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www.shamansociety.org 9 art form theres no way for them to avoid bringing in the nega- tive energies and emotions of their character. I started to look at how different artists were doing that and found that all of them were using spiritual language breaking down the I vs. Thou mentality. And so I began putting in more spiritual language in my directing which is a little tricky because for some people its a huge shutdown. Finding the right vocabulary took a while but thats when I started to build my environment around spirit. And The Winters Tale was the first large-scale experiment with that. I set forth a kind of Hippocratic Oath for myself for this project to do no harm. Knowing that there were characters who had to go through a lot of pain I vowed that I would check in I would maintain a healthy environment and that I would not raise my voice no matter how frustrating the process. CC How did you do that It came down to being clear and being strong and at my peak to hold those containers separately but strongly. It took going in ahead of time before rehearsals and meditating and clearing the space and setting the intention that this would be a healthy environment. And I could not be lax in that. I had to honor my own vessel because if I didnt how could they honor theirs And it surprised me at how responsive the actors wereall of them could feel it and they took to it. CC Youve had some training in core shamanism recent- ly. Can you speak about how that framework mapped over the process you were developing in your craft as director VM Theater began as a ritual in its original context in tribal cultures theater was an enactment of myth to bring im- portant stories closer to us and to make them relatable to us. As the West developed acting became very presentational and not about the ability to impact someone you simply had to be that object. So it was less about your emotive quality and more about your mastery of form your ability to feel it meant nothing. About 150 years ago art changed. You can see it in the fine art world where Impressionism appeared. The Impression- ists were really the first to say in a big way This is not just about that I can technically paint its that I was there I painted that. Its the first time the content was placed on the artists themselves. Modernity did a wonderful thing and thats when shamanism came back to the artistwhen the artist became responsible for content and technique. Theater did the same thing as fine art right around the same time and took on more potency. And its a little bit danger- ous too thats a lot to ask of actors. And it also meant that the techniques we had been using were not necessarily suited to help people through these new demands. I dont think Shakespeare intended Hamlet to be a painful role the text was supposed to do that for you. But now we expect acting to have this emotive mimetic relationship where we as audience feel what the charac- ters are feeling. And to do that safely you have to have some form of shamanic grounding you need to know where you stand and you need to know what youve inviting in and you need to know how to protect yourself. CC Moving from a macro view of your theory and his- tory to a micro view what are some instances where you intentionally brought the transcendent in the performance VM I have a tendency to gravitate to scripts where spirit is already present. I want to ask those bigger questions. So what makes the classics more accessible to me is at the time Shake- speare was writing religion was more in the open and it already had a vessel within it where spirit wants to be where we have to ask those important questions. What attracted me to The Winters Tale is that it reads like a dream to me thats a huge indicator of a place for spirit. In looking at a script like this one spirit questions emerge What is Change What is Death and thats exactly what this script addresses. A bear shows up at the end of Act III and eats a man and if you were to look at it in a modern context where a man randomly is eaten by a bear it could be comedic. But if you were to look at it through the lens of spirit which is re- The King and his Fate from The Winters Tale annettedragonphotography.com WT0078 One of Three Fates in A Winters Tale annettedragonphotography.com WT0136