It seems he is the first major producer, or among the first, to produce a Broadway show funded by community investors. With median investments between $20-40, and demographics including priests, teachers, and truck drivers pitching in for Godspell. He is also the utilizing social media in real ways, and has published 4 books on producing.

His streamlining seems to find an audience that establishes a greater attraction to the actual story and not all the special effects. As producer Lauren Bies put it, “This he found to be true, and when shows closed, went on the road with bare bones. Suddenly, they began to make money…and better reviews.”

The stremlining and pre-audience involvement is quite salient, I suspect… And his results demonstrate. People begin to pre-immerse, and then also carry that of the dramaturgy into their daily lives. They tell stories to their friends, try to immerse others in moments that inspire them, and represent some of the facets of the staged-divine in their relational character with friends and coworkers.

Imagine a social ‘flash’ event where all those captivated by a forthcoming production wore a certain accessory that was component to the production. It passes in public, but also is a social hook to talk about Theater, and the event in which they are ‘audience-wise’ involved.

Or changing your Facebook profile image to one of several illustrated character vignettes. These would be provided by the production, and would be familiar based upon the yearly Facebook ‘doppleganger’ event, where people make their profile images at of a famous person they most resemble.

Ken is part of the future of theater I society.

The notion was, for me, quite striking. It resonates with an assortment of ideas regarding the process of rearing. An experience of alienness can be felt toward the continuity of a mental process (including speech, thought, actions) that structure another person’s / thing’s world definition. E.g. “parenting” but also moreover the consideration of needs for a partner and household….. that is to say ‘non-selfish needs,’ such as toiletry inventories, food stores, curatives, etc. One’s interaction withe these resources could be described as ‘intermittent’ but the prevailing idea here is that they represent elements of another person’s (spouse, child, dependent) state / flow of living.

The alienness to continuity more complexly appears in recognitions of others’ tastes and and activity preferences, which could be the result of a nonintegrated (coherent) self conception regarding goals, desires, or other interests. That would be a matter of ‘having too much on my mind’ or ‘needing a plan’.

As Lyon-Ruth puts it, “the parent’s incapacitate to acknowledge various aspects of the child’s existence and experience, in dialogue with the child, is a primary contributor to a child’s ability to recognize and integrate those aspects of experience.” She elucidated disassociation more interpersonally as a limitation effected by the absence of another recognizing our place within our self and our development. She posits that without a facet of ourselves being given recognition by another, we ourselves cannot objectify it as a part of ‘me.’

Lyon-Ruth’s ideas point to the importance of interpersonal recognition, ‘witnessing,’ and other consensual development of self (resonance precursors?). Thus the dissociative is/as a defense against psychic malnutrition through the establishment of a ‘cognitive golem’, demiurge, or simulacra. The simulacra is intended to take the place of an interactive partner with fully functioning mental structure vis a vie a holographic transference from a metaphysical source, such as an archetype, divine character, idealized interaction, or other narrative.

An ‘automaton of divine character’ thus formulates, evocative of mystical concepts like an egregore, and other semi-willed psychic conjurations that perform a higher function hidden by their summoner. Complementarily within the standpoint of science and ethics, if you were mentally ‘underdeveloped,’ would you have an AI raise your children so they received the right developmental cues?

The structure of these notions is reinforced by Lyon-Ruth’s expression of “intersubjective tools for mentalizing” and an “integrated enough…. dialogue.” She later goes on to suggest structure for these intersubjective processes, and through the use of terms like ‘thinkable,’ belies her sense that the limits of cognition – and maximized potentials – are inbuilt with the intersubjective development process.

And now I have a memory of this kind of food – a memory that is connected to sight and scent, taste and texture. It is a complete memory, and yet I have never experienced all of these things in one place and one time.

Who is to say they are not a complete memory nonetheless? To have arrived here together to meet and join in one place as old friends who have been long astray.

The only kind of right is a natural break, which is itself a delicate shroud of one’s residence and accordance with natural law. The actions one takes in consonance with natural law verify, and are the only true identification with authority. False laws and false activities have the resolution in human times, whereas the structures of natural law live perpetually like maxims, colloquialisms in the line of common sense that weaves legislation.

Such identification of natural law characterizes an individual’s ability to recognize any ideas present with, and natural to, social systems. The practice of legislation then becomes a process of refining and filtering our sensation and awareness of natural law through the documentation of any ideas. Societies can rise and fall, but the words refined through their governance can live millennia after the people have transformed into new cultures, with new technologies.

Though, the inheritance of refined realization of natural law does not preclude nor rely upon the inheritance of ‘Just’ thinking (by standards of natural law) within specific individuals and their descendants. The capacity for recognition of natural law being itself genetic each individual takes control of their ability to render their own character and it’s ultimate relationship to natural and social order.

No guarantee of an inheritance or right in any social line, or ‘order’, comes from natural – but neither nature preclude it. Moreover, consideration may uplift the notion that Leadership itself can have hereditary qualities regardless of societal position.

Absinthe is derived from the Latin absinthium, which in turn is a stylization of the Greek αψίνθιον (apsínthion), for wormwood. ….. Some claim that the word means “undrinkable” in Greek, but it may instead be linked to the Persian root spand or aspand, or the variant esfand, which meant Peganum harmala, also called Syrian Rue-although it is not actually a variety of rue, another famously bitter herb. That Artemisia absinthium was commonly burned as a protective offering may suggest that its origins lie in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European root *spend, meaning “to perform a ritual” or “make an offering.” Whether the word was a borrowing from Persian into Greek, or from a common ancestor of both, is unclear. Variant spellings of absinthe are absinth, absynthe, and absenta. In English it is pronounced /ˈæbsɪnθ/ ; in French, [absɛ̃t]. Absinth (without the final e) is a spelling variant used by central European distillers. It is the usual name for absinthe produced in the Czech Republic and in Germany, and has become associated with Bohemian style absinthes.

Contemporary entheogenic studies have created a great fondness for Asphand – if not a secluded one.  The MAOI has become the foundation for ‘shroom-huasca’, another melange that has produced so notable effects as to be compared with the jungle-beverage, Ayahuasca.

The Greek affection of the name, even erroneously should we assume a Persian root, is interesting because of the mysterious ‘XueXion’ beverage also present at the in Eleusinian Mysteries.  It is no scholarly assertion that the Mystery beverage was MAOI-based, even by prevalent sources.  The etymological root between Absinthe and Asphand, however, does bear some consideration in this matter, with classical reinforcement by the Mediterranean prevalence of Rue.

Plainly, and personally, I am not convinced that Greek and Egyptian mysteries, even to the degree in which they may have had a psycho-chemical component, were composed upon DMT.

Calmness permeates every arrival in the flow.  It creates space into which unfolds the force of life present and waiting in each person and thing.  The heart holds unwavering sensitivity for the entangled yet nonlocal complement.  Calm listening allows every quiver and tension of the space around, within, to yield upon the true path.

…

Calmness permeates every arrival in the flow.

We are immersed.  The world around us is the ocean of time mythic.  When we are sad, it face is one of sadness.  When we are joyous, everything is a nerve ending rubbed right.  Like looking into the surface of the water, the world around us is no less a reflection – a mirror – when we are immersed within it.  Yet, each of us are stars, and the world becomes deeper as our reflections play with each other at the edges of our minds.  When we are still, like the qualities of meditation, the world expands as our perception grows – anxious with its own calm.  Every reflected bit of ‘other’ is like a stone in the river, possessive of its own sense of motion.  Our calmness, expanding, permeates each and every new arrival as it flows around and comes to know the forms.  They are known inasmuch totality as they know themselves; temet nosce - gnōthi seauton. Know that, that we know nothing.  The permeation is our doorway, our entrance into the life.

It creates space into which unfolds the force of life present and waiting in each person and thing.

As we touch and permeate each arrival within our flow, it too hears us.  This other listens to our essence, our intention, our vision.  We can unfold our nature within the perception of the other, and they can unfold before us.  All of the majesty contained and conducted by years of living lies locked within that other.  When it unfolds most completely we experience it as a port – a point to aid the venture forth – and as winds pushing, in their whim, toward one direction or another.  All of this life force unfolds when it is able.  Our calmness creates the space for this unfolding.  Our calmness holds all of our energy unto ourselves.  We do not spill out and flood the other mind we now permeate. Our calmness standing before the other allows it to enjoy the edges of its own tension and direction.  Like playing host, we grant space for the other to express itself.  Our calmness create the space for communion.  Whether this other be the mind and soul of another with which to fashion vision and fate – or a less-human thing of the world that acts like a statuary landmark in our journey unto dreamed and prophetic land.  Where mind and dreams are yet formless, the unfolding of each newly-arrived other provides roadways.  These roadways deliver us unto the direction of our intention, and we are fueled by the delight of the other.  Delight that our spacious calmness has allowed.

The heart holds unwavering sensitivity for the entangled yet nonlocal complement.

The heart hears across space and time.  What dreams and intentions are placed within it open before us a ‘path of least resistance.’  We become one with those things that are part of that fate.  Ourselves and all things present things participating in that future fate become as reflections of it.  We are entwined with it, knowing each other by being a part of the whole.  But the landscape of fate and serendipity is mostly invisible.  How and where to place the feet also comes from the heart.  It is infused with the dreams and intentions held within it.  The heart senses the things that are entangled with it.  It has the truth-hearing to know what before it is part of the fated to which it is yoked.  It can hear to what degree something, some path, some person, is part of those dreams and intentions.  As every thing unfolds within the space our calmness provides, the delicate edges of that unfolding flutter and incense.  The heart is magnetized to each movement, each aroma, that is part of its irrevocable future… a future that is Now, except for the steps needed to decloak its invisibility.

Calm listening allows every quiver and tension of the space around, within, to yield upon the true path.

Calmness too provides patience to hear all of the unfolding, so that truly the most potent for our fate becomes the activator of our next step.  The most rigid can initially be the most prominent – but this rigidity makes in less participatory in the living edge.  It is the meadow upon which the lovers play.  Moving into the space of communion reveals further the vulnerability of our most fledging and tender new edges.  Ever tender, quivering, tense edge that we find along the path is yet another face of that entangled whole.  Calmness and spaciousness with them – most – lets delight nurture their expression.  The green flame cheers bright and is innocent to any taste but its own purity.  This purity is the solid ground of our footsteps forward.  Every step along this path sprouts life and invites the light of life, and courses the waters of the soul.

I’ve heard the expression that “Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists.”  When I originally heard it, that statement went “Love is the only thing that’s real” – which I tend to ring with more.  If you substitute “truth” for “love” – or any sentiment of Reality / Veritas – then nothing unreal ever goes away.

The discussion of the timeline of gender-rule in societies is long-winded, with Femninsm of the past few decades leading the charge in questioning the mechanisms involved.  Many scholars, to the fringe, have argued that the oldest cultures were matriarchal – many citing primate studies.   Given the biological foundation of womb-birth, this is not unreasonably evolutionary.  However, neither than may be the ‘ongoing R&D’ that is patriarchal leadership.  

The female organism, being self and socially interested in selecting the best father for progeny, would be most inclined to find men less than their individual equal.  It’s statistical – men, having less duty of necessity, would also have less development opportunity.  What’s a girl to do if she already has the best mousetrap?  Build a better mouse.

And so arrives the invention of Patriarchy.  The handing of leadership to men so that they refine themselves beyond the bio-cultural baseline.  What better man to select than one who can rule (nearly, ‘haha’) as well as a woman?  

Why are young men sent off to war?  Perhaps to weed out the ones who fight.

The costuming was one the the things to which I paid the most attention.  The dress did much, in symbolism, movement, and aesthetic. The following notes are follow in series with the performance held in Tempe, AZ.  Without the ability to have any images to associate with the text, we’ll all have to do our best……!

The opening act had dancers with closed-sleeved garments.  The closed sleeved were in part a practical invention to offer protection to the emperor, since martial attacks would be inhibited.  In a way this felt like a form of veneration to the audience, being the opening act.  I noted that a masterfully-executed dance could conceal a hidden sword within the flowing sleeve.  It would be quite difficult, but not inconceivable.

Behind the actors, in all performances, was a video projection for a backdrop.  This worked well in the production, as it allowed for very elaborate control of the set without the production cost of physical stage-pieces.  One video had a streaming collage of human figures, perhaps Buddhas and Quan Yins, which took the appearance of a river of souls… which had a striking effect.  In some of the acts, figures on the video would swoop to the bottom of the screen – the stage floor – and then an dancer would jump up from behind a stage article, meshing the video and live performance in a very satisfying manner.

Mens attire  included a layering of sash, kilt, skirt, and pants.  Shoulder wraps were decorated at edge.  The Yellow Emperor’s attire included and additional belt of fine embroidery, along with other legendary attire. Pennants held aloft behind him were edged in fur.

For the Udumbara flower, ladies tunics and pants were gradiented in color.  The Udumbara flower, a symbol in classical Buddhism, was conveyed as a symbol of prophesy.  One of the striking things to me is the way in which ‘the arrival of prophesy’ is conveyed in every lifetime.  It is oft used as a pageantry and instrument of the state (even autonomous and un-landed states) to inspire its people to their achievable heights.  Whereas they prophetic story is itself rooted in timelessness, it’s arrival can be individual or cultural.  Indeed, the cultural arrival may be not more than emergence from the aggregate of personal arrival.  All prophesy then may act in a manner evocative, at very least, of the entangled, multiple, and fractional models present in physics and consciousness.  Where exists, and how large, is the tribe whose members live now the same prophesy?

A dance-line with oscillating movement had its ‘rolling’ double around the middle of the line before the wave traveled to the end.  Men pants were tied / wrapped at shins, like the finishing to high shoes or boots…. somewhat pirate-like.  Shoes revealed their ability to move quickly and strongly.

The Yi dance was like rainbows opening and closing.  Slow daintiness, then blooms springing open.  Done all by women, and transmitting an essential side of the feminine aura.

There was an act portraying an ancient character with a magic fan.  The fan was scraggly, and not pretty.   Notably, the prince had ‘rabbit ears’ that we composed from feathers (red), and he was garmented in blue and red.   Lady headdress was dangling balls and elaborate knotwork, like Masha’s at BM 2008. The fan-wielding legend rides away on a cloud at the end.

Another act had mens pants tied above knee, to accent the pant looseness at calf.  Hair was in topknot above a headband.  Belt with tassels and kilt.

The fan dance was like a divine fluid of color and motion…. that I can eat.  Ladies wore dancing aprons – a nice touch on the domestic erotic.  Their fans opened to full circles – like bloom…. and shield of enticement.

The first act to demonstrate openly that the troupe is falungong told the story of a family hurt by a punk gang outfitted in communist sickle & hammer vests.  Qian Yin and Buddhas arrive in salvation and rebirth.  The Qian Yin ladies’ shawl hangs at half-way at the back, as angel, one loop over shoulder down the arm.  It brings to mind a language of the shawl (unless there is a better name for this long strip of fabric).  What difference does the swoop at half-back mean compared with a swoop down to the waist, or just across the shoulders?

The erhu solo reminds me what that life lived in China had in part so-loved….  Only the briefest pursing of lips, once, hinted that every piece was not the musician’s favorite!

Male drummers – their bracers hold and accent loose sleeves evocative of a dress shirt. Top knots and headbands again.  They also wore breastplates, which dovetailed with the purpose of holding the drums.  In Mesopotamian cultures, breastplates were adorned with magical amulets, and were a kind of technology unto themselves.  The association of the two, magical and drum-related, both hold the evocation of a ‘suit’ for some technology.  I can’t imagine now a way to make a breastplate work in any general public scenario – it’s just too non-standard.  One military can get close, with their pins, and even then draw unusual attention in public.  But given something ceremonial or otherwise given to the ritual expression, I see a way to wear it.

For the Phoenix dance, ladies dress were decorated near the edge with weighted petals that encouraged folding and effects of motion.  It was something like a the way a fan folds, but with the increased range of the skirted pleats.  It would be stunning on an open, flowing lady’s sleeve.   The procession line of dancers composed the phoenix tail, and was sharp pageantry.

The story of the Monkey King told that he came from the stone that is the essence of heaven and earth.  He wore a beret with a slightly-pronounced & decorated band plus a pin.  The sage wore a flower-like crown with tassels that included fabric-like ‘ears’ that hung down. He wore mala beads and robes with several sewn-in bands at the level of the thighs and otherwise… almost evoking the lok of an iron-strapped trunk.   Wise man, bearded, had a necklace of huge beads and winged headband.

The Mongolian chopstick dance was probably my personal favorite. Tablewear – was taken up an aesthetic level, and was made seductive.  Love it.  Wing embroidery on dresses, which below the waist were cut in long sections, and those sections layered like flower petals, but with square cut corners.  Feathered headband. All in white and gold, creating a skyward ideal.  The bundles of chopsticks click-click-click-click off the body, silk napkin tied-with streaming along, as the the ladies twist back and forth, kneeling-to-standing-to-kneeling, in a dance that had the distinct sense that it could be done in a kitchen or dining room…..  Snap of chopsticks like the ruffle of wing feathers.

The legend of Mulan – not told in he Disney style. The Imperial scroll with decree was nice accent; presenting the Word to someone on a brightly dyed fabric of gold and held by finial-ended bars will really put someone into the mood.  The movements of her father were as to cradle her head, when right is given to her.  Upon Mulan’s return ladies were out again with Shields of Spring.  

Another act had billowing sleeves that were gossamer enough to move with slightest breeze and movement made.  The best justice to do to the description is to watch the scene in Dune were the Reverend Mother leaves the emperor’s chamber upon the arrival of the Guild navigator.

Tibetan men wore a good mix of silver and brown, with fur. Multiple bead colors mixed with turquoise, and were the same color as headbands with knot and hangs/drops of the material. Again, the long sleeves, too long for hand exposure, spoke of Peace.  We should all realistically remember that non-violent revolution is revolution none-the-less.

A spiritual performance included video of many layers of counter rotating rings of Chinese characters, that evoked the image of a fung shui compass taken to divine levels.  Men had ‘riding crops’ ending in large white horsehair plumes, that I would have been best worn at the belt when not dancing.

…. and outside at the gift shop, ‘music bags’:  tiny purse-like little decorated pouches with music boxes inside.  Lovely little things!