The 5 Intentions
On Advancing the Craft of Paratheatre
by Antero Alli
Throughout the somatic work processes in this Paratheatre medium, numerous energy sources and archetypes are accessed and expressed in movement, vocalization, gesture, action and interaction. Sources - such as The 4 Elements, The Muse archetype, Dreaming, Child & Adult, Chakras, Ancestors, and many others - are all posited as autonomous currents in the Body having a life of their own. After the Body is felt deeply during a 30-minute physical warm-up, a door opens to the internal landscape of sources through No-Form practice. Once a source is engaged, any of the five intentions can be introduced to unlock new dimensions of each source.
These 5 Intentions express an innate development from the most primitive ("merging") to the most subtle ("inquiry") with the previous intention acting as a support for the following one. Though each intention unlocks a different facet of whatever source is engaged, all five can and do intermingle and influence each other. The following five intentions represent a spectrum of ways to engage and express whatever source is being accessed, explored, and expressed:
The Five Intentions:
1) MERGING (identification)
2) SERVICE (body as vessel)
3) SURRENDER (full-body offering of self to source)
4) SUSTAINING CARE (what is loved most about source)
5) INQUIRY (asking questions of the source)
MERGING (identification; becoming the source)
Direct intuitive engagement with the current or energy of any given source,
merging represents an identification with, and a passive absorbing of
whatever
the given source has to offer. This intention often erupts in chaotic, convulsive,
and catharctic expressions.
SERVICE (the Body as vessel)
After merging and identifying with the source, service starts with disidentification
with the source energy and opening the Body up as a vessel for its expression
through you. There is no mental asking "what do I serve?" or "how do I serve?"
but rather a direct expression of the source passing through the Body as a vessel
without
becoming or identifying with whatever energy is passing through you.
SURRENDER (total offering of self; full embodiment of source)
Through merging and service, we can discover enough about a given source
to
give ourselves over to it more and more towards a total offering of the self,
the Body,
to the Source, in a fully embodied expression of the energy. Surrender
differs from the first intention of Merging in the way a tree blossoms first
before
bearing fruit. Surrender expresses a total follow-through of what Merging initiates.
SUSTAINING CARE (what is loved most about source)
After engaging a source, you discover what you love most about that source
and
allow
that love to sustain your source connection and its expression through
movement,
sound,
gesture, action, interaction. This intention builds empathy
with the source
as
a sustaining
current, ie., your entire process is sustained by a deepening care and love.
INQUIRY (asking questions of the source)
Inquiry starts after stepping into a source (from No-Form) and asking that
source
questions, such as "Where are you
going" or "How can I know you?" or
"Who are
you
?". Questions should be
direct, simple and clear. Questions
can also
be nonverbal
yearnings, such as the quest to discover what you want to know.
Inquiry
sets up the
possibility of dialogue with autonomous sources
and can represent
the
most subtle
and sometimes,
the most profound of the five intentions.
