My Dinner with Andre Page #3

arrived for the beehive...

...that our group would already be there

singing this very beautiful song...

...and that we would simply sing it

over and over again.

One of the people decided to bring

her very large teddy bear, you know.

Well, she's a little afraid of this event.

And somebody wanted

to bring a... A sheet.

And somebody else wanted

to bring a large bowl of water...

...in case people got hot or thirsty.

And somebody suggested

that we have candles...

...that there be no artificial light,

but candlelight.

And I remember watching people

preparing for this evening.

Of course, there was no makeup,

and there were no costumes...

...but it was exactly the way that people

prepare for a performance.

You know, people sort of taking off

their jewelry and their watches...

...and stowing it away

and making sure it's all secure.

And then slowly people arrived,

the way they would arrive at the theater...

...in ones and twos and 10s and 15s

and what have you.

And we were just sitting there,

and we were singing this very beautiful song.

And people started to sit with us

and started to learn the song.

Now, there is, of course,

as in any performance or improvisation...

...instinct for when things

are gonna get boring.

So, at a certain point... It may have taken

an hour to get there, an hour and a half...

I suddenly grabbed this teddy bear

and threw it in the air...

...at which 140 or 130 people

suddenly exploded.

You know, it was like

a... A Jackson Pollack painting, you know.

Human beings exploded out of this tight

little circle that was singing the song.

And before I knew it,

there were two circles, dancing, you know...

...one dancing clockwise,

the other dancing counterclockwise...

...with this rhythm

mostly from the waist down.

In other words, like an American Indian dance,

with this thumping, persistent rhythm.

Now, you could easily see,

'cause we're talking about group trance...

...where the line between something like this

and something like Hitler's Nuremberg rallies...

...is, in a way, a very thin line.

Anyway, after about an hour

of this wild, hypnotic dancing...

Grotowski and I found ourselves sitting opposite

each other in the middle of this whole thing.

And we threw the teddy bear

back and forth.

You know, on one level,

you could say this is childish.

And I gave the teddy bear suck,

suddenly, at my breast.

And then I threw the teddy bear to him,

and he gave it suck at his breast.

And then the teddy bear

was thrown up into the air again...

...at which there was another explosion

of form into... Something.

And these...What was it like?

You know, this is the...

There's something like a kaleidoscope,

like a human kaleidoscope.

The evening was made up

of shiftings of the kaleidoscope.

Now, the only other things

that I remember...

...other than constantly trying

to guide this thing...

...which was always involved with either

movement, rhythm, repetition or song...

Or chanting, because,

uh, two people in my group...

...had brought musical instruments,

a flute and a drum...

...which, of course,

are sacred instruments...

...was that sometimes the room

would break up...

...into six or seven different things

going on at once.

You know, six or seven

different improvisations...

...all of which seemed, in some way,

related to each other.

It was... It was like

a magnificent cobweb.

And at one point, I noticed that Grotowski

was at the center of one group...

...huddled around a bunch of candles

that they'd gathered together.

And like a little child

fascinated by fire...

I saw that he had his hand right in the flame

and was holding it there.

And as I approached his group,

I wondered if I could do it.

I put my left hand in the flame and I found

I could hold it there for as long as I liked...

...and there was no burn

and no pain.

But when I tried to put my right hand in the

flame, I couldn't hold it there for a second.

So Grotowski said, " If it burns,

try to change some little thing in yourself. "

And I tried to do that.

Didn't work.

Then I remember a very, very beautiful

procession with the sheet...

...and there was somebody

being carried below the sheet.

You know, the sheet was like

some great biblical canopy.

And the entire group was weaving

around the room and chanting.

And then at one point,

people were dancing...

...and I was dancing with a girl...

...and suddenly our hands began

vibrating near each other...

...like this...vibrating, vibrating.

And we went down to our knees,

and suddenly I was sobbing in her arms...

...and she was sort of cradling me in her arms,

and then she started to cry too.

And then we... Then we just

hugged each other for a moment.

And, uh, then we joined the dance again.

And then at a certain point,

hours later...

...we returned to the singing

of the song of Saint Francis...

...and that was the end of the beehive.

And then, again, when it was over, it was

just like the theater after a performance.

You know, people sort of put on

their earrings and their wristwatches...

...and we went off

to the railroad station...

...to drink a lot of beer

and have a good dinner.

Oh, and there was one girl,

who wasn't in our group...

...but who just wouldn't leave,

so we took her along with us.

Huh.

God. Well, tell me some of the other things

you did with your group.

Well... Oh, I remember once

when we were in the city...

...we tried doing an improvisation...you know,

the kind that I used to do in New York.

Uh, everybody was supposed to be

on an airplane...

...and they've all learned from the pilot

there's something wrong with the motor.

But what was unusual

about this improvisation...

...was that two people who

participated in it... Fell in love.

They've, in fact, married.

And when we were...

Yeah, out of fear...

...of being on this plane,

they fell in love...

...thinking they were going to die

at any moment.

And when we went to the forest,

these two disappeared...

...because they understood

the... The experiment so well...

...that they realized that to go off together

in the forest was much more important...

...than any kind of experiment

the group could do as a whole.

So, uh, about halfway

through the week...

...we stumbled into

a clearing in the forest...

...and the two of them

were fast asleep in each other's arms.

It was around dawn,

and we put flowers on them...

...to let them know we'd been there,

and then we crept away.

And then on the last day of our stay

in the forest, these two showed up...

...and they shook me by my hands,

and they thanked me very much...

...for the wonderful work

they'd been able to do, you see.

They understood what it was about.

I mean, that, of course, poses

the question of what was it about.

But it has...has something

to do with living.

And then on the final day

of our stay in the forest...

...the whole group did something

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