PERFORMANCE AS SPIRITUALITY

When taken seriously, the transformative, ritualistic, reflective and methodological potentials of performance
can be the media of spiritual creation.

 

Mysteries of Love is a seven-year platonic body of work started in 2012 in the creative gardens of Reality Research Center. It re-evaluates the cultural heritage of the Antique, and especially platonic philosophy and eleusian mysteries, in the context of contemporary art.

The work follows a sevenfold structure inspired by the golden ratio and present on different levels of the whole. Four scenes and three metascenes constitute the seven. The last scene is always the greatest. In the macrolevel of the piece the scenes are experiential mystery plays, aimed to reach the pure platonic ideas of beauty, truth and the good. The first mystery play, Plato’s Symposium (2013), was directed towards absolute beauty. The first metascene, Trialogue (2015), was a performative exhibition that studied archetypal forces of the Greek pantheon. The second mystery play, Plato’s Cave (2016), was directed towards absolute truth. The second metascene was an esoteric study of the beautiful, the truthful and the good. The third mystery play, Plato’s Republic (2017), was directed towards absolute good.

The plays are set for a small group of participants and consist also of scenes and metascenes. Each participant takes the role of the protagonist of their own performance. The scenes are spread out on a period of about one week. The plays initiate the protagonists step by step deeper to the mysteries of love.

Mysteries of Love is our attempt to create an esoteric collective organism devoted to the study of eternal mysteries within the context of art. This organism exists to enable and support an artistic form of spiritual practice, manifesting in the public sphere as art works. Thus the performances are also parts of our ongoing studies of love, beauty, truth and the good, guided by archetypal forces that we connect with. In Mysteries of Love we face the political and environmental turmoil of our time through personal transformations, by exploring and challenging ancient hellenistic wisdom as it unfolds in the present.

 

Images: Visa Knuuttila