|
Antero Alli
|
Click above image for Antero at Wikipedia.org
My earliest theatrical training came in 1970/71 from Mime Artist Keith Berger (who studied with Paul J. Curtis and the American Mime Theatre, NYC) and from the Lee Strasborg Institute in Hollywood (1971-72; method acting). Since 1972, I have been writing, directing and producing a an ongoing of original works in the experimental theatre and "paratheatre" veins. In 1976 and 1977, I participated in a series of paratheatrical experiments initiated by David Rosenbloom and inspired by the early paratheatre work of the late Polish theatre director Jerzy Grotowski (1933-1999).
Since 1977 these early influences have informed the development of a unique paratheatre medium with its own principles and techniques of theatre, dance, Zazen meditation, voice/song, which have been chronicled in my book, Towards an Archeology of the Soul (Vertical Pool, 2003). In homage to Grotowski's legacy I call my ongoing work in group ritual dynamics "paratheatrical research." However, I have no ambitions or pretense for emulating or replicating anything "Grotowski" or "Brook" or "Artaud". It is toil enough to continue learning from our own ongoing experiments and its yield of new mistakes, corrections and insights to guide us in what we are doing and how to proceed.
Though we count ourselves as a core group of six, no established theatre company exists. We are more like a rotating skeleton crew of highly committed, autonomous individuals -- rebels with a cause -- who come and go according to our own needs to work together and part ways until the next ritual lab, theatre or film project magnetizes its own unique group animal. We are not a "cult" (and I am no "guru") yet we hold ourselves to specific participation guidelines supporting our core values.
Most of our group work occurs indoors (dance and yoga studios) with occasional sojourns to outdoor wilderness settings. About 80% of this work has remained private without audits or public performances. If and when this very private work develops into something worth sharing, we begin structuring a performance vehicle. Advancement in this medium also seems to necessitate fallow periods where no paratheatre work is pursued and where the effects of this work can find assimilation into daily life. When this work has gone public, it has been presented through the mediums of lectures, demonstrations, video screenings and performance rituals.
After thirty years of facilitating private ritual labs, certain creative directions have developed into public events (also see production history section below). Three paratheatre video documents (Archaic Community, 1991; Crux,1999; Orphans of Delirium, 2004) have been produced showing this work in various contexts. In 1996 singer/composer/actor Sylvi Alli and I established Vertical Pool as a ParaTheatrical ReSearch affiliate for our ongoing artistic collaborations with a primary focus on video and film production. Paratheatre work has served story and character development in four feature films written and directed by myself: Tragos (2000; 105 min), Under a Shipwrecked Moon (2003; 96 min.), The Greater Circulation (2005; 93 min.) and The Invisible Forest (2008). An audio CD, Songs as Vehicles (2005; 43 min.) is a record of our Song As Vehicle lab.
Looking back it is now clear to me that without the support of numerous artists, crew, venues and ritual lab participants (plus those attending the performances and screenings) none of this could have happened by my own efforts alone.
And for all these allegiances, I remain grateful...
-- Antero Alli
production history
Antero Alli, writer/director/producer
(unless otherwise noted)
from "Requiem for a Friend" (2005)
Rainer
Maria Rilke's "REQUIEM FOR A FRIEND"
Intermedia Performance Ritual
incoporating Rilke's text (circa 2005)
Leah Kahn, Sylvi Alli, Felecia Faulkner, Paradox
Pollack, Nick Walker, Lee Vogt, Antero Alli
A reprise of the 1990 paratheatrical treatment
of Rilke's lyrical lament as a live
performance
ritual which was filmed and incorporated
into "Rilke's Requiem"
a feature
dv-film.
Translated
by
Stephen Mitchell. Music by Sean Blosl and Songs
as Vehicles.
ParaTheatrical ReSearch.
May
21, 22, 28, 29, 2005. Finnish Brotherhood Hall,
Berkeley .
from "Songs as Vehicles" (2004)
|
"SONGS
AS VEHICLES":
Winter Solstice Performance Ritual
Towards
the embodiment of songs in a cross-cultural context
Ten
vocal performers work for
three months on one song each, chosen from their
ancestral
culture, towards their ritualistic embodiment
in solos, duets, trios, quartets, quintets, and
mass cacophonies. Performers
and their ancestral sources: Lily Nova (France),
Julian Simeon
(Philippines), Olga Kupriyanova (Bulgaria), Gary
Belanoff (Russia), Antero
Alli (Finland),
Sylvi Alli (Deep South, USA), Linda Rose (Sicily),
JoJo Razor (Scotland), Robin
Coomer
(Ireland), and Nick Walker (Autism). Dec. 20,
2004. Finnish Brotherhood
Hall, Berkeley.
Audio
document recorded (CD)
from "Orphans of Delirium " (2004)
"ORPHANS
OF DELIRIUM"
Paratheatrical performance
rites incorporating Coleridge's "Kubla
Khan"
An actor drifts
through reveries of an absinthe binge that erupts
in a bevy of ritualistic dreams
where aspects of his psyche materialize before
him. PARADOX POLLACK, SERENE ZLOOF,
ALASKA
YAMADA, BRIAN LIVINGSTON, NICK WALKER,
GABRIEL, JULIAN SIMEON, DESMONDE DAISY,
ADAM
PALERMO, JUSTIN PALERMO, JAKOB BOKULICH.
Live music by SYLVI
ALLI. Text
also by
Paradox
Pollack. Video
document recorded. ParaTheatrical ReSearch. March 2004, Berkeley & SF
from "Hungry Ghosts of Albion " (1999)
"HUNGRY
GHOSTS OF ALBION"
Two-act Intermedia Dream
Play
Two lovers attempt to make
a short film based on a monologue from Chekhov's "The Sea Gull."
When they sleep at night, the ghosts of William
Blake and Isaac Newton appear in their dreams;
when Blake and Newton sleep, they dream the lovers
awake. Meanwhile two mythic archetypes,
Anima and Daemon, intervene and orchestrate all
the dreamers into a ritual of mystical union.
Neil Howard, Dan Wilson, Gary Barth, Sylvia Burboeck,
Nick Walker, Deanna Anderson.
With additional text by William Blake and Isaac
Newton. Video document recorded.
Live
music by SYLVI
ALLI. ParaTheatrical ReSearch & Vertical
Pool, May 1999, S.F.
from "Hungry Ghosts" (1998)
"HUNGRY
GHOSTS"
Two-act Intermedia Dream
Play
with sean john walsh, Jennifer
Pratt and Kevin Haggerty, Ed Byrne.
ParaTheatrical
ReSearch workshop
production; May 1998, Seattle WA
(Video document recorded)
"MASS
OF THE ICONOCLASTS"
Winter Solstice
performance ritual
with Stephen Pitts, Richard
Bradshaw, Camille Hildebrandt, Steven Miller,
Gavin
Greene, & others. Video document recorded. ParaTheatrical
ReSearch;
Oct-Dec 1992, Seattle WA
"CROSSING
THE WATER"
Performance ritual
incorporating poetry of Sylvia Plath
Antero Alli, Camille
Hildebrandt, Richard Bradshaw, Steven Miller, Gavin
Green
(ParaTheatrical
ReSearch;
Spring 1992, Wonderful World of Art Gallery, Seattle)
from
"Requiem
for a Friend" (1990)
"REQUIEM
FOR A FRIEND"
Performance ritual incorporating
poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke
with Jadina Lilian,
Sylvi Pickering, Camille Hildebrandt and Kia Sian;
Kara Amundson, cello
Rilke's tribute to friend and artist, Paula Modersohn-Becker,
in the wake of her sudden death
stemming from childbirth complications. Text by Rilke
translated by Stephen Mitchell. Music by
Sylvi
Alli. Video
document recorded.
ParaTheatrical ReSearch. Oct.
1990. Bell Gallery, Seattle.
"ANIMAMUNDI"
Performance
ritual inspired
by the Myth of Orpheus and Eurydice
Created & performed by Antero Alli & Camille Hildebrandt.
Music by Sylvi
Alli
(ParaTheatrical ReSearch; Autumn 1989, Victoria
BC/Seattle/Portland/Berkeley/Santa Cruz)
"CHAPEL
PERILOUS"
Dreaming Phases for
Lovers
a 2-act play based
on archetypes
of the "anima" and "animus"
Antero Alli, Leesanne Modine, Marc Sabin, Molly
Dwyer, Julian Simeon,
Cedrus Monte.
Directed w/Marc Sabin. Executive producer, Cathleen
O'Connell.
Theatre
23.
Jan/Feb. 1983
(Cinnabar Theatre, Petaluma; Studio Eremos,
S.F. Helen Schoeni Theatre in Mendocino)
"WHERE
I ?"
Mimetic
treatment of Robinson Jeffers' poetry
with
Antero Alli, Jacob Shefa and Johanna Modisette.
Barbara Rose Shuler, recitalist; Peter Metcalf,
cellist
(Point Blank Mime Troupe; Spring
1982, Carmel CA)
"THE
CONJUNCTION"
Two-act
Alchemical Mystery Play
A writer's night dreams force
a confrontation between his craft
and pending fatherhood.
with Carole Swann, Harvey Wasserman,
Ben DiGregorio,
Theresa Laferriere, Antero Alli.
(The Chamber Theatre Troupe; 1978, Berkeley).
"SONGS
OF INNOCENCE & EXPERIENCE"
Performance ritual utilizing
William Blake's poetry
with Leslie Mahler, Antero
Alli, Ben DiGregorio, Theresa Laferriere
(The Chamber Theatre Troupe; 1978, Berkeley)
"CORONATION
AT STILLNIGHT"
Two-Act Play inspired
by Dante's "Divine Comedy" (utilizing
choir)
In his dreams, a man unexpectedly discovers
he has passed away and about to
be
judged
in his
afterlife.
with
Antero Alli, Ben DiGregorio, Theresa Laferriere,
Sima Wolf, Terri Shell, David Cohen, John Rock
(The
Chamber Theatre Troupe;
November 1977, Berkeley/Crown Hall,
Mendocino)
"HIM"
A 3-Act Poem Play by e.e.cummings
Paul Townsend, Antero Alli, Dan Risko, Sima Wolf, Mary Forcade and many others
(1976, Mendocino Art Center Theatre)
"CIRCLES"
A Full-length Mime Play with Music and Accompanying Text
Seven mute characters portray aspects of one psyche interacting within
itself and
and
unravelling
in the wake of a series of outside interruptions.
Antero Alli, Brian Wasserman, Julie B. Oak, Leigh Lightfoot, Sima Wolf.
Spring 1975, Berkeley; Mendocino Art Center Theatre)
DUDESHEEP
THEATRE COMPANY
Experimental theatre
company living and working communally in a
downtown
Oakland mansion.
Performances included a paratheatrical
treatment
of sections from "Tibetan Book of
the Dead" (San Francisco).
Directed by Dale Fast with Judith Kangar,
Dean Webb,
Antero Alli,
David
Luddington & others.
(1972-73, Oakland and SF)
ANTERO ALLI
P.O. Box 7518, Berkeley CA 94707 USA
voicemail: (510) 464-4640