In 2011

Spectacle of Earth: the Opera of the Stones has gained new voices

The first voices of the Opera of the Stones were heard a couple of years ago and, since then, have not been silenced. On the contrary, they started to speak louder, grew and echoed in several places. The Opera of the Stones – First Voices is an artistic creation by Denise Milan that emerged as a multimedia work in 2006. It was the beginning of a series of projects of the artist that now compose the Spectacle of Earth and which approach the same theme: the integration between us, men, and the Blue Stone, the Earth.

The modern cosmogony built in this Opera has its “start without a start” in the genesis of mineral. The Indian tribes Gaviões and Cinta Largas, from Rondônio, Brazil, tell a legend in which men would inside a stone. Inspired by this narrative, Denise built a new myth adapted both in its form and content to our current context. In this story the beginning is not given either by a gesture of creation or a scientific data. The beginning here only exists as an eternal restart and we are the men that the Indian legend mentioned. We inhabit the Blue Stone, the Earth.

These Stones, which are space and subject of Spectacle of Earth, assume human qualities and bring us closer to the natural universe that lies before our eyes. This way, tracing parallels between our lives and the process of formation of minerals becomes instinctive. We learn with the stones how to survive in an active and creative way to the conditions imposed by the environment which we live in.

Following this path, other projects, not less important, were being conceived in parallel. The exhibitions Entes Pétreos, Cenas Pétreas (“Petrous Beings, Petrous Scenes”) and Olho Quartzo (“Quartz Eye”), with installations of Denise, occupied SESCs in the city of São Paulo and even in the countryside. In 2010, a new step was taken. Some new voices were opening a new act of Spectacle of Earth.

Not announcing its first words anymore, Opera of the Stones left its virtual format and gained life on stage. An experimental opera in which great artists interpreted compositions made especially for the spectacle. A song that awakes us for life in subterranean Earth, where the human drama is metaphorically represented. And, once more, an exhibition, entitled Coração de Ametista (“Heart of Amethyst”), stood beside the presentation.

At the same time, a cultural action idealized by Denise started to emerge in the community of Heliópolis under the supervision of art educators. The Procession of Precious Lives transposed this entire mythical universe aimed at adults to another, magical and juvenile. A number of activities were proposed for children to enter this artistic universe and take this learning to other areas of knowledge. The day of the Procession consisted in a walk from SESC Ipiranga to Independence Monument. It was the awakening of a new conscience and the search for new values while rediscovering their precious lives.

This year the Procession of Precious Lives renews itself, but embracing two more communities. For the first time in the city of São Paulo, forming a crystalline network, the communities of Grajaú, Heliópolis and Jaguaré get together, share experiences and acknowledge themselves as peoples of the Earth. It is time to learn how to survive in our planet before its transformations.

On the day of the procession, April 29^th, 2011, Denise Milan’s recently published book A Pedra Azul (“The Blue Stone”), adapted by Maísa Zakzuk, will be distributed to the children.

Still this year, new projects are being conducted and will soon integrate the Spectacle of Earth.


In 2010

Denise Milan’s is a Blakean vision. The Opera of Stones could have been an iluminated manuscrypt of the 17th century like “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell”.

It is a Chamber Opera mixing the music of today with the soul of the Renaiscence. The stone is “everymen”, “everywomen”, “everyartist” on pligramage to find the holly graal, the cup of creativity.

Lee Breuer

WHAT IS THE OPERA OF STONES

The Opera of Stones is a call, songs to awaken for the life in the subterraneous of Earth. The stone, the place of origin and birth, is the stage for this quest. In the stone, in its cave-like body, we find the dramas of the matter, the forces and the senses of life amid light and shadow – evocating feelings, thoughts and humanity. From the magma to the quartz, the Opera reveals transformation of all matter. From the magma to the quartz, tells how the crystal separates from the basalt, structures itself and achieves after many attempts from the contrary forces its largest power, its true form.

Inspired by Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and the Creation Myth of the Ikolen Gavião Indians of Rondonia, Brazil, the Opera of Stones, as do all myths, ties the past to the future. In doing so, it offers answers to questions that Brazil faces – how to deal with the rich mines that exist in the underground beneath the Indian nations? In 2004, while planning the international seminar Earth Gems: Aesthetic Imagination and Hospitality, (SESC press, 2010), I learned this indigenous myth about the stone and instantly found parallels with my work, we both attribute human values to the stone and the quartz. The quartz stone, the mineral, is present in 70% of the terrestrial crust of our planet. According to the Ikolen Gavião, we are born in the stone and all speak the same language. The cosmogony of that people develops from this language of the stones, a common and universal communication that teaches us how to transform chaos into order. I saw a modern parable in this story of the mythic stone that shelters all mortal humanity and conjoins with the blue stone in the cosmos that is Earth to create renewal.

The crystal form represents the perfection in nature; it is a mirror and reflects the wants of men in search for transformation, creativity and expansion of consciousness. The Opera is a piece for renewing; it has the stone staged in its maximum power. To watch the stone and hear their voices is to be in touch with our origins, is to return to the imaginary of each one of us, to our own nature. The Opera brings us a possibility: to allow chaos to become order. And the Earth exhausted and devastated by the human greed to become the Renewed Earth.

Denise Milan