We're all praying to laugh again.
We may wear our masks with calcified confidence, but the deepest parts of ourselves ache for innocence - for irreconcilable joy.
For all the reasons we find meaning, comfort and solace in art, I wonder if we are also drawn to a fundamental sense of betrayal - our innermost secrets and longings made public for all to see.
How could we ever get over the addicting humiliation of seeing some part ourselves, that private, dark, internal shadow - made real through the painstaking labor of the artist or actor or composer?
How can we conveniently compartmentalize our own secret stories and dreams, taking on a tangible form through time and space - sometimes projected onto the body of someone we wish we could be.
We see others moved by that "private-expression-made-real", and we are ourselves moved. We're not alone in our fear, our shame, our hope, our laughter. The clown on stage is the clown within.
The writer David Whyte talks about how humiliation is the pathway to growth, to humor: when we learn that we're just frail, human, and utterly fallible creatures - all we can do is laugh at ourselves.
The artist is a channel for that story. That story - first private, then communal - flows through them, becomes them, lives in and through them. Ultimately, the artist - a human bridge - gives that story as an offering to the world. The creative act is always a generous act.
In the body of the artist/performer/storyteller, we see our deepest longings revealed - reminding us of our humanity, our frailty. In the case of "Lachen Verlernt", the violin is the narrator of a prayer, begging the clown Pierrot to teach her to laugh again. In describing this work, Esa-Pekka Salonen said "I felt that this is a very moving metaphor of a performer: a serious clown trying to help the audience to connect with emotions they have lost, or believe they have lost."
This past year, I've been ruminating on the idea that the creative process is both a mirror and a lens: in the process of practice, I hold up a mirror to myself - the instrument leaves no room to hide, and the violin doesn't lie. And the work also becomes a lens through which to see and understand the world.
For the last year, such a mirror/lens - such a personal, spiritual and artistic labor - was Lachen Verlernt. Besides the metaphor of 'unlearning laughter' through the unveiling and unraveling of 2020, Lachen became my own personal structure, the expression through which I both saw myself, and the world around me. Even the form the work takes - that of a Chaconne (a repeating matrix of harmony) - felt like the days of quarantine: each the same, each different, each utterly gone.
We're all begging for clowns - those 'horse doctors of the soul' - to teach us how to laugh again, to teach us how to *be*, again. As the structure of our world dissolves and burns, what will we value? What will we carry forward, and what will we leave behind?
What must we unlearn, so that when we dare to laugh again, our joy isn't saccharine and hollow - and at the torturous expense of those who have unlearned their laughter?
How might we reclaim what we have lost - or what we think we have lost?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbcBtBLjGD8 ...
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Vijay Gupta - Violinist
6 days ago
We're all praying to laugh again.
We may wear our masks with calcified confidence, but the deepest parts of ourselves ache for innocence - for irreconcilable joy.
For all the reasons we find meaning, comfort and solace in art, I wonder if we are also drawn to a fundamental sense of betrayal - our innermost secrets and longings made public for all to see.
How could we ever get over the addicting humiliation of seeing some part ourselves, that private, dark, internal shadow - made real through the painstaking labor of the artist or actor or composer?
How can we conveniently compartmentalize our own secret stories and dreams, taking on a tangible form through time and space - sometimes projected onto the body of someone we wish we could be.
We see others moved by that "private-expression-made-real", and we are ourselves moved. We're not alone in our fear, our shame, our hope, our laughter. The clown on stage is the clown within.
The writer David Whyte talks about how humiliation is the pathway to growth, to humor: when we learn that we're just frail, human, and utterly fallible creatures - all we can do is laugh at ourselves.
The artist is a channel for that story. That story - first private, then communal - flows through them, becomes them, lives in and through them. Ultimately, the artist - a human bridge - gives that story as an offering to the world. The creative act is always a generous act.
In the body of the artist/performer/storyteller, we see our deepest longings revealed - reminding us of our humanity, our frailty. In the case of "Lachen Verlernt", the violin is the narrator of a prayer, begging the clown Pierrot to teach her to laugh again. In describing this work, Esa-Pekka Salonen said "I felt that this is a very moving metaphor of a performer: a serious clown trying to help the audience to connect with emotions they have lost, or believe they have lost."
This past year, I've been ruminating on the idea that the creative process is both a mirror and a lens: in the process of practice, I hold up a mirror to myself - the instrument leaves no room to hide, and the violin doesn't lie. And the work also becomes a lens through which to see and understand the world.
For the last year, such a mirror/lens - such a personal, spiritual and artistic labor - was Lachen Verlernt. Besides the metaphor of 'unlearning laughter' through the unveiling and unraveling of 2020, Lachen became my own personal structure, the expression through which I both saw myself, and the world around me. Even the form the work takes - that of a Chaconne (a repeating matrix of harmony) - felt like the days of quarantine: each the same, each different, each utterly gone.
We're all begging for clowns - those 'horse doctors of the soul' - to teach us how to laugh again, to teach us how to *be*, again. As the structure of our world dissolves and burns, what will we value? What will we carry forward, and what will we leave behind?
What must we unlearn, so that when we dare to laugh again, our joy isn't saccharine and hollow - and at the torturous expense of those who have unlearned their laughter?
How might we reclaim what we have lost - or what we think we have lost?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbcBtBLjGD8 ...
Lachen Verlernt: Esa-Pekka Salonen - Vijay Gupta, violin
www.youtube.com
Lachen Verlernt (Laughter Unlearned)Esa-Pekka Salonen (2002)***Recorded at All Saints Church, Pasadena - December 21, 2020Directed by Louis NgShare on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on Linked InShare by Email
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guptaviolin
Jan 20
This Morning I Pray for My Enemies
And whom do I call my enemy?
An enemy must be worthy of engagement.
I turn in the direction of the sun and keep walking.
It’s the heart that asks the question, not my furious mind.
The heart is the smaller cousin of the sun.
It sees and knows everything.
It hears the gnashing even as it hears the blessing.
The door to the mind should only open from the heart.
An enemy who gets in, risks the danger of becoming a friend.
- Joy Harjo
---
@reenaesmailcomposer aching melody in the raga #Desh (the word for country/homeland) is the gnashing and the blessing we need.
Esmail, Piano Trio: Movement II, with @suzanabartal and @petermyerscello
#inauguration
#creativesadhana ...
guptaviolin
Jan 18
The creative process is both a mirror and a lens: in the process of practice, I hold up a mirror to myself - the instrument leaves no room to hide, and the violin doesn't lie. And the work also becomes a lens through which I see and understand the world.
For the last year, such a mirror/lens - such a personal, spiritual and artistic labor - was Lachen Verlernt. Besides the metaphor of 'unlearning laughter' through the unveiling and unraveling of 2020, Lachen became my own personal structure, the expression through which I both saw myself, and the world around me. Even the form the work takes - that of a Chaconne (a repeating matrix of harmony) - felt like the days of quarantine: each the same, each different, each utterly gone.
We're all begging for clowns - those 'horse doctors of the soul' - to teach us how to laugh again, to teach us how to *be*, again. As the structure of our world dissolves and burns, what will we value? What will we carry forward, and what will we leave behind?
What must we unlearn, so that when we dare to laugh again, our joy isn't saccharine and hollow - and at the torturous expense of those who have unlearned their laughter?
How might we reclaim what we have lost - or what we think we have lost?
***
Full video of Esa-Pekka Salonen's "Lachen Verlernt" at the link in bio. ...
guptaviolin
Jan 15
We're all praying to laugh again.
The writer David Whyte talks about how humiliation is the pathway to growth, to humor: when we learn that we're just frail, human, and utterly fallible creatures - all we can do is laugh at ourselves - and live into a new narrative.
The artist is a channel for that story. That story - first private, then communal - flows through them, becomes them, lives in and through them. Ultimately, the artist - a human bridge - gives that story as an offering to the world. The creative act is always a generous act.
In the body of the artist/performer/storyteller, we see our deepest longings revealed - reminding us of our humanity, our frailty. In the case of "Lachen Verlernt", the violin serves as the narrator of a prayer, begging the clown Pierrot to teach her to laugh again. In describing this work, Esa-Pekka Salonen said "I felt that this is a very moving metaphor of a performer: a serious clown trying to help the audience to connect with emotions they have lost, or believe they have lost."
Full video in bio ...
guptaviolin
Jan 12
Lachen Verlernt: Esa-Pekka Salonen
***
Lachen Verlernt - laughing unlearned - is a quote from Pierrot Lunaire, the poems of Albert Giraud famously set by Arnold Schoenberg. In the "Prayer" movement, the narrator begs the harlequin, Pierrot, to give her back her laughter.
For me, "Lachen" became a spiritual and artistic labor, a soundtrack through the continuous unraveling and unveiling of 2020.
In "Lachen", the role of the solo violin is that of Pierrot's narrator - begging, cajoling, threatening, praying, pleading - finally, in utter desperation - screaming for the return of that laughter and all it might represent.
Stay tuned the full video - landing this Friday. ...
guptaviolin
Dec 25
When the violin ⠀
Can forgive every wound caused by others⠀
The heart starts singing⠀
***⠀
When the Violin: @reenaesmailcomposer⠀
#creativesadhana⠀ ...
guptaviolin
Dec 24
We get to choose. ⠀
⠀
All of us have the immense opportunity to choose how we will interact with this world, as we rebuild, and recreate a more just, a more connected, a more artistic world. ⠀
⠀
We do not create this world to return to ‘normal’. No - we evolve because we are compelled to. We are compelled to envision, to dream, to partner, and to practice. We are compelled to make room for the tragic crises and mourn and to create the world we long for - a world where we all belong, and can create belonging. ⠀
Photo: @bawdenka ⠀
#creativesadhana⠀ ...
guptaviolin
Dec 23
There’s a blaze of light in every word. It doesn’t matter which you heard - the holy or the broken hallelujah. - Leonard Cohen⠀
***⠀
Hallelujah, arr @reenaesmailcomposer ⠀
#creativesadhana⠀ ...
guptaviolin
Dec 22
my mother⠀
is pure radiance.
⠀
she is the sun⠀
i can touch⠀
and kiss⠀
⠀
and hold⠀
without⠀
getting burnt.⠀
-Sanober Khan⠀
***⠀
Photo: @bawdenka ⠀
#creativesadhana⠀ ...
guptaviolin
Dec 21
Tonight, look up and see a miracle. Look to the southwest, and witness the celestial dance that hasn’t happened in 800 years. ⠀
⠀
We are part of that same dance. ⠀
⠀
It is inevitable that we would be here, right now, tonight, to see this. Of all the years to behold a miracle - this one. ⠀
***⠀
Darshan: III @reenaesmailcomposer⠀
#creativesadhana ...
guptaviolin
Dec 18
#fbf to my first time onstage at the breathtaking @hetconcertgebouw in #Amsterdam, on tour with @laphil in March, 2016. ⠀
Highlight of that visit - visiting the #vangogh museum. I miss traveling. ⠀
#hetconcertgebouw⠀ ...
guptaviolin
Dec 17
“Darshan” is the Sanskrit word for vision: a glimpse of the Divine in each of us, a glimpse of the more connected, more whole world we long for. ⠀
May we see each other. ⠀
***⠀
Darshan: III, by @reenaesmailcomposer ⠀
#creativesadhana⠀ ...
guptaviolin
Dec 16
Art like prayer is a hand outstretched in the darkness, seeking for some touch of grace that transforms it into the hand that bestows gifts. - Franz Kafka⠀
***⠀
Biber: Passacaglia from the Mystery Sonatas⠀
#creativesadhana⠀ ...
guptaviolin
Dec 16
Take a moment.
***
So excited to announce @streetsymph end of year project, “Take What You Need”, a daily offering of gratitude, music and community - each day for the rest of this year.
Please join us, and follow along @streetsymph
#creativesadhana #streetsymphony ...
guptaviolin
Dec 14
“What you are will show, ultimately. Start now, every day, becoming, in your actions, your regular actions, what you would like to become in the bigger scheme of things.” - Anna Deavere Smith @annadeaveresmith⠀
⠀
For the last 40 years, @cla_arts_law has been serving the creative arts and innovations community, CLA engages in advocacy on behalf of the creative arts and innovation community at the local, state and federal level. They truly model, in their work and everyday regular actions - a more connected, whole, and creative world. ⠀
⠀
Very touched to be among the incredible honorees for California Lawyers for the Arts 13th annual Artistic License Awards, alongside @repjudychu @benallenca and @santafeartcolony.dtla. ⠀
⠀
Photo: @bawdenka ⠀
#creativesadhana⠀ ...
guptaviolin
Dec 11
Sometimes, disruption isn't a tidal wave: sometimes it is listening to the quietest voice within ourselves. ⠀
It's putting our phone on airplane mode at sea level. ⠀
It's making the first vulnerable mark on a page or tender sound in an empty hall or having that vulnerable conversation with a loved one and showing up, again and again and again. ⠀
It's letting our lives catch up to our souls.⠀
***⠀
#fbf to a 2019 talk on #creativedisruption for Hallmark at the beautiful #HelzbergHall, home of @kcsymphony⠀
@hallmarkcls⠀
#creativesadhana⠀ ...