Performance Alchemy

The summer heat is rising and so is the creative fire of our artists as we enter into high season for music, dance and theatre performances in Damanhur. The Art of the Popolo has always been a strong focus for us as a spiritual community, as a way to come together in creative expression and to transform reality through the alchemy of art.

Recently we have enjoyed several voice recitals offered by Unicorno Arachide’s first year students, as well as Macaco Tamerice’s students from Damanhur and the local areas, a children’s dance performance led by Ghiandaia, a Mystical Concert directed by Cigno Banano and Albatros Finferlo, a theatre pieced called “The Story of the Ant” inspired by Falco Tarassaco’s book Reborn to Live – with theatre script written by Cocorita Camomilla and directed by Zebu Cresicone. In August, there will be more expressive beauty on stage with a concert for the “Songs of the Peoples,” featuring indigenous musical traditions in the Sacred Woods Temple, organized by Cigno, and a classic Damanhur theatre show at the end of the month, “The Sapphire Masks” directed by Unicorno.

There is a special and potent kind of magic that comes from performance space. The stage becomes an alchemical laboratory and the actors, dancers and musicians are the alchemists who collectively create a transformative experience through the combination of their unique elements. Performance is a ritual that begins well before the curtains open and the lights hit the stage before an audience. The energy is ignited and increases gradually through every rehearsal, and it accelerates fast on debut night backstage as makeup is applied, costumes pieces are sorted out, lines and choreography are anxiously reviewed, and the colors and emotions fly. As always, the show must go on, despite inevitable unexpected events. It’s exhausting, exhilarating, a devotional path as demanding as any monastic one.

The stage is a place where we come to awareness of the intensity, magic and beauty of the present moment when lived in full expression.