with the qualities of something as it impacts on us. There are certain things which happen below the level of language - and understanding - even when words are in question. In this sense, Shakespeare is no different from an abstract dance artist like Fátima Veloso or a composer like Bach, as anyone who has tried to understand what Hamlet's about might tell you.

I think we remember all kinds of art & artists - depending on our personal likes & dislikes. And not even that - every artist of merit should be noted for "his thing" as 'twer - whether you take to the work or not - the artist at least expressed themselves creatively. And isn't that what art is for? For people to express themselves - if the public like what they're doing that's a bonus - if not then "sei's drum".

NB: This show will be presented on the 12th of July by my friend Fátima Veloso, LX Dance's director. The "Nossa Senhora do Amparo" sacred music choir to which I belong will also make an appearance. Yours truly as male tenor will also sing his heart out...

Monotony is anti-Shakespeare: "Hag-Seed - The Tempest Retold" by Margaret Atwood

Published October 2016.

“’Shit’ off bounds,” he says. “Adjust your cursing accordingly.”

“’Shit’ was okay last years,” says Leggs. “So how come?”

“I changed my mind,” says Felix. “I got tired of it. Too much shit is monotonous, and monotony is anti-Shakespeare. […]”

In “Hag-Seed” by Margaret Atwood

When approaching Shakespeare in the twenty-first century many writers make an attempt at re-inventing the classical plays, updating the setting to a post-modern world of chaos, smartphones, Facebook, and Google+. Relating the stories of Shakespeare to the lives of people in 2016 can be utterly hectic to watch when done well; we can feel an honest connection to the drama of the world of the play when set in our everyday backdrop. But pitfalls come with re-imagining the world of any Shakespeare play: if it’s not fully coherent then it’s just an update for an update’s sake, not a new spin on the story to shine a new light on it. There is a lot to be said for a way that modern readers connect to they wouldn’t otherwise read in the first place. I find that particularly the audio/visual differences should be quite significant when it comes to adapting a play to a modern setting. If I were an actor, I think my performance of Shakespeare would be quite different if I were living in Elizabethan times. I feel the director (and the actor as well ), in modern day, should be responsible for delivering archaic text so it could first be comprehended objectively by an audience that weren’t used to listening, but without sacrificing truth to character or believability, which are equally important to understanding a story. I know that is my experience as a theatre goer. Sometimes I feel the director and actors did a good job. Sometimes I don’t. At the end of the day it often feels like an impossible task.

An attempt at retelling a Shakespeare play must be daunting for a writer. And also for a reader. That’s why, up until today, I always avoided reading Shakespeare retellings. But I shouldn’t have any fear. Atwood is on the job. This rehash is anything but; it’s filled with Atwood’s characteristic wit and play with language. She’s quite unmatched when it comes to weave several threads into a cohesive whole. I never thought she could pull this off, but she did. She exquisitely entwines the language of Shakespeare into her tense and ever sparkling prose, making the text take a life of its own. Only Atwood would be able to bring such exquisite pleasure, when it comes to Shakespeare’s curses; they’re the only curse words the prisoners are allowed to use; it’s an elated spree of Shakespeare’s language, from insults like “whoreson” and “hag-seed” to enigmatic lines like “This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine”:

‘Bent Pencil takes the floor and reads out, gravely and impressively, in his best board-meeting voice: “Born to be hanged. A pox o’your throat. Bawling, blasphemous, uncharitable dog. Whoreson. Insolent noisemaker. Wide-chapp’d rascal. Malignant thing. Blue-eyed hag. Freckled whelp hag-born. Thou earth. Thou tortoise. Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself. As wicked dew as e’er my mother brushed, With raven’s feather from unwholesome fen, Drop on you both. A southwest blow on ye, And blister you all o’er. Toads, beetles, bats light on you. Filth as thou art. Abhorr’d slave. The red plague rid you. Hag-seed. […]”’

It's surely only a matter of time before someone adapts it for the theatre. And it would make a great play. I only wish the prisoners/actors were more fully fledged. As it is, they’re merely ciphers, but I’m not sure it wasn’t intentional on Atwood’s part. Despite its very minor shortcomings, I’m not embarrassed to say that I did have a lump in my throat by the end of this retelling of the Tempest…

Unglücklich das Land, das Helden nötig hat: "Leben des Galilei" by Bertold Brecht

"Galilei: Ja, wo ist sie jetzt? Wie kann der Jupiter angeheftet sein, wenn andere Sterne um ihn kreisen? Da ist keine Stütze im Himmel, da ist kein Halt im Weltall! Da ist

eine andere Sonne!

Sagredo: Beruhige dich. Du denkst zu schnell.

Galilei: Was, schnell! Mensch, reg dich auf! Was du siehst, hat noch keiner gesehen. Sie hatten recht!

Sagredo: Wer? Die Kopernikaner?

Galilei: Und der andere! Die ganze Welt war gegen sie, und sie hatten recht. Das ist was für Andrea! Er läuft außer sich zur Tür und ruft hinaus: Frau Sarti! Frau Sarti!

Sagredo: Galilei, du sollst dich beruhigen!

Galilei: Sagredo, du sollst dich aufregen! Frau Sarti!

Sagredo dreht das Fernrohr weg: Willst du aufhören, wie ein Narr herumzubrüllen?

Galilei: Willst du aufhören, wie ein Stockfisch dazustehen, wenn die Wahrheit entdeckt ist?

Sagredo: Ich stehe nicht wie ein Stockfisch, sondern ich zittere, es könnte die Wahrheit sein."

In "Das Leben des Galilei" by Bertold Brecht

I watched this play in 2006 in Lisbon at Teatro Aberto starring Rui Mendes as Galileo. There was a repartee between Galileo and Arturo Ui that I'll never forget. Right at the beginning, Galileo and Arturo have two simple, and unforgettable lines. When Andrea remarks, "Infeliz a terra que não tem herois" ("Unhappy the land that has no heroes"/"Unglücklich das Land, das keine Helden hat!") Galileo retorts, "Infeliz a terra que necessita de herois" ("Unhappy the land that needs heroes."/"Unglücklich das Land, das Helden nötig hat.") And from Arturo Ui, comes the searing "Porque apesar do mundo ter parado o cabrão, a puta que o deu à luz está novamente com o cio" ("For though the world has stopped the bastard, the bitch that bore him is in heat again."/"[...] Der Schoß ist fruchtbar noch, aus dem das kroch." taken from the play "Der aufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui").

I was absolutely mesmerized! I was so mesmirized that I had to buy the play in German which I did two years later (it was out of stock on Amazon at the time). The version of "The Life of Galileo" that the Teatro Aberto presented in 2006, with the reduced title by which it is better known, is based on the second of the three versions.

The general belief in a geocentric solar system was based on Aristotlean writings and Ptolemeic astronomy and was the generally accepted science when the Church was first formed. The Pythagoreans had proposed the idea of a heliocentric solar system around 600 B.C., but it was not accepted science at that time, nor six centuries later. The geocentric idea influenced early Christian theology, as did the writings of the ancient Greek philosophers. Unfortunately, what the Church did was change the Greek idea of seeking truth and knowledge through intellectual thought and science into seeking truth and knowledge within the scripture only. And thus, the Dark Ages began. Anyway, the heliocentric theory was revisited by astronomers and mathematicians throughout the next two millenia, until it was finally accepted, and through no simple means. Overcoming an authoritative figure that has huge political influence and control over many of the universities is no small task, not to mention the mathematical, scientific, and equipment challenges. the trouble with the heliocentric model at the time of galileo's discoveries was that there was no coherent theory of gravity until newton's publication of principia in 1783. given that matter tends to "fall" toward the centre of the earth, it's quite intuitive to theorise that the earth is the centre of the universe. Although galileo's evidence for a heliocentric model (ie. phases of venus, topography of the moon and satellites of Jupiter) was quite compelling , in the absence of a theory of gravity it wasn't complete enough to debunk the geocentric model. In other words, the objections to heliocentrism weren't necessarily ignorant and arrogant ; there was also a scholarly debate that, had merit on either side.

Two points should be made here:

1) Galileo's telescopic obvservations had nothing whatsoever to do with his conviction on heresy charges. They had to do with his publication of a book called "Dialog on the Two Chief World Systems," in which he was judged to have violated the pope's order to give a fair account of both the heliocentric (Sun-centered) and geocentric (Earth-centered) systems, a concept he personally submitted to the pope before going ahead with the project.

Note that Galileo was not prohibited from discussing the virtues of the heliocentric system. The concern was that the system was unproven, and that certain passages of scripture, in their literal sense, suggested the geocentric theory. Cardinal Bellarmine, who was one of the principal officials in the affair, acknowledged in writing that the Church's rejection of heliocentricity was provisional, and based on the scientific data available at the time, and might have to be changed in the future if further evidence emerged . And in fact, we now know that many aspects of the Galilean-Copernican theory were false, and very much so. In some ways, the Ptolemaic system was more correct, including variable orbital velocities, something eliminated from the Copernican system.

2) Copernicus was never persecuted for his book promoting the heliocentric theory, and his book was not censored by the Catholic Church, circulating freely throughout Europe for many decades before Galileo's run-in with the pope. Copernicus, by the way, dedicated his book to the pope, and he himself was a cleric with minor orders. After Galileo's conviction, only one sentence was stricken from the work.

Personally, I'm thankful for the Church's scientific brilliance and its contribution to humanitarian thought and advancement. I'm also thankful for some of the philosophical and spiritual wisdom that comes from religion. But the Catholic Church wasn't alone in suppressing scientific thought, and not all evil and closed-mindedness comes from religion. Many an authoritarian atheist has succeeded in suppressing and killing millions and squashing ideas that challenge their authority. And then there are always the economic interests that suppress or support scientific findings.

The Catholic church at the time was in the tricky position of wielding both secular and spiritual authority. Although interpretation were made they also tended to believe that the very best sources of information (whether biblical, philosophical or practical) were ancient. Unfortunately a lot of it was also inaccurate but people still tended to believe it *and* allowed it to shape their perceptions. What complicated things was the prominent faith component of Christianity that made doubting such ancient wisdom sinful and dangerous. I recommend people read a Beastiary to see what kind of mind-set they were working from at the time. Galileo was one of those people that allowed others to look at the universe with fresh eyes and thus encourage modern, scientific thought. It is also interesting to note that Galileo wrote Sidereus Nuncius in New Latin rather than Medieval Latin. This meant that a wider audience was reached, rather than just the clergy or the rich well educated upper classes. Everyday people could read his work, which made Galileo one of the first science communicators of the age, and this loss of control of the masses frightened the Catholic church nearly as much as the knowledge contained within his work.

Copernicus's work was actually used in the development of the Gregorian calendar. the Catholic Church had not been vehemently opposed to science for centuries. In the 13th century, there had been many disputes about the relationship between those that wished to follow the natural philosophy of Aristotle and those who rigidly stuck to scripture to explain everything under the sun and the idea that scientific speculation and its logically based predictions were futile as God could anything he wanted at any time. However, William of Ockham produced a brilliant solution to the problem, he declared that God was indeed omnipotent and could do anything he wanted but he had also given man the logical mind to predict these outcomes even though they were inevitably fallible. It lead to a divorce of faith and reason - Science was in man's attempt to guess the will of God but it was not an attempt to declare that will so don't persecute them as they're only guessing. Early Scientists worked under this restriction for centuries, by modern standards it seems ridiculous but it gave early scientists plenty of leeway. All they had to do to avoid persecution was explain that their work was only speculation and dedicate it to the Pope. Galileo choose not to do this, instead he mocked the arrangement and this was how he fell foul of the church. It was an error as it did not advance the cause of science, he wasn't in a position to mock his critics as he did not have a convincing proof of his heliocentric system, he didn't even accept Kepler's groundbreaking work. It takes time for new scientific ideas to break through and heliocentricism wasn't widely accepted until after Newton.

Bottom-line: What really infuriated the Pope was that he used the telescope to inspect the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel a little more closely, and saw that Michael Angelo had depicted God running away with his trousers down. It's in the second from last "panel" as you look from the entrance of the chapel. Needless to say, he flew into a rage and blamed Galileo for inventing such a blasphemous object. "It is not for mankind to dwell upon images of God's buttocks" he is reported to have said. However, he unable to do anything about it as Rome was in the middle of a ladder shortage, so the ceiling had to remain as it was. So Galileo was made a scapegoat.