It’s Midsummer and the days are long and full. What are they full of? Heretical thoughts and preparations for our crowdfunding campaign!
Why Crowdfunding? Because it’s rejection city over here. After having received Arts Council funding to research, make and premiere The Witness on an initial tour of the Midlands, and then at the Oxford Storytelling Festival, we have now had two touring applications rejected, despite an extensive number of dates and venues lined up. Ouch. Obviously, we are disheartened to say the least. And thoughts of quitting have risen loudly to the surface. However, my friend David Curtis who runs the Gospel of Mary study group reminded me about the burst water pipes, two world wars and 1500 years of burial in the sands of Egypt that delayed the publishing of Mary’s gospel. With that perspective, some Arts Council rejections don’t sound so bad. So here we are, trying again, and finding a more heretical approach to the problem of money raising…
Perhaps because I called our last project Heresy we have constellated the archetype of the heretic. When I think of heretics, I think of exile and eradication and suppression and silencing. Fear. I think of individuals confronted with over-powering systems. I think of lone voices crying into the wind, of thoughts and ways that simply do not fit with what is known. I think of right story vs wrong story, and all kinds of binaries and oppositional forces. When I talk about constellating this archetype, I mean inadvertently opening a dynamic in which the systems that be (funding structures, big theatres etc) feel too powerful and closed to penetrate. Exile happens, unintentionally. With all the set backs we have faced with this piece, it has certainly felt like we are somehow walking in Mary’s footsteps in our struggle to be heard.
Of course, in the grand scheme of history, this little performance will not undo or rebalance any of this. It will barely be a drop in the ocean. But, it is at least a drop. It is my drop. Mine and this team of creatives. Our drop. And a drop that has been received, welcomed and felt by the many people that have watched and supported and written to us over the last few years. Change is made up of such exchanges; of one voice speaking to another, who speaks to an Other, in good old fashioned word of mouth, heart to heart passing. This performance is my part in that Turning, and I’m not ready to give up on it yet.
That’s why we’re crowdfunding! Unlike Peter, Mary’s lineage was not built into stone. It did not become part of the institutional, empire-sanctioned church. Her lineage remained close to the earth, carried in bodies, living in imagination and vision, scrawled on papyrus. Her’s is a hidden lineage. Hidden, but not lost. It feels fitting then to reach towards the people, not just knock on the doors of institutions, who may want to support the next stage of this work. In many ways, it is the most important stage… the one where we take it on the road and bring it to YOU!
Sometimes it takes a heretical act, or trickster strategy, to dodge the systems, and slip in through the side door.
So please, take a look at our Crowdfunder page. Share it. Shout about it. And let’s see what we can do.