THE FIRST MAGIC THEATER WORKSHOP
SEPTEMBER 26, 2011. The first Magic Theater workshop will take place in San Diego on December 10 and 11.
To obtain particulars and inquire about attending, contact me directly at qjrconsulting@gmail.com
I look forward to meeting some of you for the first time—as well as seeing old friends.
I will speak about the Magic Theater, but most of the weekend will be spent in DOING: parts, roles, dialogues—in which all will participate. I’ll endeavor to provide a firm grounding for the whole process, so you can even continue to work when you return home.
These days, people see and sense the walls of this “civilization” closing in, and they take the reasonable position that they must shore up their “part in the play” and make it stronger.
I have no argument with that. I merely point out that there are different kinds of strengths. In the Magic Theater, the ability to shift roles and improvise them opens up energies that have been buried and misplaced for a long time.
Society deals in the narrowing of roles. The Magic Theater proliferates them, including those that are invented to take in territory society wouldn’t dream of exploring, because such roles too are imaginative, too powerful, too unusual, too far beyond what society stands for.
What does society stand for? Conformity, sameness, automatism, mechanical function.
Most people experience their main roles in life as a space between walls. Well, outside those walls is a tremendous amount of untapped energy, and it can be accessed by improvising roles.
The Magic Theater was an idea invented and fleshed out by Hermann Hesse in his famous 1927 novel, Steppenwolf. The actual practice of “magic theater” was created, slightly earlier, by JL Moreno, the founder of Psychodrama, who brilliantly transformed therapy into theater.
In the December workshop, attendees will experience a new incarnation of the magic theater.
The meeting point of universe and our perception teaches us the habit of accepting “things as they are.” “A thing is only and forever itself and nothing more.” Well, when we play new adventurous roles, we discover hidden power—and we find out how much life lives in previously unexplored territory. At the same time, we become much more ourselves. And that is a form of magic.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Jon Rappoport