CHRISTIE'S PROGRESS JOURNAL: OCTOBER 27-31, 2004

10-27-04 Today I finished a book called, Bunraku: The Puppet Theater, by Tsuruo Ando, published by Walker/Weatherhill, New York, 1970. I hope to model my puppet show after the ancient puppet theatre styles of Japan, Kabuki and Bunraku. Asahi Theatre, in Osaka, Japan, is the home of Bunraku. Here are some things I learned about Bunraku from the book:

-“Of the three elements which make up Bunraku—namely, the chanter, the shamisen accompaniment, and the puppets—I consider the chanter and his narration the most important…I think that both historically and artistically the chanting is the basic art in Bunraku. (4)”

-“The dolls can hardly be said to possess a body. What they do have is something like a basic framework over which their clothes are put on. The only thing that gives the doll’s body its three-dimensional roundness is the way these clothes are arranged. (10-1)”

-“When one goes to join the audience at the Asahi Theater, however, one does not take in each element separately but enjoys the complete performance as a whole—and all at once. The chanter, the shamisen accompanist, and the doll manipulators all work in cooperation with each other. One often hears it said that with Bunraku one does not get bored. When there is a lot going on, through the ears there come in the sounds of the shamisen player, the voice of the chanter, the rhythmical stamping of the foot manipulators, and, occasionally, grunts from the manipulators themselves. Through the eyes one has the dancing of the puppets, the changing expressions on the face of the principal manipulator if he is working in dezukai style, and the movements of the chanter. Even in quieter moments there is activity in two separate areas of sight and sound, so that there is always something to see and something to listen to. (17)”

-“All the performers gathered every day at the Takemoto-za before sunrise and had their three meals together at the theater. Gidayr considered that the spirit of togetherness created by the sharing of all their meals was necessary in order to maintain and further develop the high quality of their art. (80)”

-“As a result of this tendency to discard the values and disciplines of the traditional arts and to search ever more frantically for new arts to take their place, both the really old and the really new become increasingly rare, and we are left for the most part with arts that are a hopeless jumble of both. True art, however, allows nothing which is halfway. (204)”

-“Traditions are valuable not because they are old but because they have an element of life, a universal appeal and meaning, which has survived through the ages, having been preserved and repolished by men of talent and insight. It is when these truths are forgotten and the effort to preserve them dies out that traditions become mere conventions—nothing but meaningless and worn-out customs. (204)”

10-27-04 In my Culture of Nature class, we are discussing Ecofeminism. We have just finished reading and discussing the writings of Karen Warren. Here are some ideas from her chapter called, Nature Is a Feminist Issue: Motivating Ecofeminism by Taking Empirical Data Seriously:

-“Ecological feminists (“ecofeminists”) claim that there are important connections between the unjustified dominations of women, people of color, children, and the poor and the unjustified domination of nature. (1)”

-“In 1974, twenty-seven women of Reni in northern India took simple but effective action to stop tree felling. They threatened to hug the trees if the lumberjacks attempted to cut them down. The women’s protest, known as the Chipko movement (“chipko” in Hindi means “to embrace” or “hug”), saved 12,000 square kilometers of sensitive watershed…This led to widespread Gandhian satyagrahas—campaigns of nonviolent civil disobedience by local Indian women. (2-3)”

-“[I]n the South women are typically more dependent than men on tree and forest products, and they are the primary sufferers of forest resource depletion. Trees provide five essential elements in these household economies: food, fuel, fodder, products for the home (including building materials, household utensils, gardens, dyes, medicines), and income-generating activities. As trees become scarce, it is women who must walk farther for fuelwood and fodder and who must carry it all back themselves. (4)”

-“On March 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Prince William Sound, Alaska, spilling 11 million gallons of oil, wiping out countless numbers of birds and sea otters, and drastically affecting ecosystem function in the region. The toll on human lives has also been great. Aleut Indian villages of Chenega Bay and Tatilek and the cities of Valdez and Cordova face increased depression and alcoholism. According to Paul Koverstein: ‘In Valdez, records show the divorce rate is four times higher than before the spill. In Cordova, a state survey indicates that nearly two-thirds of the population suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome, an emotional breakdown that typically occurs after a catastrophe or war. In Homer, demand for substance abuse programs doubled. In Kodiak, admissions to the local mental health centers increased by nearly 50 percent. In many communities, health officials are seeing increases in child abuse and neglect.’ (12)”

-In Warren’s chapter called, Quilting Ecofeminist Philosophy: A Western Perspective on What Ecofeminist Philosophy Is, she says: “One simply cannot make ecologically perfect decisions or lead an ecologically perfect lifestyle within current institutional structures characterized by unequal distributions of wealth, consumption of energy, and gendered divisions of labor. When institutional structures themselves are unjust, it is often difficult to make truly just decisions within them. (45)”

-We also read a chapter by Rosemary Radford Ruether, called Ecofeminism: Symbolic and Social Connections of the Oppression of Women and the Domination of Nature. She begins by giving the definition of ecology:

-“The word ‘ecology’ emerges from the biological science of natural environmental systems…Deep ecology takes this study of social ecology another step. It examines the symbolic, psychological, and ethical patterns of destructive relations of humans with nature and how to replace this with a life-affirming culture. (13)”

-“Although there is considerable variation of these patterns cross-culturally, generally males situated themselves in work that was both more prestigious and more occasional, demanding bursts of energy, such as hunting larger animals, war, and clearing fields, but allowing them more space for leisure. This is the primary social base for the male monopolization of culture, by which men reinforced their privileges of leisure, the superior prestige of their activities, and the inferiority of the activities associated with women…The earth, as the place from which plant and animal life arises, became linked with the bodies of women, from which babies emerge. (15)”

-“[N]ot accidentally, the words mother and matter have the same etymological root. (16)”

-“The view of nature found in Hebrew Scripture has several cultural layers. But the overall tendency is to see the natural world, together with human society, as something created, shaped, and controlled by God, a God imaged after the patriarchal ruling class. The patriarchal male is entrusted with being the steward and caretaker of nature, but under God, who remains its ultimate creator and Lord. This also means that nature remains partly an uncontrollable realm that can confront human society in destructive droughts and storms. These experiences of nature that transcend human control, bringing destruction to human work, are seen as divine judgment against human sin and unfaithfulness to God (see Isaiah 24). (16)”

-“In apocalypticism, God is seen as intervening in history to destroy the present sinful and finite world of human society and nature and to create a new heaven and earth freed from both sin and death. In gnosticism, mystical philosophies chart the path to salvation by way of withdrawal of the soul from the body and its passions and its return to an immaterial realm outside of and above the visible cosmos. (17)”

-“The second-century Christian theologian Irenaeus sought to combat Gnostic anticosmism and to synthesize apocalypticism and Hebraic creationalism. He imaged the whole cosmos as a bodying forth of the Word and Spirit of God, as the sacramental embodiment of the invisible God. (18)”

-“Calvinism dismembered the Medieval sacramental sense of nature. For Calvinism, nature was totally depraved. There was no residue of divine presence in it that could sustain a natural knowledge or relation to God. Saving knowledge of God descends from on high, beyond nature, in the revealed Word available only in Scripture, as preached by the Reformers…The fallen world, especially physical nature and other human groups outside of the control of the Calvinist church, lay in the grip of the Devil. All who were labeled pagan, whether Catholics or Indians and Africans, were the playground of demonic powers. But, even within the Calvinist church, women were the gateway to the Devil. If women were completely obedient to their fathers, husbands, ministers, and magistrates, they might be redeemed as goodwives. But in any independence of women lurked heresy and witchcraft. Among Protestants, Calvinists were the primary witch-hunters. (19)”

-“The Scientific Revolution at first moved in a different direction, exorcizing the demonic powers from nature in order to reclaim it as an icon of divine reason manifest in natural law…Nature was secularized. It was no longer the scene of a struggle between Christ and the Devil. Both divine and demonic spirits were driven out of it…With no life or would of its own, nature could be safely expropriated by this male elite and infinitely reconstructed to augment its wealth and power. (20)”

-“We are the parasites on the food chain of life, consuming more and more, and putting too little back to restore and maintain the life system that supports us. (21)”

-“God, in ecofeminist spirituality, is the immanent source of life that sustains the whole planetary community. God is neither male nor anthropomorphic. God is the font from which the variety of plants and animals well up in each new generation, the matrix that sustains their life-giving interdependency with one another. (21)”

-“Instead of salvation sought either in the disembodied soul or the immortalized body, in the flight to heaven or to the end of history, salvation should be seen as continual conversion to the center, to the concrete basis by which we sustain our relation to nature and to one another. (22)”

10-28-04 In preparation for directing my puppet show this coming spring, I read through a book called, Puppetry: The Ultimate Disguise. It is part of the Theatre Student Series, written by George Latshaw, published by Richards Rosen Press, Inc., NY, 1978.

-The book gives explicit guidelines for puppet show preparation, including elements such as: casting, construction, and rehearsals. I have also acquired a whole bunch of puppeteering exercises to make the puppeteer more able to believably manipulate his/her puppet.

10-29-04 For my Culture of Nature class, I read a chapter by Marti Kheel, called, From Heroic to Holistic Ethics: The Ecofeminist Challenge. She speaks in this chapter on the ancient view of nature as a beast, or an evil realm. She points out that Descartes helped to transform this view to one of nature as merely a machine.

-“According to Descartes, since animals were lacking in “consciousness” or “reason,” they were mere machines that could feel no pain. Smashing the legs of a monkey, Descartes “reasoned,” would hurt no more than removing the hands of a clock. With Cartesian philosophy, the wild, demonic aspect of nature was, thus, finally laid to rest, and the image of nature as a machine was born. (247)”

-“Many ecofeminists, inspired by the premodern conceptions of Gaia or “Mother Earth,” have consciously sought to reclaim these images. For most ecofeminists, however, this attempt to revive the image of Gaia is grounded not in systematic phenomenology but, rather, in a feeling of spiritual connection with the natural world. A female image of the earth simply seems to have resonance for many ecofeminists as a contrast to the patriarchal notion of a male sky god. (251)”

-“Nature is imaged as wild and demonic, passive and inert, but never as a community of living beings with instincts, desires, and interests of their own. (256-7)”

-“Much of the violence that is perpetrated against the natural world occurs behind closed doors or out of our view. (258)” (*Cosmetic testing on animals.)

10-30-04 I am reading a book called Russian Minstrels, by Russell Zguta, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press, in 1978. Here are some things I’ve learned:

-Skomorokhi are the forgotten class of Russian medieval society. For almost 700 years (from 11th-17th century) they provided both low (peasant) and high born with entertainment, such as: dancing bears, puppet shows, recitation of serious verse, casting spells, magic, etc. “All were subject to relentless persecution by the church. (xi)”

-traveling minstrel had strong links with Russia’s native pagan past. Early pagan musicians, or proto-skomorokhi were not involved just in wedding/memorial rites, but also in numerous seasonal festivals that punctuated the calendar year. According to A. Afanase’ev, the pagan Slavs were animists and tried to invoke/appease nature by performing certain ritual ceremonies, including music, song, and dance. During religious observances, they donned masks, danced, played instruments, and functioned as priests/cult leaders. Ecclesiastical/secular authorities persistently attacked them. (2)

-“As paganism progressively lost more ground to Christianity, the rites and rituals associated with it either became extinct or were transformed into ordinary folk games and festivals. (3)”

-the superstitions and paganism of the skomorokhi were thought to be the devil’s devices to draw us away from God. (3)

-“[W]ith the advent of Christianity all musical instruments were looked upon as pagan and held in contempt by the church. (4)”

-“While there was no well-defined priestly class to oversee this newly reorganized pagan cult, there were the traditional volkhvy, wisemen or Magi, who exercised considerable influence, especially among the urban class. They were the overseers of public worship and sacrifice, practiced medicine and surgery, and were invested with judicial authority. (7)” (*Volkhvy were soothsayers, possibly introduced “dualism”?)

-A fusion of pagan ad Christian happened in folk literature. The skomorokhi were identified with 2 patron saints of physicians: Cosmas and Damian. (They were accused of witchcraft and martyred.)

-“The week-long observance of the Rusaliia traditionally marked the high point of both the agricultural year and the summer festival season. Its strong agrarian overtones are manifested in the belief that the navki or mavki, who have spent the winter in their traditional dwelling place, nearby waters, have now to be escorted into the fields and ultimately into the grain itself to secure a good harvest. Housewives make a path by sprinkling milk on the ground, leading away from the water to the edge of the fields, where the head of the household places a piece of bread for the female water spirits. Once the spirits have passed from the water to the grain, it is safe to bathe in the water without fear of being drowned by the mavki. (10)”

10-31-01 For my Russian Film class, we are reading a book called; Soviet Cinematography: 1918-1991: Ideological Conflict and Social Reality, by Dmitry and Vladimir Shlapentokh, published by Aldine De Gruyter, NY, in 1993. Here I some things from this book that I found to be relevant for my major:

-“The first three decades after the Bolshevik Revolution, and in particular the first ten years, were permeated with messianic ideas about the transformation of nature and even the conquest of the cosmos. The official ideology stressed the centrality of humanity in the biological pecking order, but also the almost divine role of technology. In fact it was technology that would assert humanity’s final domination over nature and the cosmos. Consequently the earth became, de facto, the logical center of the universe, which was to some degree the restoration of Christian views of the cosmos. (204)”

-“Dovzhenko’s Michurin (1949) was one of many movies that glorified human control over nature. Notions about the conquest of nature and the cosmos continued to circulate in the post-Stalin era…[but] the official infatuation with the cosmos and the hubris about mastering nature was attacked for various reasons. First, the liberals accused the state of spending gigantic resources on space programs while the standard of living in the country was very low. Second, all experiments with space and changing the Earth’s nature were seen as dangerous for the future of humankind. Third, dreams about conquering the cosmos, as well as transforming the climate and changing the course of fivers, were castigated as a part of the utopian approach to reality so typical of Marxism. (205)”

-“[M]any directors went so far as to present the Russian drama as the tragedy of human beings in general. They began to describe humankind as a sort of biological outcast among other earthly creatures. Human beings were depicted in the films of Muratova, Soloviev, and several others as ugly and vicious to their own kin, and ready to destroy themselves and the planet. Human ascendance was depicted not as a triumph of evolution, but actually a terrible aberration for which nature would pay dearly. In this context, one could understand why recent Soviet movies were filled with extremely ugly personalities, both in behavior and external appearance, and why animals and not people began to be the positive heroes. Although not antihumanistic (i.e., attacking such values as love, compassion, and respect for life and dignity), Russian movies became antihuman. Humanity (Russia) was transformed into some sort of negative messiah—the only species able and willing to destroy the Earth. (206)”