To the lions in winter
Dear friends and supporters,
The freeze came early and stayed. We had plans, but the weather had other plans, and now our plans include the weather. In the cold Advent weeks we of this hemisphere experience the last shortening days before the solstice reverses the daily course and light commences its incremental return. The natural world reduces so far that its bones become visible. A brief winter sun brightens every frozen surface. We celebrate the cold despite its threat, for itself and for the warmth it brings out in those of us who live within it.
In this newsletter one year ago, I wrote: “Now we meet the horizon of the year ahead, of unknown but anticipated catastrophes, with resolve and simple reminders. Concentrate on what you are good at. Take your own small contribution seriously.” We are here now, having survived that grim year, and performance has played a significant part in that survival and its sober assessment, in understanding what is happening, and in resisting, through density of alternative values and voices. Sometimes I hear calls to respond to the extremeness of the times by “getting out of your comfort zone,” venturing into new territories. I appreciate the sentiment, although I don’t recognize any zone that I would call comfort. But what if the choices and responsibilities woven through the fabric one’s everyday existence always already include to pay attention with justice (a phrase from the poet Ed Roberson)?When one has planted one’s garden with seeds of love and resistance, in times of ascendant injustice one feels compelled to cultivate with renewed diligence.
This year we began hosting potluck dinner gatherings—although the communal menu plan does not leave much to luck—inviting as many past collaborators, friends, and supporters as our house can accommodate. Lin Hixson, Every house director, with her characteristic blend of pragmatism and clairvoyance, proposed the idea as an affirmation of the astonishing community that has grown since we began Every house in 2008. Sarah Skaggs administrated the events with simplicity and ease. It seems strange perhaps to propose dinner gatherings and performances concerning animals (more on that in a moment) as modes of resistance to the gathering formulations of what we may fairly call our very own American fascism. But then again we saw how deep the resistance runs in Chicago over this past year, spanning every social strata, tirelessly offering itself up in every neighborhood every day until it forced the retreat of the brutal and ridiculously camouflaged footsoldiers of reaction. The quickness and comprehensivity of the collapse of the convoluted maneuvers of corruption reveal their substanceless support and misjudgment of the people. We see our place and the place of our work in this ordinary movement toward justice, joy, peacefulness, and complexity. We feel most days that headwinds continually oppose every effort like background static that on occasion breaks into the foreground and overtakes the everyday with violence. But those same headwinds bring friends closer, and attest to the significance of every choice and the smallest action. And resisting the debilitating pull of isolation always requires the efforts of organized assembly or even the simplicity of more spontaneous and informal gathering. Individual sanity will always seek out the renewing embrace of community.
Now about a performance concerning animals: early in the new year we plan to premier Royal March of the Lion at Constellation, January 8, 9, 10, and 11. After several years of devising performances in the Carnival of the Animals cycle, we have circled back to the start, the first movement in Saint-Saëns’s 1886 musical suite for children.
I hope you will plan to attend. Tickets are now available. I hope as well that you will consider making a tax-deductible donation, if you are able, to help support the costs of this production, including fees for our amazing team of collaborators—performers, musicians, technical and administrative and design wizards. This time of year, a great many organizations like ours request support, and this year austerity has returned to many platforms that support the arts. I remind myself, again and again: every budget is an ethical document. Where one directs resources indicates the direction of the future that one would dream into existence. We remain immensely grateful for all the support that we receive, and we accept the responsibilities of receiving it. We understand if you cannot make a material contribution, and we value the gift of your attention.
About this particular animal, we have constructed a response in words, movement, and music, to a constellation of historical lions—the barbary lions of North Africa, hunted to extinction in the early 20th century; the MGM lion whose roar introduced many matinees; the strange insect known as antlion, a larval form of the maidenfly. You need to attend the performance to experience the full extent of the assembly. I will offer here an excerpt from the opening text from our new performance. Hopefully it makes sense in a winter frame, and in the context of closing this strange eventful year and this newsletter.
We in the audience—who have never seen
a diamond in the flesh, who will never be royals—recognize the lion as a stand-in for human royalty.
Consider the king, the dream of the king—
absolute sovereign, head of state and church when church and state are one, absolute sovereign
infallible, unconstrained by human forces, enemy unspecified. A shape with lion body
and the head of a man, a gaze blank and pitiless, the difficulty to think at the end of day, when the shapeless shadow covers the sun.
This would have been a dedication to the King.
But here we have no King and never will.
Call it instead a dedication without metaphor.
To the lion.
Matthew Goulish, dramaturg