"They will have to learn how to do theatre just as I had to learn how to write the book or make My images. It's a profound matter." Adi Da Samraj
What is Transcendental Realist Theatre?
What is Transcendental Realist Theatre?
One of the greatest 'if not perhaps the greatest' admontion the First Room Theatre Guild (www.mummerybook.org) has been given by Bhagavan Adi Da Samraj to-date is to create theatre in the same way He created His Divine Image Art, a process which He developed into a vast language of unparalled sophistication.
The summary admontion to the guild is to develop what Bhagavan has called 'Transcendental Realist Theatre', the theatre of egoless participation with His Transcendental Realist Literary and Image Art Work (www.daplastique.com - The Art of Adi Da Samraj), which includes the dynamic use of all the theatrical arts to support that egoless participation, everything from acting, dance and mime to live or recorded musical sound scapes and sound effects to film, video footage (both recorded and live feed camera) to technical set designs, lighting design, costume and prop design, use of reflective surfaces for image art projections, to pupperty and whatever else we can develop through the expanse of the theatrical arts.
Since Bhagavan Adi Da gave this term people often ask the question
"What is Transcendental Realist Theatre?"
As mentioned this is a great admonition one in which the theatre guild is going through a discovery process in understanding what Transcendental Realist Theatre really is, this quote from Bhagavan Adi Da gives some indication to what this is about.
Adi Da Samraj: The Trilogy is Transcendental Realist Art. They're using visuals of Mine which is Transcendental Realist art. But they have to understand My Literary Work is Transcendental Realist art also, and therefore, the performance art being brought to my Literary and Visual art should be Transcendental Realist art. So that is abstract art in a particular mode, and it gives all kinds of possibilities, just as I do in My Image Art Work and in My Literary Art Work which they are performing. It's not merely conventional realism, and it's not ego realism. (June 29, 2008)
To really understand Bhagavan's Instruction the theatre guild is entering more profoundly into what Bhagavan Adi Da calls aniconic, anegoic, aperspectival theatre.
Adi Da Samraj: An aperspectival and anegoic, aniconic space should be used in the performance of The Mummery Book, The Orpheum Trilogy altogether, at least at certain times, in such a manner that the viewers can participate in that kind of space, that mode of spatial perception that is virtually infinitely fractioned and non-representational. What I'm talking about with the images that I'm making,is presenting them in a circumstance of mirroring and infinite reflectivity that extends from the anegoic, aniconic, aperspectival form intrinsic to the image itself that I've made. I'm talking about something that could be extended into the theatrical circumstance of The Orpheum Trilogy. (April 12, 2008)
This is obviously a most profound consideration that Bhagavan is revealing, that inorder to do Transcendental Realist Theatre we must break the attachments to conventional theatre, theatre that is essentially a representational reflection of the literary text. To do this requires that the mode of theatre is no longer representational, in other words not representing the egoic stance of 'point of view' but rather is a non-representational reflection where all points of view are distorted using the mode of abstraction.
Bhagvan Adi Da Samraj: It is aperspectival not only in terms of space, but in time. In my literary Work, in the Trilogy and in the theatrical Work I'm doing to see to it's performance, the aperspectival characteristic is demonstrated not just spatially but in terms of time. And obviously in terms of word and image, there are shifts that are not about conventional realism then, juxtopostions that are not about conventional realism. So it's abstract in this aperspectival sense relative to word, space, time, the visual characteristics of the performance. It is not merely linear, or point of view based, and not spatially and not in terms of time.
To abstract means to take away from, so it's to simplifiy, or reduce to what is essential relative to a subject, but also, then, relative to the artistic event itself, within itself. You work it, simplifying it or transforming it in and of itself. So you not only transform it relative to the subject, you transform it in and of itself.
(June 29, 2008)
The summary admontion to the guild is to develop what Bhagavan has called 'Transcendental Realist Theatre', the theatre of egoless participation with His Transcendental Realist Literary and Image Art Work (www.daplastique.com - The Art of Adi Da Samraj), which includes the dynamic use of all the theatrical arts to support that egoless participation, everything from acting, dance and mime to live or recorded musical sound scapes and sound effects to film, video footage (both recorded and live feed camera) to technical set designs, lighting design, costume and prop design, use of reflective surfaces for image art projections, to pupperty and whatever else we can develop through the expanse of the theatrical arts.
"What is Transcendental Realist Theatre?"
As mentioned this is a great admonition one in which the theatre guild is going through a discovery process in understanding what Transcendental Realist Theatre really is, this quote from Bhagavan Adi Da gives some indication to what this is about.
Adi Da Samraj: The Trilogy is Transcendental Realist Art. They're using visuals of Mine which is Transcendental Realist art. But they have to understand My Literary Work is Transcendental Realist art also, and therefore, the performance art being brought to my Literary and Visual art should be Transcendental Realist art. So that is abstract art in a particular mode, and it gives all kinds of possibilities, just as I do in My Image Art Work and in My Literary Art Work which they are performing. It's not merely conventional realism, and it's not ego realism. (June 29, 2008)
To really understand Bhagavan's Instruction the theatre guild is entering more profoundly into what Bhagavan Adi Da calls aniconic, anegoic, aperspectival theatre.
Adi Da Samraj: An aperspectival and anegoic, aniconic space should be used in the performance of The Mummery Book, The Orpheum Trilogy altogether, at least at certain times, in such a manner that the viewers can participate in that kind of space, that mode of spatial perception that is virtually infinitely fractioned and non-representational. What I'm talking about with the images that I'm making,is presenting them in a circumstance of mirroring and infinite reflectivity that extends from the anegoic, aniconic, aperspectival form intrinsic to the image itself that I've made. I'm talking about something that could be extended into the theatrical circumstance of The Orpheum Trilogy. (April 12, 2008)
This is obviously a most profound consideration that Bhagavan is revealing, that inorder to do Transcendental Realist Theatre we must break the attachments to conventional theatre, theatre that is essentially a representational reflection of the literary text. To do this requires that the mode of theatre is no longer representational, in other words not representing the egoic stance of 'point of view' but rather is a non-representational reflection where all points of view are distorted using the mode of abstraction.Bhagvan Adi Da Samraj: It is aperspectival not only in terms of space, but in time. In my literary Work, in the Trilogy and in the theatrical Work I'm doing to see to it's performance, the aperspectival characteristic is demonstrated not just spatially but in terms of time. And obviously in terms of word and image, there are shifts that are not about conventional realism then, juxtopostions that are not about conventional realism. So it's abstract in this aperspectival sense relative to word, space, time, the visual characteristics of the performance. It is not merely linear, or point of view based, and not spatially and not in terms of time.
To abstract means to take away from, so it's to simplifiy, or reduce to what is essential relative to a subject, but also, then, relative to the artistic event itself, within itself. You work it, simplifying it or transforming it in and of itself. So you not only transform it relative to the subject, you transform it in and of itself.
(June 29, 2008)
