Journal Entry #2 by Bryan Saner

This is the second entry in a series of commentaries written by Bryan Saner, the Associate Artistic Director of Mordine & Co. about the rehearsal process for "I Haven't Gone There."


March 22, 2010

We talked about satire in rehearsal today.
My Oxford dictionary suggests that the etymology of the word is closely related to satura.

“This general sense appears in the phrase per saturam . . .according to the grammarians this is elliptical for lanx satura ( lit ‘full dish’: lanx dish, satura, fem of satur full, related to satis enough) which is alleged to have been used for a dish containing various kinds of fruit and for food composed of many different ingredients.”

I like the reference to enough. Satire functions as a way of stopping insanity. As if we are saying Enough! Basta! and the legitimate way to do this with our bodies is to mock the thing we are opposing. I like the layers that are developing through multiple ingredients that accumulate in satire. One action tells many stories.


In later definitions The Oxford quotes Goldwater Smith in the Feb. 19, 1880 edition of the Atlantic Monthly :

“There are different kinds of satire: the epicurean, which laughs at mankind. . . the stoical which indignantly lashes mankind, . . the cynical, which hates and despises mankind.”

The Epicureans, Stoics and Cynics in their time (4th and 3rd century BCE) were well respected philosophers, citizens and political groups who provided important structure to Greek culture. We still value these communities although we relegate them to comedians, clowns and angry activists. Maybe dancers and performance artists could be counted in the group. These groups still provide important structure to contemporary culture but the impact is so subtle compared to the power of corporate influence and drones exploding silently and invisibly in other countries.

Our rehearsals of repetition and repetition and again and again, of actions and individual routine, of words and movements that accumulate in our bodies must have some reason for being. How can we spend so many minutes, hours and days on these details that perform in a second? How empowered those seconds are. Our cells are supercharged with the memory of these movements. This is how our habits are programmed into the body until we are a full. This is how we reprogram the body out of its habits when we have had enough.