The Dark Roots of the Myth

Interview with Theodoros Terzopoulos, the outstanding Greek director, founder of the Attis Theatre (in the international project “The Temptation by Myth”).

Natella Speranskaya: Russian poet Innokentiy Annensky called one of the main qualities that distinguish a tragic hero from an ordinary person as the Megalopsychia, or “greatness of the soul.” By this, he implemented courage, boldness, and unwillingness to limit his will to the limits that exist for the masses. Often this quality led hero to entering into a Theomachy, a struggle with the gods.

Theodoros, you often emphasize that in a tragedy, a person wants to be like god. And he desires it so much that he enters into an open conflict with god. Where did this hero disappear from dramaturgy, theater, philosophy, and why did a “little human” come to take his place, occupied with equally small questions?

Theodoros Terzopoulos: Since the moment that the power of gods has been doubted — especially by the third tragic poet, Euripides — the human ceased to look upon gods and try to resemble them.

In Euripides’ dramaturgy, the psychological dimension emerges, with scenes of psychoanalysis such as, for example, the legendary dialogue between Kadmos and Agave in Bacchae. The conflict with the gods turns into a rupture in a family dimension.

From the moment the human doubted and demystified god, they doubted themselves. From the moment the conflict between human and god was reduced to a conflict between human and human, the opponent sides shrank, they became everyday people, the “little human”, according to Brecht, who is consumed in “small” relationships, “small” questions, “small” thoughts. The archetypes have been lost and replaced by psychological grids of small moments and situations.

Natella Speranskaya: In your method, you attach great importance to breathing. Is this due to the fact that the ancient Greeks knew that the gods breathe thoughts, feelings, and emotions into the heroes (even love was the “breath of Aphrodite”)? In Euripides ‘ Bacchantes, the bacchantes themselves were driven mad by the breath of the god Dionysus. No less interesting is the connection that is guessed between the lungs (φρενός), as a respiratory organ, and vision. For example, in the Homeric epic, the hero “sees in his φρενός.”

Is it possible to work with the breath to give a man the opportunity to feel the presence of the deity? I would like to continue and ask: “And the opportunity to see?” Mircea Eliade emphasized that Dionysus was the only deity who appeared in the visible form…

Theodoros Terzopoulos: The word inspiration (Infuse = blowing through) relates to the free movement of the air in the body, which brings us to the importance of breath control. Equally, the word soul (psyche — ψυχη), resulting from the physical experience of breathing (psycheín — ψυχείν = breathe — αναπνέω).

When you control the function of breath, the body spends the necessary energy to perform an action, without stress or unnecessary muscular tension. The barrier of fatigue is overstepped, the defenses and fears of the mind are reduced, increasingly multiple and unusual dimensions of physical imagination are released.

Physical and mental capabilities are sharpened; at the same time, they should not subject the breathing process into such strict control that it becomes a mental function, encapsulating — instead of releasing — the creativity. The Cartesian dualism of mind and body, the main characteristic of the western culture, gradually subsides, the body becomes full of eyes, it thinks, feels, and senses, assimilating many functions of the mind.

However, I would call “mania” what you call “breath”. The ancient gods, especially Hera, were giving rage, “mania” to human, most times due to revenge. In some cases, heroes, such as Hercules, through the over-activation given to them by “mania”, managed to do feats. But in other cases, such as in Hercules Enraged or Ajax, the heroes in a state of illusion do horrible deeds: Hercules chases to kill his children and Ajax kills the herds believing that they are his enemies Atreides. I would say that breath is synonymous with mania.

Natella Speranskaya: What is the “archetypal body” that the actor is looking for, called, by Dionysus himself, the god of theater? Let me recall the myth about the tearing of Dionysus by the Titans. In my opinion, there are two aspects in this myth that are worth being analyzed: 1) having incinerated the Titans for their terrible crime, Zeus created a new kind of people from the vapors of their bodies, which consisted of two principles — the titanic and Dionysian; and this means that we carry a particle of god within us and are able to awaken it, 2) before his death, Dionysus showed the Titans a game of transformations: he appeared before them

in different forms, that is, his body had no boundaries and could become anyone or anything. Does this myth have a connection with the “archetypal body,” the ancient body of memory? And what are the techniques for awakening this body?

Theodoros Terzopoulos: There are many versions of the myth of the dismemberment of Dionysus and his transformations; these versions define man as an integral part of nature, they define the unity of man and nature. Through this unity, which is an elementary principle of life, the existence of god is justified. When this relationship breaks, we face the end of the gods. Speaking of this unity, we must not forget another parameter, the unity of the city with man and nature.

When we talk about the archetypal body, we should not refer to structured images and body positions with symbolic extensions, as they have been rendered by various ancient or pre-archaic cultures — Sumerian, Egyptian, or ancient Greek culture.

The dismemberment of Dionysus through the technique of deconstruction is the eruption of the structured body image. The various techniques of deconstruction release the trapped energy into the body and consequently release what I call the “imprisoned being” (because the body that traps the energy becomes a prison).

When the energy is released and the body is completely relaxed, the angles projected are shoulders, elbows, knees, feet, and the diagonal energetical axes. We witness this in ancient civilizations, such as the Yurupari Indians, or in ceremonies of Africa, India, etc.

The released energy, which we can define as the “other self”, the “trapped other being”, releases the body, so as to perform, through the development of the angles and the activation of the triangle (pelvis) as an animal, a snake, a natural phenomenon. etc. This endeavor originates from the myth of the dismemberment of Dionysus.

Natella Speranskaya: In general, can we say that a man has lost contact with his own body? The union of Apollo and Dionysus was broken. If the ancient Greek lived in complete harmony with the cosmos and felt the presence of the gods in everything, then modern man became a terrible dream of Friedrich Nietzsche: from “a rope stretched between beast and overman” he turned into “a rope stretched between a beast and a machine, a cyborg.” The idea of the Body is lost.

Is there a possibility to rediscover it? What is the Body, and what don’t we, modern people, know about our own Body?

Theodoros Terzopoulos: In my opinion, the ancient people were trying to achieve harmony. Harmony itself was never achieved. What mattered was the journey to Harmony, the journey to the measure, the journey to the unity of Apollonius with the Dionysian, the journey to Ithaca. Ithaca was never found. The definition of all these concepts is the journey, the effort. As Beckett says “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” This is the culmination of a great civilization.

The idea of ​​the Body is identical with the concept of energy. A body without energy is “incorporeal”.

In modern physics, energy is a measure of an endogenous capacity of the body, of motion. Energy, then, is motion, the constant change of the body in space and time, but also the inner motion, the e-motion. Energy is not an abstract idea, is not implanted from outside, but is perceived as an experience and physical memory. The question arises: How will the performer’s body be the carrier of the material at hand? How can the voice and the body be cultivated?

Natella Speranskaya: Theodoros, I want to ask you about the role of the chorus in the Greek tragedy. It always seemed to me that initially, the choir did not act as the “voice of the author” or the “ideal spectator” (Schlegel) but symbolized the gods or daemons, their constant presence, and participation in human life. And only gradually did the gap between the divine and the human affect the change in the main function of the choir. In place of the god or daemon came άνθρωπος (implementing Aristotelian ο άνθρωπος φύσει πολιτικόν ζωον, or “Man is by nature a political animal”). What is the original role of the ancient chorus?

Theodoros Terzopoulos: In a first interpretation, the chorus represents the City; the chorus judges, compromises, advises, promotes thoughts, etc. If we looked at its function through the dimension of the myth, where the chorus symbolized gods and demons, then the chorus’ attraction would be frightening. The chorus in the dithyramb is “dangerous”. It could put the spectator completely on track, and this is the reason for which in Europe a trend of de-enchantment of the chorus prevailed. If we cut-off the chorus from the dark roots of the myth, we will not be able to harness its amazing energy and create ecstasy.

The chorus of the deep myth, since it belongs to the realm of the unfamiliar and the strange, is at the same time a passage to the unfamiliar and the strange. Through the chorus, one gains access to the dark side of things. The chorus, from the aspect of the myth, induces terror because it brings the unruly, the violent, what cannot be tamed by culture. The chorus of the dithyramb is the nightmare, from it the world and the first performer are born. But the nightmare is the homeland of humanity and plays a decisive role in human life.

Natella Speranskaya: The role of the spectator in the theater is no less important. If we turn to the Greek vase painting, we can find there the figure of a spectator, an observer, a witness of an event that seems impossible without his direct presence. And such an event was most often the appearance of a deity. That is, the viewer was present there as a witness of Epiphany. For example, one of the images of the birth of the goddess Athena, found on the leg of a ceramic tripod, appears as an event surrounded by witnesses, spectators. Is it possible to draw parallels with the ancient theater and say that the role of the viewer was initially reduced to the contemplation of a special kind of event — the appearance of a deity (gods)?

Theodoros Terzopoulos: Here I would like to refer to the work of Iannis Xenakis and especially the principle of energy polyagogy. In this condition the performer produces sounds or phrases creating an energetic cycle, which includes the spectator; the spectator, in turn, becomes a bridge — a conduit of the performer. This is multiplied by creating an energetic expansion of the space, the sounds, the vibrations, the phrases. The spectator of ancient ceremonies or tragedy performances is not merely present passively but coexists as a person who suffers, as a bridge and a co-creator. The spectators are not mere witnesses, but accomplices in an extreme situation. These extreme situations of the Dionysian and Eleusinian mysteries have been rejected, cursed, and exiled by the European, and especially the Central European classicism. That is why European classicism cannot comprehend the function of chorus in tragedy, instead, it shrinks and disappears it; classicism mainly focuses on the leading roles and turns the tragedy into a psychological drama.

Natella Speranskaya: Can you give the names of modern playwrights in whose work there is a union of the Apollonian and Dionysian principles?

Theodoros Terzopoulos: I can’t think of anyone who unites the Apollonius with the Dionysian element. In Shakespeare, both principles appear but rarely do they unite. European dramaturgy is dominated by the Apollonian element, logocracy, and logicism; we find little examples of the Dionysian element, maybe for example in Genet or Arrabal.

Edited by Maria Evstigneeva