2017
REVIEW
Oregon ArtsWatch
"Conventional theater is concerned with relatable things like real-world characters, dialogue, plot, and so on. Ritualistic narrative, by contrast, concerns itself with little repeated details like the keyword exchange (repeated throughout the performance) and large-scale formal elements outlining the procedures of the rite. Consider the grand symbolisms and millions of little jokes that characterize a movie like Jodorowsky's "Holy Mountain". In SOROR MYSTICA, the large-scale form follows the transmutation of the alchemist through the (inter)action of the four elements—each endowed with their own agency, each enacting their own rituals, not subservient to the alchemist but welcoming him into their temple—and the masked shadow man who dwells at the threshold and drives the querent’s transfiguration. All this further fractures the frame, because we see these people both as actors enacting a rite and as the incorporeal substances and energies which they are embodying. The miraculous thing about all of this is the performers are openly working for their own benefit. " - Matthew Andrews for Oregon ArtsWatch. Click this to read the entire review
Pre-performance warm-up
I saw “Soror Mystica”, and felt like I was dreaming
with all of you
into an expression
of the Divine Feminine
that already lived
inside of me.
I felt an exultant sense
of recognition combined with wonderment,
and left
enchanted. Thank you so much for that beautiful
exploration and performance! -
Saliha Abrams
the performers
The Chaos Sisters
(Memorie Eden, Maple Holmes, Linzae Anne, Faye Dylan)
the women who inhabit, maintain, and worship in Temple Soror Mystica
Aether
(Bryan Smith)
a neutral-masked entity born from the Chaos Sisters
who
receives,
contains,
and protects their spirits
The Alchemist
(L.D. McClure)
a cantankerous magickian who argues
about magic with the Sorceress
The Sorceress
(Greeta Ahart)
a tough-minded witch who sends the Alchemist
into
Temple Soror Mystica
for his initiations
The Oracle
(Nita Bryant)
a disembodied voice commenting on the Temple rituals
(words by HD aka Hilda Doolittle)
7-min. excerpt from Opening Night performance Dec 1, 2017
The Crew
Tech assist: Zac Martin, Cibyl Kavan, Ed Welsh, Sage Reilly
Costumes, Sylvi Alli & Faye Dylan. Lighting design, Antero.
Film sequences by Antero Alli; soundtrack song by Sylvi Alli.
Performance music & vocals, Sylvi Alli (with Amma Li Grace)
Poetic text by Hilda Doolittle (aka HD). Directed by Antero Alli
ANTERO & SYLVI ALLI, Producers
from a short film by Antero Alli as featured in "Soror Mystica"
HILDA DOOLITTLE (aka HD) wrote "The Walls Do Not Fall", (the first of three parts in her TRILOGY), in London during the 1942 Nazi blitzkrieg air strikes. Sheltered underground, she composed Trilogy as bomb after bomb exploded over the city above her. Deeply inspired by her indomitable spirit during an era of great strife and warfare, I chose nine stanzas from "The Walls Do Not Fall" for its oracular visions of death and rebirth amidst unspeakable horrors and devastation.
THE ANIMA ARCHETYPE -- that wild, erotic, and anarchic dimension of the Holy Feminine possessing, vexing, seducing, and inspiring male creatives and artists since before the beginning of Time - demands to be related with; She will not be ignored! My own courtship with the Anima (She is not "my" Anima; She belongs to no man!) has been partly sustained by a series of love letters composed to Her (some call them poems); click this to read one. With "Soror Mystica", I've chosen the Anima archetype, or perhaps She has chosen me, to enliven this production as a spiritual event -- a living ritual dressed up as experimental theatre.
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WATCH THE ENTIRE PERFORMANCE - One Camera
Raw unedited footage from opening night - 50 minutes - YouTube
WATCH THE ENTIRE PERFOMANCE - Three Cameras
Edited from all 3 nights - 44 minutes - Vimeo
PRODUCTION STILLS
The many moods of the Chaos Sisters