Excerpt from the Vade Maecum…

Performative Mythology –

Why It Transcends Performative Arts

Nomina Barbara Nunquam Mutaveris”

-The Chaldean Oracles

 

The Cabiri seek to preserve the mythologies and folklore of extinct and endangered cultures through the use of “performative mythology. “

As the human raced changed from a sustainable society to a consumptive society and cities began to create areas of barren land, human interest in natural deities was lost in favor of soteriological deities. Humans ceased worship of their surroundings and transferred their interest into a god that would allow them to carry on with their irresponsible social practices.

The mythology and folklore of the natural faiths has become nearly extinct, but the stories still exist in extant fragments and collections. The propagation of these stories seeds the human consciousness with the ideals that are sustainable, egalitarian and generate a feeling of responsibility to the world around the listener.

Performative Mythology is the physical presentation of myth.

Mythology did not originate with the written word. From the oldest cave paintings at Lascaux Cave, Cave of the Trois–Frères and Çatal Höyük, it is apparent that the idea of interaction with the numinous began with dance and movement and progressed to cave paintings and finally language. From the first settlements to the origination of ritual theatre in the Aegean city-states, this concept is universal.

So why does this matter, what is our role?

In the ancient world, the philosopher and the magician, the poet and the performer all looked at themselves as not an isolated automata separate from the universe, but as an active part of the ever-evolving creation of the universe. As the local deities of the pagan world fell to a monotheism that bartered the soul for an afterlife, natural mythology was replaced by revealed theology. While the philosophers and the sages of the ancient world struggled to retain the myths of the past, the governments of the time saw power and control offered by monotheistic revealed soteriological belief systems and exploited this.

Art is not about the individual. Art is about connecting to the collective consciousness that exists throughout the human species. With myth, we take the audience beyond the singular temporal moment and we extend their experience through many eras of human existence.

Approaching your work with The Cabiri as performative mythology takes you outside the realm of the athlete that is simply running through choreography. Cabiri leave the space of the ego, moving beyond the selfish individual and commit to the creation of a logos that transmits ageless ideas to our audience. In the city-states of Babylon, the Chaldean mages would say that you are joining them on a quest to save the cosmos.

We ask that you explore this approach to your performance. The storytellers of old were the carriers of culture and therefore were the vehicle through which the human races soul has been preserved. When performing with The Cabiri, you carry the soul of the human race, you are no longer a simple individual, you are part of all that we are, the most magical aspect of the human condition, the aspect of the human psyche that has encountered the conception of the numinous. Rejoice in the being of something more, something beyond the egos or ids of human psyche.

John Murphy