Seattle,
WA. Autumn 1991. For six weeks, three
times a week,
3 to 4 hours
each session,
twelve
virtual strangers
meet and undergo
an
intensive paratheatrical
training
process with director/author Antero
Alli to discover how rituals might work
without dogma. Alli narrates their
story along with his own journey with video
documentation
of the rituals plus interviews with the
participants. All of this is
placed within the context of a character outside of Alli's ritual world who
keeps calling him on the phone trying to pry information about
the Archaic Community project.
"ARCHAIC COMMUNITY" REVIEWED
Intrigued by the observation that people appear to have an innate sense of ritual, Seattle videographer/ritualist Antero Alli posted flyers inviting "marginal men and women" to join him in the co-creation of spontaneous, non-dogmatic ritual, in "paratheatrical research." Meeting late nights in the Seattle Masonic Temple, they gathered for six weeks, three times a week for the purpose of exploring how rituals might work without dogma. They underwent intense physical, emotional, and spiritual metamorphosis, both individually and collectively. ARCHAIC COMMUNITY records their movement toward an awareness of an autonomous subculture of self-controlled anarchy.
ARCHAIC COMMUNITY offers a theater of the archetype. Through the techniques
of NO-FORM and Alli's "ritual without dogma" ,
participants cast off the conditioning of cultural
restraint. In the process of a rigorous physical
meditation they a achieve a state of NO-FORM (a
term borrowed from the writings of Shunryu Suzuki).
In this way, they become receptive to the influence
of universal archetypes and become vehicles for
their expression.
That
these influences have a profound power is evident
in the intensity of the performance. Transformational
in nature, the work evokes recognition of the shifting
balance of polarities at work within each individual.
A gamut of emotional colors threaten to run off
the canvas in this video/performance art, yet are
contained within the frame of the storyline, giving
the piece continuity and accessibility.
Julian Simeon and Camille Hildebrandt
As
propagandists are keenly aware, archetypal imagery
can be used to further dogmatic ends. The Nazis
used versions of Teutonic myths to rally the country
to Hitler's cause, projecting images of Hitler as
a medieval crusader dressed in armor. But there
are also rituals of liberation. ARCHAIC COMMUNITY
encourages us to create our own rituals
from our own sources of power, from the wellsprings
of our internal landscapes.
- Jonnie Gilman, Seattle Community Catalyst, 11/1991
Camille Hildebrandt and Julian Simeon
"The point behind ARCHAIC COMMUNITY was to gather a small group of, what I affectionately call, marginal men and women for the ritualistic purpose of stimulating an autonomous subculture. I wanted to find out how much people already knew about ritual without realizing it and then, how a group unity might emerge as a product of a heightened state of individual integrity and personal freedom. The rituals were designed to challenge and nurture these values. I also wanted to produce a video document that demonstrated the ritual technology of a paratheatre medium I have been developing since 1977." -- ANTERO ALLI
Gavin Greene, Meta Sean Dougherty, Marganne Hesch, Joy S. Laughter
ARCHAIC
COMMUNITY
(1991; 86 min.; Hi-8 video)
Featuring Antero Alli, Camille Hildebrandt, Julian Simeon, Joy S. Laughter,
Gavin Ropke,
Troy Skeels, Kenny Telesco, Steven
Miller, Richard Bradshaw,
Meta Sean
Dougherty, Marganne
Hesch, Ray Turchetti, and Randall Ota.
Music by Cyndia Pickering
(aka Syvi Alli) & others. Videography and editing
by Antero Alli. Written and directed by Antero Alli.
Produced by ParaTheatrical ReSearch.
ANTERO ALLI has been developing his paratheatre medium since 1977 (as documented in his book, "Towards an Archeology of the Soul" and many videos. Alli's 2005 docufiction feature film, "The Greater Circulation", incoporates paratheatre performances in a critically acclaimed cinematic treatment of poet Rainer Maria Rilke's "Requiem for a Friend". (click photo for Alli paratheatre bio)
filmography
Completed
works, clips, vision statement, reviews