Comments
From DonJuan Wiki
Hi everybody, These are a few comments from the oldest member of the tribe! I have problems! Two hours of watching the computer screen made me go crossedeyed. And something else please don't take it personally but if we can't be absolutely honest and not say things for fear of offending ,we will get into trouble. I think the problem is talking about personal and emotional things without the BODY being present .( or maybe this is the voice of a technological moron.) I found the dialogue so banal and so repetitious I just could not concentrate for two hours on it and I repeat that in the studio where body language is of essence it might be different. It really was a great effort to stay with it for two hours! Greetings to all Ruth
I'm thinking about what you said... and agree that banal is not wrong, but I have many thoughts - actually finding myself as very poshy toward men in intelectual sense... But also afraid of banality as theater quality- I always try to skip this phase and am more introvertive. Need other procession. And I have to admitt that the speed one has to have on session is not really in my nature. All the good things one could say I remember afterwards etc. Beside that I'm a kind of self-improvenent-worker - like to start something qiuck, after I get idea, when imagination is fresh...and than slowly work it through. I don't know if I'm clear and hope this principal is not going to disturb your idea of work scedule. So, if you don't mind, I would try to write some thoughts about some ideas and paste it in (or put it on monologue site)... Or is it too much declination from our tools - life, spontaneous discussion? Well, tell me please. Byron is here - I read it in summer but am going to reread, but Foucault is rather difficult for me - am not realy theory kind of reader (and am in a phase where I try to spoil myself and stop with auto-pressure). So, it's really hard to push myself...every excuse comes right. That was an apology. Other things - I respect your ethical attitude and welcome it. so I won't proceed with my point of view. this mail is getting to be very personal. Am more in prose feeling today. Well, but, we have to get to know each other (with anonymity...) Movies are comming into cinemas. For now, thank good night, Marusa
18th March 2006
Dear company, I would like at this point to contribute some comment on the nature of our research and what I feel to be the heart of the project and what we should not avoid in this kind of cyber-training we are going through: THE DON JUAN PROJECT is about power. It is about refusing to accept the simplistic notion that the sex war has been 'solved' by some post-feminist liberalising of relationships, job opportunities etc etc. I think of Bush's America where he is trying to get abortion outlawed unilaterally, of women in the sex industry (part of this), of domestic violence, rape, murder etc etc and even some basic manifestations in the normal media all of which suggest that not a lot has actually changed - except perhaps for some emancipated bohemian-intellectuals and artists who may have found a modus vivendi that equalises man and woman (if hetrosexual).... In short, I am exploring in our project with you WHY things haven't fundamentally changed that much, and HOW this can be reflected in our sexuality perhaps as well as any cultural and economic as well as political realities in which we live under our governmental decision-makers as best we can. I am fascinated as to how for example we might experience contradiction between what we hold as values to live by socially and our intimate drives and needs - our fantasies, fears, obsessions, strengths and weaknesses. The line between the dark world of fantasy and the actual world of everyday living is more of a membrane, and it is a membrane I would like us to touch... As for how we are working: without passing sweeping judgement on any one of us, clearly we are still playing with the erotic thrill of our new-found tool : this possibility of putting thoughts into words seems to be liberating us into confessional mode and sometimes close to a therapeutic one too. Neither is wrong per se, and probably inevitable, but I would like us to begin to draw our thinking and writing and exchanges into focus around issues of power and fantasy. Our love-lives will always be on the agenda, our true hearts and our make-believe ones, our desire to break taboo, admit, smash, own up, pretend - all this is inevitable too. But lets take our work into spaces where we can use the freedom we have all found to address both some of the knottier issues around our sexuality as well as to address with some intellectual rigour the abundance of Don Juan texts - and Casanova ones - in existence. Your writing, from any mother tongue, is wonderful and rich and I have reaped from each session. I am delighted at the liberational power of our studio and know we will drive deeper ( if thats not too phallic) into the eye of the storm. Finally, I have always wanted DJ to be funny, ironic, tragic and passionate and I am certain this it will be given who you all are. I look forward to more work tomorrow, Sunday at 5.30gmt, love, Anna
"""Dear Anna, Just to say that I found your last comment on our project fascinating and challanging. Yes I can see that don juan is about power and phantasy nowhere better expressed then in Jean Genet play The BalconyBUT I have trouble understanding where we are going with it? I have come to the conclusion that although we have changed our behaviour and introduced more liberal laws ie. gay marriages, cohabiting and having children out of wedlock etc. nothing has fundamently changed because the beast within us has not changed and I doubt that it ever will. We modify and change our behaviour but our desires and attitudes remain the same. I remember living in New York in the 70th and meeting anthropologists and intellectuals writing about changing gears and introducing the idea of multiple and open relationships within marriage, it created many neurotics who tried to adjust to the new modes of living and ended up on psychiatrists couches because it negated the basic core of human nature, even in cultures where polygamy or polyandry is imposed it seems to sit badly with the individual who given the choice would live without such impositions. So what in essence are we investigating? The fact that at the roots of it all there is no change?""""
ruth
Dear Ruth et al, Maybe we are investigating our illusions of change. More precisely, maybe we are exploring our beasts and asking questions about the core of the nature/nurture question. Maybe we are trying to figure out what it means to be a man today - for I am told by many of them that it ain't what it used to be.The women's movement has put womens experiences high on the agenda as central subject/experience to reorder the world from, so that men have been put into relative position in the discourse. For me this project was always to put men high on the agenda and by asking them to speak of themselves we might develop a text that can reflect some of the many contradictions, ironies and chestnuts of the gender debate.....It is a project about men. ( and women)....Time to look at the literatures methinks,love Anna
