Friday, August 30, 2013

de wonderkamer

After a very long hiatus (almost two years exactly!), I'm recommitting to this blog. In an ironic way I'm reminded of Musetta's line that Marcello is the refrain to which she always returns. Such it is with me and this blog, which has seen many names and shapes and iterations, not to mention a lot of silence, but to which I inevitably return. Mostly I've been incredibly busy the last two years with Opera Studio Nederland. There were a lot of things I didn't have time for, and I'm happy to now have a bit of silence. I return to the blog, but with an added sense of calm, of grounded clarity.

I've read that many bloggers consider, or even call, their blog a cabinet of curiosity, or a kunstkabinett, or a wunderkammer. These words refer to the Renaissance tradition of keeping a room or space full of all the things which make up ones life. To quote the ol'wikipedia: "a collection of objects whose boundaries are yet to be defined....a Theater of the World....a Memory Theater". I've never quite understood what one writes on a blog, and maybe that's why I've always failed to keep it up. I like this idea of a space to just keep ones thoughts, memories, ideas. And I like that the boundaries need not be defined.

In the past several years I've increasingly struggled with the boundaries we and the world around us place upon ourselves. 
This for me is most acute in my professional life where I work most frequently as a stage director, but do my most rewarding and centred work when also working as a conductor. Then, also in the recent months I've done more composition and returned to acting like a creative artist. We must give ourselves permission for these adventures, not limit ourselves, but follow any and all paths which speak to us. There are few Renaissance men anymore. We do not encourage that sort of unbridled self-truth. We should though; and it begins with each of us following our own potential as we ourselves define it. A wonder-room, is a beautiful umbrella to catch everything that we do. Originally a microcosm of the world, now a macrocosm of the self; still a Memory Theater, but also a Theater of the I.

Among other new adventures, I'm writing this on my mobile phone. In sure that makes for more spelling mistakes, but hopefully makes me more compelled to blog in the moment.