Performance hermeneutic?

While watering the garden yesterday (by hand, within allocated time slot), I not only wrote one of the sermons for the missional hermeneutics course I've just done, but I began to wonder what the goal of a PhD that incorporates the Esther project might be. (I say I, I really mean my brain did what it does when I'm not concentrating, and found it's own way to creativity ...)

So I (my brain) wondered if I might explore a performance hermeneutic. This would be to understand the (in this case Biblical) text through internalising and performing as a means of communicating the message. Reading the text in order to communicate the text orally. I could then explore the possibility for such a hermeneutic through theatre with the Esther project, and perhaps through Biblical storytelling, maybe with the Romans/Phoebe project I have been saving for a future opportunity. 

That gives a couple of performance modes (excluding many, including music, I know), and also tests the hermeneutic with texts from Old and New Testaments. For me personally, this is in keeping with my desire to be a Biblical scholar who is interested in the grand Biblical narrative, rather than specialising in Hebrew Bible or New Testament, as per the status quo. Oh, look at me being radical again. 

If there are people reading this blog, I'd love your comment on the validity of a performance hermeneutic, and especially if you've come across others who have explored such a tool for interpretation.  

A theatre company & a PhD

The Esther project is generating much interest among my fellow students, and others I talk to. It's a daunting thought, but it is exciting, to think this idea of mine might engage the imaginations of  others. 

It was suggested to me last week that I might be able to use this project as a creative element of a PhD, expediting that particular goal. I've been thinking about it a lot since then, and also about the goals of the Esther project. I don't know if I'll be repeating myself on this blog, but if I am, with any luck, my thinking has progressed somewhat, even if it is a little circular. 

Sandy, who is going to mentor and/or officially supervise me through this project/placement, asked me what I want to achieve through it. I hope the forming of this theatre company, for a year or longer, will help the Uniting Church to live out its stated goal to embrace alternative forms of Christian community, in order to provide opportunities for people to engage with alternative Christian community for them, to have their stories heard and to hear the sacred stories of God's relationship with creation throughout time. 

Following on from that, I think a PhD from the Esther project itself could explore the question of How do performed stories continue to engage us, and how can we embrace performance arts in our Christian communities for healthy, vibrant worship, the spiritual development of individuals and communities, and partnership with the wider community? I'd like to explore the questions of How does story lead us to wholeness? How does it heal individuals, reconcile communities, invite encounter or allow exploration of encounter with the Sacred? 

Part of me would be sorry not to do a PhD in the UK, for the opportunities the UK itself would offer, for the chance to study at another institution (this would mean every degree I've done is at Flinders, which is our family business, but which doesn't necessarily offer a variety of approaches to learning, though I have studied in many different areas), and, worst of all, for the ugly ugly PhD gown Flinders has. I really don't want to have to wear that gown at every academic function I ever attend in the future ... (I might be petty, or I might be a performer at heart)

Other than those concerns, however, PhD research into story and community, story and wholeness, story and the Sacred, is probably the best integration of my skills, passions and calling. In that respect, I am excited, and looking forward to making it happen. 

With the placement, I have been asked to find a host congregation. The first congregation I approached is about to begin a process of reflecting on their direction, and understandably feels unable to commit to a role of host for this fledgeling company/community. So, I have a list of about 10 more congregations, and will begin this week the process of contacting the ministers for a chat to sound them out about the possibilities of their communities entering into a partnership with a theatre company / alternative Christian community. If you are reading this blog, your prayers for this process, and my openness to the Spirit as I discern the right place for my placement and this project will be appreciated. 

update - Esther project

So I really have been given the go ahead from the faculty to gather a theatre company to, in the first instance, tell the story of Esther in a theatre restaurant setting for the 2010 Fringe. 

I'm talking to a Uniting Church congregation about the possibility of this company being based in partnership with them, and once it's all official, I'll be bombarding everyone I know with invitations to pray for this initiative, and with invitations for people to participate in this theatre company come alternative Christian community. 

I hope there are people around Adelaide who will be excited by this possibility, with a broad range of gifts, passions, skills, etc. We'll need finance and promotional, administrative and techie people as much as we'll need actors, stage designers and costumiers. 

I hope this will be a company that might build a reputation for excellence in telling the sacred stories of sacred encounters throughout history, through our own lives, for many years to come. 

But for now, I should stop dreaming and go and finish writing the play so I can submit applications for funding ... 

semi random thoughts

I've been thinking about hermeneutics a bit, being in the middle of a missional hermeneutics intensive at college, and I was wondering how I'd explain 'hermeneutics' to a non theological student ... I thought I could illustrate hermeneutics as interpretation, by saying that one could read Shakespeare (or watch), and interpret the plays with, say, a feminist 'hermeneutic', or lens. You could also interpret Shakespeare with a theological hermeneutic, though I'm not sure that's quite so helpful. 

See, the thing is, when we interpret the Bible, the authors have a message they want the reader / audience to believe, to accept, adopt, adhere to. 

With Shakespeare, he's much more elusive as author - I don't think he writes the plays with a message he wants to convert the audience to. Shakespeare writes human characters in order to hold up a mirror to humanity, for us to reflect on our human experience. (I don't think that's the case for all non-biblical or non-religious writing / theatre. In the mirror he held up to humanity, I think Charles Dickens was more overtly critiquing the society of Industrial Revolution England in his novels, for example.) Shakespeare is elusive because he tells the story without judging the characters. We might judge them, or interpret them, or take away a 'message' or an understanding of human behaviour, but that doesn't appear to me to be the primary goal for Shakespeare, who is, primarily, a storyteller. 

I wonder what it might mean, though, for Biblical/faith storytelling, to be, primarily, a storyteller. I don't think I have any answer to this question I'm about to pose, so I'll just ask it - 

Can we tell stories of encounter with God simply writing human characters as a mirror to our human experience, or do we need to have a message, an agenda, driving the telling of the story?