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OBERAMMERGAU PASSIONSSPIELE: EXPLORING A SACRED THEATRE 10
By Jack Paterson | Part 10 of 10
Date: November 2023
Location: Bali, Indonesia
Activity: Cross Cultural Creation
It’s taken me over a year to write this article.
I woke this morning to sunshine and the sound of roosters in my room behind Sanggar Paripurna’s performance space. For the last few weeks, Canadian theatre maker Deneh’Cho Thompson and I have been privileged to work with a group of Balinese artists in the second part of a cross-cultural exchange project. Over this period, we have attended performances, events, and ceremonies, met with artistic and cultural leaders, and joined in the ongoing work at the Sanggar. Two new Canadian team members, Experience Design and Media artists Joel Grinke and Vanka Salim, will arrive next week.
I sit under the Balinese stars with Sanggar Paripurna artistic director I Made Sidia, and his wife Swasti – his partner in everything. They’re discussing today and tomorrow’s activities.
Tomorrow will begin with traditional gamelan and dance classes for local children. Made is then performing a Topeng dance at a home in the village. The afternoon will include the company’s performance in Bali Agung at the Safari Marine park. And then there is an evening rehearsal for an upcoming Kecat and more classes.
Swasti will be dancing Sita at an upcoming ceremony, and – like her husband – I can’t imagine her being anything less than transcendent.
For artists in the Balinese Traditional Performing Arts, the act of creation and performance serve to help find balance in the Tri Loka. Human beings connecting with higher and lower powers, human beings connecting with each other, and human beings connecting with the natural world around them. Highly trained and skilled practitioners work along-side local artists and community members of all ages. It is difficult to find some-one on the island who does not take part in the performing arts in some way.
I ask Made his thoughts.
“For tradition to survive, it must stay true to its purpose but also evolve to meet the needs of the people and the time”, he says.
Later he adds,
“We don’t make art just for us, just for Bali. That’s not enough. We make art for the world.”
***
Special Thank You to Christian Stückl, Jenny Greza, and the Oberammergau team for their generosity and openness, Hannah Siden, I Made Sidia and the Sanggar Paripurna company.
Links, References & Sources:
A Rabbi’s Impressions of the Oberammergau Passion Play, by Joseph Krauskopf [1901]
https://sacred-texts.com/jud/rio/rio03.htm
Bali: Sanggar Paripurna Webpage:
https://www.facebook.com/sanggarparipurnabona/
Bali: Bali Agung Show
How Hitler’s Favorite Passion Play Lost Its Anti-Semitism by A.J. Goldmann (The Atlantic, August 4, 2022)
https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2022/08/oberammergau-passion-play-german-jewish-history/671026/
Meet the director removing anti-Semitism from Oberammergau’s famous Passion play by Andrew Faiz (Broadview Magazine, March 23, 2021)
Meet the director removing anti-Semitism from Oberammergau’s famous Passion play
Oberaumagau Passionsspeile:
https://www.passionsspiele-oberammergau.de/en/home
Oberammergau – A Village and its Passion by (DW News, June 28, 2022)
https://www.dw.com/en/oberammergau-a-village-and-its-passion/a-62292895
Oberammergau Passion Play Director Christian Stückl Receives American Jewish Committee Isaiah Award (AJC News, August 10, 2022) https://www.ajc.org/news/oberammergau-passion-play-director-christian-stuckl-receives-american-jewish-committee-isaiah
Of Beards and Bubonic Plague: German Village Prays for a (2nd) Miracle by Katrin Bennhold (New York Times, April 5, 2020)
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/05/world/europe/germany-oberammergau-passion-play-coronavirus.html
Theatre de Zeit: Setting the stage
https://tdz.de/shop/produkt/726bad67-da29-466b-839c-2b3f8a35dbac
Oberammergau Passionsspiele: Exploring a Sacred Theatre – Part 8
Oberammergau Passionsspiele: Exploring a Sacred Theatre – Part 9
Jack (he, him) is an award-winning devisor, director, translator, and creative producer whose work and practice have taken him across Canada, Europe, the United Kingdom, and around the world. Projects have ranged from contemporary devising, multi-disciplinary, cross-cultural, and multi-lingual experiences to new works & texts, contemporary approaches to classical theatre and main stages. Shows under his direction have garnered over thirty theatre award nominations with many wins. He trained at leading international theatrical institutions including Circle in the Square (NYC, USA), GITIS The University of Performing Arts (Moscow, RU), ISI Indonesian Institute of the Arts (Bali, INA) and received his Masters in Fine Arts from the renown East 15 Acting School and University of Essex (London, UK).
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