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Eros & Psyche

3 - 14 July  2016

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Château de Malérargues
Centre Artistique International Roy Hart
Photos of Château de Malérargues

Myth & Theatre Festival

The festival is structured around laboratory sessions directed by Enrique Pardo (morning) and voice classes directed by Linda Wise (afternoon) - with guest teachers and musicians.

Evenings are dedicated to performances, lectures and debates related to the work (voice performance and choreographic theater) and to the festival theme:  Eros & Psyche (a detailed program will be published end of April.)

Guests of honour: Anna Grieve, Kaya Anderson, Amy Rome.

Guests artists and teachers: Daniela Molina, Pierre-François Blanchard, The Pescado Group (Gaëtan Emeraud & Co.), Sean Lewis and Claire Campbell, Bibiana Monge, Soraia Sanchez. To be confirmed.

 

see also

BLOG and the Algorithms & Shamanism series of articles
(addressing also the theme of Eros and Psyche)

A detailed program will be published end in May

EDITORIAL  &  TOPICS  &   BIBLIOGRAPHY

Direction : Enrique Pardo and Linda Wise
Assistant : Soraia Sanchez

In collaboration with   Roy Hart International Artistic Centre
The Town of Lasalle  /  La Galerie du Petit Temple
Club del Pescado  /  Sean Lewis - Lilac Co Brooklyn
Univ. of Central Lancashire UK - School of Flim, Media & Performance. Dr. Amy Rome


Festival History and Archives

2015 Festival ARCHIVES

Eros & Psyche

Antiquity's last great myth, the closing and conclusion of paganism,appears in The Golden Ass, by Apuleius (born 123 CE in Algeria), considered to be the first novel. it mixes esoteric and picaresque eroticism, feminine initiation and witchcraft, and Metamorphosis ( its original title).

James Hillman considered the story of Eros and Psyche to be The Myth of Analysis.

Love
Jacques Saly 1753

see below     EDITORIAL  &  TOPICS  &   BIBLIOGRAPHY

Some outlines :


The Myth of Eros and Psyche, of course: lectures by Anna Griève.

Psyche, her other names: Anima, Seele, Soul (& Soul Music ...)

Heartbreak, the title of a recent book by Ginette Paris.

Jealousy - its role in an anthropology of singing - and in the voice philosophy of Roy Hart.

Aphrodite and Psyche: a beautiful stepmother and beautiful stepdaughter. Initiation, rivalries and femenine sadomasochism. Aphrodite, Eros, Psyche, and pornography.

see PRESENTATION BELOW

3 views

A Workshop-Festival

12 days with 4 half-days of rest. 6 hours workshops per day, plus evening lectures and performances.

Planning

EVENTS  PLANNING       |      PERFORMANCES & LECTURES

3 to 14 July 2016 :   12 days, 4 half-days rest (dates tbc)
arrivals Saturday 2nd of July   |   departures Friday 15th of July.

10:00 - 13:00
Enrique Pardo - laboratory sessions
14h30 - 17:30
Linda Wise - voice sessions & small groups classes
evenings
lectures, debates, performances

Enrique Pardo   :   Choreographic Theatre

Monring : laboratory sessions with guest teachers and musicians.

Linda Wise   :   Voice Performance

Afternoons: vocal work : together and division into two or three groups.

INFORMATION & REGISTRATION

Registration for this workshop / festival is directly through PANTHEATRE (not through the registration form of the Roy Hart Centre.)

Price : 850€     Registration : Write directly to PANTHEATRE. Include a brief CV and a motivation letter if this is your first time working with Pantheatre.

Confirmation - Deposit: if your application is accepted, your place will be reserved . It will be confirmed on receipt of a deposit of 200€ payable to "Pantheatre".  Refunds are possible until May 31st, minus 50€ administrative costs.

Payment - See: http://www.pantheatre.com/pdf/payments.pdf

Housing - IMPORTANT  The 20 places at Malérargues are now booked. Contact PANTHEATRE for advice, alternatives and last minute cancellations. Check especially the Camping La Pommeraie (20 minutes walk) very comfortable, with swimming pool, and quiet.

For the Centre's waiting list, Contact Béatrice, the secretary of the Roy Hart Centre.

Travel - Via Paris, Nîmes, Montpellier or Marseille .

Check http://www.pantheatre.com/pdf/buses-trains.pdf

and practical information on the website of the Roy Hart Centre

 

Eros & Psyche

EDITORIAL  &    TOPICS   &  BIBLIOGRAPHY

EDITORIAL

Enrique Pardo


Antiquity's last great myth, Eros and Psyche, was actually the closing and conclusion of paganism. It appears as a story written by an old witch within the The Golden Ass, by Apuleius (born 123 CE in Algeria), considered to be the very first novel. With stunning daring by our Christian standards, it mixes esoteric and picaresque eroticism, feminine initiation and witchcraft. Its original title was The Metamorphosis, in a clear and praising reference to Ovid's earlier Metamorphoses.

It was Saint Augustin, born shortly after Apulieus in the same cultured pagan society in Algeria, who called it The Golden Ass, after his conversion to Christianism, and in a clear scornful reference to the Bible’s the golden calf. Lucius, the ambitious young man in the novel, is transformed into an ass - by 'mistake' - by his pretty girlfriend, and not into a golden one, the poor boy...

James Hillman (1926 - 2011) considered the story of Eros and Psyche to be The Myth of Analysis. While paying credence to the mythological genius of Sigmund Freud, he sees the Oedipus myth as contained in (and transcended by?) the story Eros and Psyche. James Hillman was Pantheatre's honorary president, founder and contributor to the Festival - visiting Malérargues in the 80s and delivering his landmark lecture on Pink Madness at the 1993 Festival on Aphrodite. Obviously, I recommend reading his books and articles - or listening to his lectures on YouTube (he was a great speaker.)

In his authorized biography, James Hillman wanted to be as transparent as he could about his private life, including the Eros and Psyche scandals that put an end to his collaboration with the Jung Institute in Zurich, which one discovers to have been an astonishing web of erotic relationships. It was during this period that he presented his lectures on the Myth of Analysis at the prestigious Eranos Foundation in Ascona.

Roy Hart (1926 – 1975). I have described Roy Hart’s teaching as MORAL PHILOSOPHY, especially concerning the ethics of sexuality. He was also clear and open about his own private life. The society that gathered around him - the Roy Hart Theatre - became very much a "web of relationships". He was deeply involved with Eros and Psyche, albeit with his own Talmudic antinomic point of view.

To a great degree Roy Hart considered singing as being a confrontation and an act of possible transformation of jealousy. It is not by chance that the immense majority of songs speak of love and soul (Eros and Psyche), with jealousy taking the lion's share - certainly not a simple affair for humanity.

Love
Jacques Saly 1753

 

Golden Ass

Witchcraft and magic.
Three witches in full gossip.

Rubric-image of the Festival, changed  15/06/2016

I decided to modity the rubric-image of the Festival. It lacked figuration - too subtle. I resorted to Jeff Koons to add a little more of Eros.

Below, the modified rubric, and the image of Koons with Cicciolina (by far the most interesting period in his work!) Koons acknowledged her as his greatest teacher before becoming a born-again Christian... Cicciolina would be a highly evolved Psyche... more in line with Sapho and Aphrodite (an image of Psyche with lipstick?!) Note the Eros-dragon-serpent (with a clear biblical connection), and the Eros-putti-cupids in the background... We will talk about it. Enrique.

MT16

Koons

TITLES 

TOPICS & OUTLINE

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The Golden Ass

by Apulieus

 

Originally titled

Metamorphoses

Aplieus' novel is a maze of scabrous magical-erotic stories, triggered by the curiositas of young Lucian, who is fascinated by magic and who wants to become a witch himself, especially after seeing Pamphile, a high-flying witch, turn into a bird. He has an affair with pretty Photis, Pamphile's assistant-servant, who picks the wrong ointment and metamporphoses Lucian into an ass - not a bird.

Later, another young girl named Charite is kidnapped by bear-pirates just before her wedding night. It is to this desolate young woman that an old witch (the pirates' servant!) tells de story of Eros and Psyche. Lucian sees and listens to it all, having also been kidnapped by the pirates, but as an ass, of course!

Etcetera : it is all 'real' magic: witchcraft, erotic insights, metamorphoses, esoteric initiations, heartbreak, lots of pirates and thieves, and quite a few murders.

VonFranz

To my surprise, I had a truly great time reading The Golden Ass of Apuleius: The Liberation of the Feminine in Man, by Marie Louise von Franz, and I highly recommend it.

She rivals Anna Griève in her insights into fairy tales! Both use what I call "Jungian algebra" to make their points: variations on the binary 'algorithms' of masculine and femenine (or possitive and negative mother, and father complexes).

Which, of course, can be fun, with a 'shamanic' pinch of salt.

Jungian gossip had given me the impression that von Franz was mainly a stern, blue-stocking, 'mother superior'. I found her "savvy" in this book! I did meet her at the Eranos Conferences, by which time she was a very old lady with a formidable sparkling gaze - not unlike how I imagine Apulieus' narratrice of the Eros and Psyche story... (check the ladies in the image above!)

Reading Apuleius' novel, like with most classics, depends very much on the translation you come accross. Let us know if you find a good one.

The Myth of Eros and Psyche

As told in The Golden Ass, by Apulieus

Two (or three) lectures by Anna Griève.

The first lecture will be a tandem telling (and often contradictory!) of the story, by Anna Griève and Enrique Pardo, with some contextualization of the novel.

The second and possible third lectures will be Anna Griève's interpretative reading of the myth of Eros and Psyche.

The main bibliographic recommendations are:

- Marie Louise von Franz (see above).
- James Hillman: The Myth of Analysis, but also: Re-visioning Psychology.
- Erich Neumann : Amor and Psyche: The Psychic Development of the Feminine: A Commentary on the Tale by Apuleius.

Psyché

Psyché/Anima//Soul

Une histoire culturelle

Psyche is her Greek name. Anima, her Latin name. Seele, Soul - her Germanic name. An overview of their cultural history.

Possibly the greatest revolution in voice and singing was the emergeance of Soul Music: Eros and Psyche at last get to sing and dance together - thanks to the Afro-American "crossover" from Protestantism ("Negro Spirituals"). Malérargues played a part in this revolution, back in the 17th and 18th century !

Our reference book is James Hillman's Anima: An Anatomy of a Personified Notion. I consult it like a pagan bible.

Hillman's article "Peaks and Vales" on the differentiation between Spirit and Soul.

Check   Arte Program: The Power of Soul.

Heartbreak

Coeur Brisé

Panel talk with Linda Wise, Anna Griève, Kaya Anderson, Amy Rome and Enrique Pardo, to discuss the recent publication of two volumes by Ginette Paris under the title Heartbreak.

"The psychosomatic pain of heartbreak and mourning shows neurobiological evidence of stress similar to being submitted to torture. With time, the intensity of the pain may lessen, yet it is false to think that time heals all wounds! Many live the rest of their life with a captive heart, alone in the emotional desert of psychic numbness."   Read more

HEARTBREAK /  Mourning, Loss.
Detach or Die  (Volume one)
The Brain in Love (volume two)

We have three copies (two volumes) you can look at in Malérargues. You can also order through internet.

Ginette Paris, Canadiansocial psychologist , teaches Depth Psychology at the Pacifica Institute, in California. She is a close friend and collaborator of the festival since its inception.

She is the author of foundational books in archetypal psychology, especially on Aphrodite (see below), and on Artemis, in a militant book, The Sacrament of Abortion: she had to change the title, having received death threats from so-called Pro Life
anti-abortion persons.

Jalousie et Ethique Sexuelle

The importance of jealousy in an anthropology of singing - as understood in the voice philosophy of Roy Hart - following in this Alfred Wolfsohn.

Are not songs to a huge degree mostly about Eros - and of these, a high proportion about jealousy, loss and unrequited love?

A nice piece of advice from the arch-idealists of the sixties, Crosy, Still, Nash and Young : "If can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with"

See the lecture   "Roy Hart: a philosophy and a model of teaching - some reflections after forty years".

Italian scholar Giulia Sissa has recently published La gelosia: Una passione inconfessabile (Jealousy: and unspeakable passion.) "In antiquity erotic jealousy was anger: an aristocratic emotion, worthy of heros, warriors and gods. In modern times, jealousy has become a messy defeat, too embarrassing to admit, and politically incorrect."   Check Marie France Asia (!)

Check also the blog post: An Othello Alarum, on An Othello Thing / Sean Lewis and Claire Campbell - a review commented by Enrique Pardo.

Aphrodite et Psyché

A beautiful stepmother and beautiful stepdaughter.

In French, the strange step is replaced by belle - so we get bellemère and bellefille.

Related themes: Initiation, rivalries and femenine sadomasochism. Aphrodite, Eros, Psyche, and pornography.

Ginette Paris, author of HEARTBREAK (see above) is a scholar of Aphrodite. Maybe, due to her surname, a destined priestess of the Goddess who won the proverbial and, to many, (in)famous Choice of Paris - which started the Trojan war! Her two mythological books are highly recommended: Pagan Meditations and Pagan Grace. One of Aphrodite's assets is to have the ultimate ladies-in-waiting: the Three Graces. In Apulieus, Aphrodite is also the mother of Eros - and Paris (Ginette) makes much of it, including a defence of baby-talk amongst lovers!

James Hillman has a chapter on the realtionship between Psyche (Anima) and Aphrodite in his book on Anima (see above)

     


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