An Evening of (something like) Lessons and Carols

The Short:

This is Not A Performance presents a holiday fete in song and scene.

A playful reinterpretation of the Christmas tradition of "Lessons and Carols", come celebrate with a merry band of creatives and fellow attendees to meditate on who we are, how we are and what we are when the darkness--literal and otherwise--enshrouds the world as it does come Winter Solstice.

Paradox being the essence of life, we'll journey together to remember--and I dare say rejoice in--this truth: that there is no up without down, no light without dark. Truth, in a very funny--sometimes vexing way--is oppositional yet united all at the same time. The solstice affirms this axiom as the shortest days of the year align with celebrations of light across cultures.

Thusly, this fete, this ritual, this practice will aspire to live (for at least an evening) life as art, in contemplative community. For how we spend our days (and nights) is how we spend our lives.

The Long:

Performance connotes so much: mimicry, imitation, recitation, declamation, animation, imagination. All these things, most especially the ultimate, we celebrate, admire, perhaps even aspire towards. But it must also be said that increasingly (and perhaps always since humanity's evolution of self-consciousness) performance has become commodified and thereby homogenized in a way that supersedes its original function.

Original function as in how ancient societies, anthropologists and little old me see it: not as entertainment, but as essential nourishment for human-merely-being. Our ancestors gathered for shamanistic performance and song not just to while the time away, but to heal individually and collectively. The Greeks gained catharsis through their theater--not just something to do. Centuries later the church bore mystery plays which evolved into the secular theater of Shakespeare, Moliere, Artaud and Beckett. While there is surely something about the act of performance that is entertaining, at times also enlightening and therapeutic, most assuredly PERFORMANCE itself is not nearly as interesting as LIFE (ironically, the thing which art prepares us for and sustains us through).

To be clear, on Friday the 13th of 2024, what we’ll gather for is NOT a performance. For performers, performance carries the weight of the Aristotelean Golden ideal; yet it rarely reaches that mythical height of perfection somehow only palpable in the practice room or cavern of one's mind. Many performers agree that rehearsals--that fertile space for play and exploration which is to say growth--are their favorite part of the artistic process. There is no right or wrong save for the thought (read: worry!) about being (so-called) right or wrong. This city and world abound with plentiful museums for “performance”: the Broadway stage, the Metropolitan Opera, Lincoln Center in total. We love these spaces; we adore those artists; we hail them in their collective union to bring beauty into the world. But they are a vestige: often a revival of a revival of something that was once more vital or, even if new, a facsimile of some perfect construction. But most music and theater was, to some degree, always improvised: truly sitting at the fertile juncture where being becomes.

It is that juncture--which cannot be seen, only known--that we'll attempt to capture together. So to reiterate, my dears, this is not a performance. Merely being alive personified in rhythm, rhyme and all its cousins. Imperfection not only welcome, but expected, as such is the beauty mark of all that is human.

Note on Venue:

In accordance with the salon's ethos, our venue will be an incredibly rare space that personifies the values of living life as art. The story of how the space came to be--from a school to a working theater to a community home for artists--we'll be truly living the precept "so above, so below; so within, so without" as we celebrate building a life of beauty in a place where such has so gracefully been done.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

309 E 108th St, 309 East 108th Street, New York, United States