There was a day about the beginning of 2006, when Mr. Bither granted me the chance to follow up a short conversation we had about spirituality in the work of performers from overseas. Since then, I have had an unstable medical situation- anemia, thyroid problems, apnea, a seizure, pneumonia, etc.- and it is only now that I can retrieve the text and present it. The good news is that almost all of it still makes sense; it was not a time-specific conversation, though there are specific references tot he shows happening at the time. I hope you can find some value in it.I did a lot of the talking.
Seal: Our conversation started with the comment of yours, as I remember it, about talent from outside the United States, talking about how their spirituality was a big resource of inspiration and influence. And then now your artists are talking, as I understand it, the an American artists, about politicizing their work more, if they can.
Bither: That’s right.
Seal: And I see them as tied together in terms of content issues, because I think in the past there’s been a lot of focus on form (which I haven’t been that interested in – it’s kind of nice, but why should I have to go through this?). If you’re going to put on a show that’s a categorical imperative, I want meaning. Now, in the work that I’m focusing on, it’s looking at the theatrical and spiritual content of plays like “All My Sons” by Arthur Miller; and I’m saying, “OK, now how can I do that with what we get out of the Bible?” How can we look at, like, the story of David, screwing his neighbor’s wife, and killing him so that he can get her -- and bringing those stories out, because that’s full of pathos and meaning. But it doesn’t have to be just about that text. It’s also true of people going into the Hindu tradition, and storytelling and…the Spiritual Fringe it’s first year had, like, there were nine shows, and a couple of them were bombs -- but the good ones were really good. One of them was a Jewish show – four Jews talking about Israel from completely different viewpoints – like the Buddhist/Liberal/Jewish secular view, and the Settlement view – saying, “This was the land God gave us.” and the liberal points in between.
Bither: Just out of curiosity, was that one more about geo-politics, than about spirituality? Did it come from a Jewish point of view…
Seal: Wholly in that. “This thing here comes out of our tradition, Oh, but this comes out of the Bible. But this comes out of our statehood and our nationhood. And this comes out of our effort to make a democracy” All these clashing viewpoints…it’s like a what Jack Rueler (at Mixed Blood) talks about, “It’s not one person proving another person wrong, it’s about both sides are right; now what do you do? That’s what makes for a very interesting drama. We had one show that was a woman storyteller, who told the story of her daughter drowning in a swimming pool, and the spiritual journey she went on after that – and that was one of the most moving, powerful, deeply felt things I’ve ever seen in my life. And there were a couple of other shows that were …Jamie Meier, did a drum ceremony for the Holy Spirit, using bird’s wings, and gongs in the basement with the lights down. Candles. It was fabulous.
So, anyway, I just saw this great resource of inspiration coming out of traditional and non-traditional approaches to spirituality, which sounded like what you were talking about. The content for the performers, the resource for their inspiration – was their spirituality. And that’s what I was kind of hearing from you, and that’s what I wanted to see what you’re talking about. And then talk about what you’d encountered so far.
Bither: You know, we went through a moment – it was more than a moment, it’s actually been written into our mission statement at the Walker around having much more of a global orientation. There was a particular year at the end of a four-year series called “How Latitudes Become Forms: Behind the Global Age,” which was the concluding exhibition, but we had a special leadership vantage from the Bush Foundation, which supported us getting to some parts of the world that we normally would not get to – and meeting artists, and inviting them here – and doing a spectrum of programs. And I noticed during those years, that contemporary artists coming from outside the U.S. – seem to have much less difficulty in addressing issues of spirituality, or making spirituality in art in a way that wasn’t fear-inducing on their part, or they weren’t anxious about the fact of how their work would be read; they were embracing the questions of spirituality in a very experimental sort of performance context.
And, at the same token; at the same moment – we had artists like Liz Larriman, and Ralph Lamanieven, who were very specifically and consciously, talking about their spiritual practice, in the context of the making of “Indecencies: Dance Theater Works.“ And I was just thinking about it this morning – perhaps there is (in the contemporary art world) more readiness; or sort of acceptance, ironically enough, of spiritual questions and issues, when they exist outside of Judeo-Christian, or maybe just Christian, sort of framework of American contemporary artists or something. Artists are talking about questions of spirituality from a non-Western point of view; perhaps there’s a much more sort of openness, on the part of theater audiences or curators or whomever else – programmers – to sort of be curious and embrace those questions, because maybe there’s less of a concern around that kind of natural restrictions, in terms of creative freedom, perhaps. That religious practice, sometimes, implies in creativity and art.
Seal: Especially Chris Gamadie, where the headlines about the repression, and not about the benefits of openness…
Bither: And increasingly I say, these questions around Muslim practice, and real interest on the part of funders and programmers and others to really try to explore what are the broader questions in the Muslim world and the Islamic world, I think that concern around the narrowing – I guess you can find parallels in Christian practice; there are questions as well…The narrowing of the perception of those religious practices into a very narrow, fundamental sort of perspective of what those religions stand for.
Seal: Fundamentalism is a problem in every religion. Hindu people burning Muslims on their trains, for example, and Jews, Muslims, Christians---and, from what I’ve read, that’s a reaction against modernity – they’re going back into a fundamentalist viewpoint of belief; because it is simpler and easier to understand in the context of a world that’s more complex and impossible to understand. So they’re not rolling with re-framing their religious viewpoints based on the new world that they encounter; they’re going back to what Grandma and Grandpa used to do. And it’s a problem for Christians, Jews and Muslims. There are Muslims where it’s OK to put up a picture of Mohammed, and there are other Muslims where it’s not.
Bither: And there’s been a lot of discussion in the press about the politicism (of religion) and moderate Muslims, attempting to re-balance the discussion in some way. But I do think that there is a generation of American artists – these are, again, the realm that I work in, experimental and contemporary artists – who are, maybe, coming of age where they feel they want to explore those questions, regardless of what perceived restrictions that the art market (for lack of a better term) might view as placing on them. They really are – maybe it’s the fact that they’ve reached their 40s and 50s, or that they have children, or that they’re wondering about how their creative practice relates to their spirituality, or spirituality in general.
Seal: Or they know somebody who’s died. Or they think about that for the first time. In our extended adolescence, with a longer life-span, we don’t really have to encounter that in our 20s and 30s, like people used to.
Bither: Certainly, you think of an artist like Bill T. Jones – he spent his whole life grappling with that the friction that exists between -- his very faith-based Baptist, African-American upbringing, that he draws a lot of power from, and yet he’s had an incredible relationship with his mother, who was very much about an old-school, Baptist religion – and his own life as a gay man, involved in a very life-changing relationship with a Jewish, white guy, and the kind of homophobia that they experienced, both in the black community and the culture at large; and then the loss of his partner through HIV/AIDS…he’s always exploring these questions about where does this power in his life come from, and he’s gone from questioning -- on-stage, real-time – religious leaders, about how can they find/justify religions that say anyone who’s homosexual is going to go to Hell, and a sense of compassion – those are some of the most electric moments I’ve ever experienced in a theater. When there’s the whole, life in this performance…it’s huge, this theatrical dance work stops, and this minister comes out; or a person of faith, and Bill T. Jones sits and says, “Let me ask you this; how can we…” and he was truly trying to get at these questions.
Seal: That sounds really cool. Because that’s an issue in every Protestant denomination, and even back to the Catholics, who are scrambling for priests the way they are…now they’re going to get rid of the gay ones? There’s going to be a huge fracture. Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Lutherans – are all struggling with gay ministry, and I’m in a church that’s in favor of gay ministry; studied it and made a huge case on it, and they say Jesus never talked about homosexuality. So, if you want to call yourself a Christ-centered Church, you can’t draw that conclusion there. Male relationships are banned in Leviticus, but nothing’s ever said about female-to-female relationships. You can’t say anything against the Lesbians. And then you go back to that same chapter, and there’s stuff against bacon and shrimp, and blending fabrics - “So why are you picking this one verse instead of those?”
Bither: Like making interest off of loans is usury.
Seal: Exactly. It’s a selective interpretation of texts and cultural mores, creating a connection where there is none, where you find something that agrees with you, instead of reading what’s there, and saying, “What conclusions can we draw?” So, that’s really cool that he talks about that onstage…because my big inspiration is Dr. King, and his work of taking that spirituality and saying, “Let’s live up to our highest standards, as Christians and as Americans. Let’s read the Constitution and apply it! “
Dr. King never talked about women in the ministry; he never talked about homosexuality. But you can say, or my conclusions, when I read his stuff – it’s about reconciliation with outsiders…that’s what Jesus’ ministry was about. Non-Jews, ministering to lepers…people who were pushed outside of society. And Dr. King was into reconciliation of races. And that’s not about winning and losing. It’s not about excluding those who are different. It’s about actively welcoming them.
So that’s a huge, spiritual belief. Into a spiritual realm of practice, or praxis, which is reflective action, that almost everybody I know is uncomfortable; “you mean…make friends with my enemies? Love the racist? The homophobe?” So, the work that I’m interested in is the stuff that challenges us; pushing us past our comfort level, not in terms of winning or losing and who’s the bad guy. Because if people on the left sound as unfriendly as Pat Robinson, we’re no improvement on Pat Robinson.
And that brings us back into the politics aspect.
Bither: Well, I also think that in our contemporary time, there’s one last note on it. I think that the role that artists play, especially at this moment in time, is to offer people a sense of what creative freedom is; that art can somehow – not just instill community and instill inspiration, but also can be a form of democracy, in life. And you read about, (in my world) of modernism and post-modernism and experimental art; people coming here because they were so inspired by the freedom that American artists show. My daughter just did a project for her history day on Peter Schuman, and the puppet theater. In part because for ten years, she’s heard me talk about how he’s one of my heroes, and he says artists today will connect political beliefs and incredibly beautiful, spectacularly moving artwork into a practice, and not make one or the other subservient (or in deference) to the other. And Schuman was just talking about how actually this is a real spiritual kind of core to his work as well. He’s just one of these figures that I think, when you talk about art in politics, that it’s really able to embrace them both.
When Pete was in Germany, he saw Merce Cunningham and John Cage, and I don’t think of Cunningham and Cage and Schuman necessarily sharing the same universe at all, but it was Cunningham’s and Cage’s radical freedom of what they were doing – he made him think, “I’ve got to go to America. If they can allow that to happen, and just break the boundaries and the structures that exist of “What is Western Music? What is dance supposed to be?” I’ve got to be there.” And now he found his own complete voice here.
But I guess, part of what we hope – in our most idealistic moments – is that the kind of work the Walker shows, will inspire another generation – or anyone – “Wow, who thought of that?” -- and what kind of freedom does that represent? And what can that mean in my life? What can that do for me? How can I exercise that same kind of freedom? Not to be so patriotic, but, as an American, as a country that allows people to express themselves in sometimes radical, provocative ways…how can that be an inspiration?
Seal: That’s what I like about your Joe Chvala show (Fire and Ice, Flying Foot Forum); he had the freedom to be as modern, crazy, choreographer-on-acid type stuff, but stick into it the resources of 1,000 – 2,000 year old mythology and sculptural visuals, and throw Ruth MacEnzie’s ancient singing into it, and you’ve got a very special and powerful means to communicate.
And then meld it with a band – so all the freedom was there from the go, wherever he wanted to take it. And he was like, nailing it down here and exploding it over there.
Bither: And that balance is really great.
Seal: It was really cool. So that’s what, in my little world, that’s what I hope more people see as a resource, it’s not necessarily a Christian spirituality, but the root of your own spirituality. Theater kind of connected it to me, and one of great cultural flaws of European-Americans is that we try to sever our relationship with the old country when we come over to America. African Americans feel a great deal of emotional connection with the old country in ways that we Euro-Americans have gotten rid of. So to connect with pre-Christian mythology – I think that’s a fabulous way to go, to reclaim that. I was getting chills as a Norwegian, all that Swedish and Finnish stuff going on out there… it really worked for me.
Bither: You can also argue about other, non-European communities have attempted in some way to stay connected, or even if you’re doing very modern contemporary work or Americanized things, that there’s still a relationship to that heritage.
Seal: You mean like the refugee communities who come over intact – and preserve that culture. They Americanize – like they go sing karaoke –what they do for a party, but they still practice traditional stuff.
Bither: And you know, some Asian communities,like the Indian ex-patriate communities, into the 2nd, 3rd generation – there is still incredibly effective mechanisms of culture, like the Indian Music Association, that brings great Indian musicians, and is connected to these fabulous musical forms, and are so very knowledgeable and follow very closely to those traditions. We present Brazilian music; Afro-Brazilian – the 2nd, 3rd generation will come out within a 300-mile radius to see Katan Belloso. There’s still a real relationship there.
Seal: My experience with Ragamala, and Aparna Ramaswamy going back to India, to study, and being more traditional than her mom Ranee who came here for that expressive freedom; And to see that tension pulls both of them in both directions really works, especially when they do something together.
But then, you’ve been there with that big outdoor thingy – and again, as I understand it, they’re drawing on some sort of spiritual base?
Bither: They were drawing on myths – the Ramayana, which is one of the central texts to Hindu religion. It’s centuries old, and it’s like Bible stories in many ways – and they use these very wonderful stories that provides values to the culture and give meaning. To us, they seem rather exotic…about monkey kings, and bringing the bride over the channel, and someone absconding with someone’s wife…but they’re all imbedded with values to the culture. Hindu – that story from the Ramayana, exists in all Hindu cultures, and so what Ranee wanted to do, and what I saw fascinating, was she took a trip to Indonesia and saw the incredible, ritualistic, Balinese Monkey Chant – which is done as part of the telling; in an Indonesian, in a Balinese way – stories from the Ramayana, which she tells through Bharatanatyam dance.
So she saw her own stories being told in a completely radical, different kind of wild way – true to the Indonesian approach to Hindu cultural expression. And so she wanted to marry those two; to have the Bharatanatyam approach to telling stories of the Ramayana, married with the Indonesian approach, and then combining the American, Minnesotan artists into those – learning the Monkey Chant as well. We got 30 Minnesotan men to participate, and learn the very complex, poly-rhythmic vocal tradition of that style of music, and then perform it together, and hopefully reveal – not only give people who live here of Indian descent, and other Hindu descent – to chance to celebrate their own, rich heritage, but also to open up those stories for a lot of Minnesotans who may not know anything about the Ramayana.
Seal: I wonder if that’s ever been done in either India or Indonesia.
Bither: It had only been done once – there was a big production out in L.A., as part of the L.A. Festival in the 80s, when Peter Sellers was running that festival – also attempting to marry those traditions of Indonesian and Hindu traditions. But Ranee is trying to get this down in Indonesia, I’m sure there must have been performances of Indian artists, without any Western producers trying to make it out as a way to work together.
Seal: In terms of a show or two that you have done here at the Walker, does any of that stuff jump out at you?
Bither: One thing I wanted to mention – an interesting experience the other day, this is not so much directly related to text and the meaning that we get from here. Music is another part of the place where so many artists I talk to – talk about it coming from somewhere else, and the spiritual relationship with music, and the number of jazz musicians who’ve said, “Hey, It’s not me – I’m just the vehicle; I’m channeling something that’s coming from someplace else.”
Seal: Mingus would always talk about getting ‘way above – watching himself play. He said every show’s an out-of-body experience, he could just watch himself.
Bither: Musicians who are very much in the avante garde – you don’t think, you might be surprised that – they’re speaking in a very similar way to…say, a Gospel tradition – “This is about a greater being, and I am just a channel. I go someplace else, and something takes – not quite takes over; even an artist as hard-edged and cynical at certain times of manner he has, as John Zorn – the other night…here is a guy who’s always been considered the epitome of rejection of what we think of religious practice or spirituality – he started the whole, radical Jewish art movement in downtown New York scene when he turned 40 – and decided there’s something about being a Jew, and about those stories, and about that history that – his father died – it made him want to go back and explore; suddenly – then he and all the Jewish musicians were part of the avante garde, downtown music scene. Started like, looking at Jewish music in a whole range of styles, not just Klezmer – but whole different kinds of Jewish cultural expression, and turning it on its head, but now Zorn has made made a whole Masada songbook, he is intent on doing 613 songs – that’s the number that comes from the Jewish religious tradition; that 613 statements that come out of this traditional, Jewish text. He’s done two cycles of them, and a lot of them are beautiful, spiritual melodies.
He was in an interview; I interviewed him on the stage the other night, and I happened to say (I pushed it a little too far), and he too said, “Once I get going, man, it’s not me! It’s coming from someplace else.” And I said, “John, it’s surprising to hear you say…so many jazz artists from other traditions have said about channeling from a greater thing, and he said, “Oohh, don’t take it that far.” He didn’t want to put too much into a kind of new age realm. He’s a prime example of somebody who has taken their own cultural and spiritual heritage, and made it modern – and drawing from the power of it – but doing it for the 21st century.
Seal: That’s cool, and is ringing a bell, because the thing in theology, when you go into the tradition, and you say, “OK - What’s valuable about it now?” That you can still use. And that’s what everybody does, whether they do it on purpose or not. You find out what it is about the tradition that you want to sustain; and you want to continue, what you want to pass on. And it’s in your practice, it’s in your service, it’s your tradition of altruistic work on behalf of the helpless and voiceless and the poor. But it’s also in the tradition to teaching your kid. I don’t have all day; I don’t have my kid’s attention that long – what can I give him that is valuable about this tradition. So, that’s exactly what the process is, and people think of religion as frozen in time…and they try to keep it there, and they will fail; because the world changes around them, and even if they change – and the more they try to keep it from changing- (they call that “Jesus in a box), the more you put Jesus into that box, the less chance you have of making it meaningful.
Bither: Undoubtedly, Bill’s piece – many people think of it as one of his best works in a decade. This is all about fundamentalism, and how do we do live in a world where he talks about the corroding influence of the absolute, but again – as an artist growing up in a Southern Baptist family. I think he is exploring the questions of militarism – and current empire building that we have in our country, the triumph of fundamentalism. I haven’t seen the work live yet. But it’s been getting fantastic reviews everywhere.
Seal: We have artists drawing from the home country tradition. Any other shows come to mind?
Bither: You know, the group Benarawin, that comes from Somali; their music is from electric guitars with very traditional, Somalian music, they basically performed in the refugee camps after the civil wars. No matter how radical, or experimental they are – they still are in some ways, an expression of the human spirit. You can’t ignore the fact that there’s a spiritual component – even the artist knows. It’s a spiritual experience, in a very abstract way.
Seal: And you can get pretty far in that direction; the thing that I’m focusing on is when people recognize it and address spirituality in their work specifically, literally, and out loud. More like Bill T. Jones. My background with the church and the militaristic society, that’s about culture, values and faith, and conflict of theology with practice. That thing he talks about with absolutes, is exactly what I was talking about with how the faith transforms itself through time, and the people who try to nail them down as absolutists… is what will kill the faith.
You have to look at it, but it’s worth the attention. These are things that we will hold firm to, but they will change, or our perception of it will change, or this got left behind.
The Native American stuff, which was -- that got left by the side of the road in their Diaspora, they’ve been clobbered here – and they’re re-discovering stuff. They have to go back and re-discover. That’s a spiritual journey of re-discovery that anybody who’s kinda connected with cultural, religious, historical past – it goes back into that mining expedition, to find those little nuggets that mean something to them.
But that doesn’t mean that means something to the next generation. They have to discover their own thing. And this notion that we can take something that your father gave you, and hand it to your son intact, is a desperate misconception.
Bither: But don’t you find a lot of people in my church (Unitarian) – I think it’s a very healthy struggle, but there’s always been a struggle – of being, really, one of the most open minded and fluid churches – perhaps not many absolutes – and the people’s need to have absolutes. It seems that people look to religious practice anyway, for something to hang on to – and so there’s that tension of being relevant in our times, but people feeling they have certainties about certain things.
Seal: The Unitarians are in a very special place. They are absolutely open-minded, and they are always learning. But the problem with their system is that they have trouble passing that on to the next generation, I have buddies who are Unitarian Ministers, and one of my friends said she was digging into the Christian roots to rediscover how to pass down some sort of religious faith to her children. Because the children grew up in a kind of nebulous sense of what religion is, and whole generation kinda disappears. And people come to the Unitarian Church as adults
Bither: A lot of Refugees come to Unitarianism
Seal: But their challenge now is how to hand it down to the next generation…how do we make this meaningful. It’s hard to hang your hat on a peg, when there’s no peg in the wall.
Bither: The peg can be confused potentially with – and that’s ok with me – with societal values – we are an open congregation and we believe in full acceptance in an embrace of…you know…we go through a full range of diversity – and I love that about it, certainly – is that kind of Openness, compassion and acceptance of people, regardless or race, sexual orientation – the whole range of human class. But I think some people can get that from political work, or working on democracy issues. You don’t have to go to church.
Seal: Religion comes from the word, “to come together.” So that’s where you bring your spirituality into the company of other people, and decide that you’re going to do stuff together as a ceremony, or whatever. The distinction about being spiritual without being religious, is to me a very valid distinction. You can have that spirituality all by yourself – but when you start to bring it together and bring it into conversation with other people, you have to have some idea of what that conversation is about. My church is Presbyterian – and that centers on a Jesus tradition, but it’s very much an ecumenical and inter-faith experience – with outreach for the Jews, Hindus, Catholics, and everybody else – it’s “What can we work on together?”
Now, for me, I just need some focus. I’m not smart enough to be a Unitarian; that’s just too wide open. So I come to a Jesus tradition through Dr. King – which is: Love Your Enemy. That sounds impossible, but he did; and he changed the way business is done in this country, and he did it by applying this Judeo-Christian tradition of morality in our context of reality. And that to me means you’re still open to learning from every other (wisdom) tradition that’s out there.
So it’s away from the exclusive, absolute viewpoint of the Christian practice that my father grew up with. But that doesn’t work anymore. We know more; we’re exposed to more. We’re not so fearful of other ways of thinking.
