THE MINOTAUR

You’ll need your browser for this post: it’s a true web-log with lots of links. Start with

http://lookingglasstheatre.org/content/node/2719

I doubt many people reading this will be able to attend the Looking Glass Theatre production of an original play by John Musial called “The Great Fire,” a fabulous cross-arts theatrical reflection on the fire that consumed Chicago. Musial also directed, but this is clearly a wonderfully inventive collaboration among actors, special effects technicians, and trapeze artists. We seem to be in a time when movies are exploring green-screen and CGI, but the theatre is not left behind. Cirque de Soleil, the Blue Men -- maybe it all goes back to the Muppets. Pilobolus. Chinese acrobatic interpretations of Western ballets, with the “swan” posing en pointe on the head of the prince. International pole dancing competition -- truly amazing and NOT lascivious. (“Shucks,” he says. I heard you!) Check 'em on YouTube.

Looking Glass videos go out of their way to educate their audiences. Listen to the introduction to Daedalus and Icarus. Maybe the roots go back to Second City, which was satire with a moral and political edge, which keys to my contention that theatre is the art most concerned with morality and legality. Isn’t a courtroom a staged play?

I’m rambling around in the Looking Glass website, which is a rewarding thing to do, and I find a production about Icarus and Daedalus. Those of you who have been keeping track of my writing for the last four or five years will realize that I’ve been exploring this context -- classical myth narrratives and image, cross-melded with avant garde video. So I looked for David Catlin, the author and director of this script, and guess where I found him? Northwestern University, the part that used to be the School of Speech when I was there. The snake is biting her tail. And it tastes good.

Another ancient characteristic that brings theatre and religion together is the collaborative nature of the art form. A repertory company of people who know each other well can do this, brainstorming WITH their writers and choreographers. We’ve weakened this factor quite a lot with our obsessive individuality. The worship service too often stars the minister and the sermon. For everyone this is lonesome, estranging and narrowing. It does not make a church grow.

Always just “there” in the back of my mind is the little theatre in Annie May Swift Hall that was originally created when a fire made a serendipitous hole between the first and second floors. Sometimes an image will flash into my mind of winter with coats piled around and other times I’m remembering spring quarter when the doors to the outside stood open. Always the focus, the intensity, the passion, the risk of it all. The brilliant and sometimes insane personalities, the grandiose concepts, the nutty theories -- sometimes they became extraordinary. We didn’t give a flip for fortune or public praise. We only cared about that bubble. I suppose that has been a handicap because it was exclusive, a meritocracy, a protected circle. But the point was what happened to the audience. We wanted to reach into them.

Politics is a force that opposes isolation. From the Looking Glass blog: "In a world where there is a common lament that there are no more heroes, too often cynicism and despair are perceived as evidence of the death of moral courage.

“That perception is wrong.

“People of great valour and heart, committed to noble purpose, with long records of personal sacrifice, walk among us in every country of the world."

Review of “Icarus” by David R.

“The entire production was relatively Spartan, but the few touches of scene and prop were very effective. Some elements of the staging were whimsical (e.g. the triple births accomplished with front-worn backpacks holding lunchboxes) while some were haunting (hanging up onesies around the stage to represent the fourteen Athenian children demanded by King Minos to slake his thirst for retribution).

“The only grand touches besides the dialogue and acting were the awesome aerial stunts. They were a sort of captivating combination of dance and acrobatics...difficult to categorize but in any case, along with the music, used quite evocatively in the storytelling.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOnhjOxBqWQ

This is the minotaur dance from the Looking Glass production of Icarus.

The newspaper article following is about a young man seized by the minotaur spirit in Great Falls. Football -- the minotaur’s sport. The minotaur destroys children two ways: eats some, makes some into little minotaurs. One of the Looking Glass reference art works was a minotaur papa with his baby.

I could not get the photo to post to this blog. Maybe that's just as well. The boy is BIG, with a thick neck. He's a light-skinned mixed-race boy with corkscrew hair and an expression of total stubbornness and defiance. Imagine a young Angus bull.

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Alex Botima-Roehm, 18, is charged with felony sexual intercourse without consent and two misdemeanor charges of sexual assault.

Written by KRISTEN CATES, GFTribune Staff Writer

Sexual assault charges filed against an 18-year-old Great Falls High student in Cascade County District Court today allege that the student participated in a hazing activity of his fellow football players in the locker room this fall.

Alex Mauricio Botina-Roehm, a senior offensive linebacker for the Bison this year, faces a felony charge of sexual intercourse without consent and two misdemeanor charges of sexual assault after allegedly engaging two students in a hazing activity known as “power gobbling.”

According to the probable cause affidavit, the action involves coming from behind an intended target, and placing a fist and arm under the buttocks and groin area of the victim. The offender then elevates the victim off of the ground with support from the offender’s free hand, which is wrapped around the front of the victim.

Court documents allege that Roehm was repeatedly involved in this activity during the fall, and that one victim reported to police that one of the times Roehm did the power gobbling move on him Roehm also inserted his thumb into his rectum.

Police began investigating the matter last week, after receiving a call from one of the alleged victim’s families. The police report states that the mother of one of the victims contacted school authorities on Sept. 14 to report this conduct after her son reported it to her a few days earlier.

The report indicates that after the family learned Roehm’s conduct had not ceased and had not been addressed by staff, the parents of the victim reported it to law enforcement.

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Where are the public performances that would alert the people everywhere to the force that dwells within all humans, iconically portrayed as the half-bull with the armored shoulders and head, the sleek Spandex flanks, the spiked hooves, the protective cup of the codpiece? Whether one calls it theatre or religion is immaterial. Did you see that in the Looking Glass dance the bull was contained by a cat’s cradle of restraint strung by the group? That is meaningful.