The Grace of the Untamed (Project in Development)

This project will encompass much of my life’s work from being a performer, composer, activist, graphic artist and videographer/editor.

This project is a multimedia production encompassing moving imagery, music and performance to be presented at planetariums and collateral of a card game as a discussion starter that tie in with the theme of the show.

This one-actor show featuring Terri New is a storytelling musical docu-drama, whose focus is to present seminal leadership on particular people who made this world a better place.

The importance of good leadership cannot be overstated; the virtue of truth in our lives that Vaclav Havel presented in his works and leadership cannot be overstated. The intelligence, creativity, daring and heart that Sir Ernest Shackleton exhibited in saving his crew. The pioneering vocation of Jane Goodall and Lawrence Anthony in our relations to all creatures. The work of Ansel Adams in his deep love of nature coursing the importance of conservation, protecting this world and Vincent Van Gogh, an exploration into our mental capacities.  

The aim is to present this in planetariums, an immersive sensory multimedia experience and to create a imaginative conversational card game…to ask questions to truly learn to identify with people.

Using the themes we establish in the production, challenging attendees to action. The card game will be called PROCEDERE (pro-ched-re) – Latin for: To Proceed: PROCEDERE  - to proceed, to attack, to walk about, to gravitate, to storm, extend, broaden, propagate, widen, continue,…proceed! A brain storming, think-tank feature!

I have built skill base upon skill base, mostly in order to survive but also because it’s been exciting and fun to learn and experience new things. So thus, I coined my official title “creative survivalist”. I want to open up the conversation with great examples of “Creative Survivalists” those who lived with the grace of the untamed.  I want people to not lose sight of that this world is an absolutely incredible place…And that we all can have the grace to live fully, IF we have the courage to be, to live untamed. To inspire hope, if there ever was a time for hope, it is now.


The Planetarium Space

The planetarium serves as an original and imaginative venue, the sensory aspect that can be achieved by this the space can in essence give elevation for deep reflection. The moving imagery of stars and planets figure prominently in the script. When you sit in the planetarium there’s a whole meditative feel that I don’t think you get in the other spaces it put you in a meditative state that is truly sensory far more sensory than any other venue in my estimation. It touches on the sublime.

 

 

image

Personal Stories with Connections to the Subjects

My past informs my current project. I lived in a scorched world and I had to go out into the world to see that people can be incredibly good because my past was riddled the opposite.   I witnessed The Velvet Revolution and helped Vaclav Havel’s country get on their feet. Shackleton has lived with me in my mind and spirit since I was a child and I was privileged to explore his world of Antarctica.  I have sung to elephants in Africa to know what Lawrence Anthony created in his relationship to them. I watched in awe as Ansel Adams took incredible pictures with his big box camera and wrote a song for him at his passing…"And his voice forever stirring, 'Please Protect This Land'."

 

image

Activate The Future

"We are life. We are nature. We are Universe. Self-reflexive consciousness allows us different perspectives on this ever-transforming and evolving whole we participate in — this all that we are reflections of. We bring forth a world together, as embodied manifestations of the universe co-creating the world through how we participate and what we pay attention to and care about."

Activate The Future

Written by Daniel Christian Wahl

 

image

Think of it as an immersive “Ted Talk”

Multimedia Artistic Musical

What I envisioned for this project is a multimedia production for theater with digital backdrops, original composition, singing, dance and narration… storytelling at its finest in planetariums, where an immersive experience is compounded by this environment. Each story has a personal side in my experiential base...a connection.

The leadership that I want to showcase is Vaclav Havel, the playwright President that led his people to ‘The Velvet Revolution”, indeed that the whole Eastern Europe into the belief that a totalitarian system could be confronted and overturned through living in the truth.

 Another seminal example of leadership I would like to highlight is Sir Ernest Shackleton and his approach to leadership when he was stranded in Antarctica; there are many things to be learned from him in his leadership style.  

I also want to show Ansel Adams in his environmental pursuits protecting this land.  

I want to showcase Jane Goodall and her connection with other creatures on this earth and show other examples such as Lawrence Anthony, ‘The Elephant Whisperer”, people who have made profound connections with the creatures of this earth.

 I will delve into Vincent van Gogh, who sold only one painting in his lifetime, who is now celebrated as one of the greatest artists that ever lived. I will impart new views of autism and the autism spectrum, in story and song, imagery that companies that are hiring autistic people because of a different brain set, how these views are emerging from being a brain disorder and disability to a brain advantage in the workplace; the discovered benefits of hiring autistic people.

The resonating theme to be, you cannot be sheep in this world, that you must dig into your uniqueness and find that untamed part of you to realize it’s grace. And that by doing this you will make the world a better place, that you MUST use your gifts, talents, your abilities to contribute to a better world.

A Means

To Incite Creativity!

My aim is to inspire and elevate passions into activation. I would like people to feel they can be artistic and creative in their approach to life instead of being overwhelmed by the constant bombardment of negativity that our society seems to continually hit us with. That American can do spirit seems to be dissolving in so many quarters, fatigue, feeling overwhelmed by life is a modus operandi for many people… how we can change that!? One way is by recognition and encouragement. It is strangers who inspired me that I could do something in life. I want to be that conduit for other people.  

 I will use my compositions and I want to use the brilliance of this song and the work of Van Gogh, an extremely intelligent, extremely tormented person who shared his visions for all time. I will create a moving piece, moving emotionally and physically in the space of the planetarium. I will relay my own story of growing up with a Schizophrenic mother artist. I hope to create something beautiful with stunning backdrops, music and story that will move of an audience and inspire this aim.

Don McLean's Vincent (Starry,Starry Night)