Robert Wilson sets the stage for 'I La Galigo'

Carla Bianpoen, Contributor, Singapore

As Robert Wilson enters the Indian restaurant at the Esplanade to have lunch with a few journalists at the end of February, it is as if the curtains in the theater have opened, and a hush of silence falls amid the expectation.

On the part of the organizers there is a bit of anxious apprehension. Everybody knows Wilson doesn't like interviews.

"I hate them," he once said. But this is lunch and Wilson is apparently in good spirits.

The 63-year-old director and designer of the visual theater play inspired by the ancient 14th century Bugis epic myth of Sureq Galigo reveals it has indeed been a great challenge.

"I am a guy from Waco, Texas, and I am presenting to the world this work that no one knows," he says, asking himself, "is it right to do it, is it right to take it to the world?"

On the other hand, I La Galigo confirms his earliest involvement with movement without speech, something that has always remained close to his heart.

He adopted a deaf-mute 11-year-old black child in the early 1970s, Raymond Andrew, who knew no words. Wilson, who was convinced that he thought in his own language of visual signs and symbols, encouraged Andrew to communicate through drawings.

In 1971 he staged his Deafman Glance, a deaf "opera", which became a milestone for his belief that words are not inherently more important than light, space and movement. It was a great success, traveling from Brooklyn Academy of Music to Nancy, Rome, Paris and Amsterdam. It received the French Critics Circle Award for Best Foreign Play.

Wilson's fascination with movement may be rooted in his early youth when he had a speech impediment. This was cleared up at the age of 17 by Byrd Hoffman, a theater instructor who told him he could speak if he slowed down. In addition, his experience as a therapist with brain-damaged children underscored his sensitivity to time and visual signs. He found that slow-motion tasks awakened patients' sensitivity to immediate sensation.

Movement, light and space, then, are major elements of his oeuvre that many compare to contemporary art installations with an epic touch. That his concepts are rooted in the visual arts must not be too surprising. A graduate from Pratt Institute for design and architecture, he went to Paris to study painting.

Indeed, while known for creating highly acclaimed theatrical pieces like Einstein on the Beach, an opera that many consider a seminal work in the modern theater and opera, he is also actively involved in the visual arts. His drawings, paintings and sculptures have been presented around the world in hundreds of solo and group showings.

"When painting I let the paint take over ... the response is emotional instead of rational," he once said.

Feelings are important in his decision-making, not standard values. When asked how he determined the quality of his all- Indonesian cast, Wilson's gaze became somewhat transfixed.

"I look at this woman (he means the 78-year-old Bugis dancer, Coppong Daeng Rannu), her slow gestures full of time, it's a different energy, a different rhythm, it's something you experience; it's nature, not something of the mind."

The Galigo epic myth is unlike any other. It conveys a sense of divine and human experience at the same time. It is believed to be sacred by many of the Bugis people.

How does he get a sense of knowing what is appropriate or not? Wilson points to the head of the bissu (transgender shamans) in South Sulawesi, Puang Matoa Saidi, who has been there throughout the workshops. A number of respected Bugis scholars have also been assisting.

Like many other scholars, Wilson, who has directed and designed hundreds of video and theater pieces for major theaters throughout Europe, calls the Galigo epic a real classic.

"It's still relevant today. We have to rediscover this classic tale," he says. "It's ancient, but cosmic, and part of the knowledge bestowed to the nature of humankind. To rediscover, we sometimes have to decode."

The poetic language of the original story will not be heard on stage. In fact, there will be no text at all, except for text in the chanting of the bissu which will be in archaic Bugis.

I La Galigo will be staged over four hours. Surely nothing in comparison to KA Mountain and GuarDenia Terrace, a performance that lasted for seven days without pause and was performed on seven hills in Iran in 1972.

"In a way, theater is a ritual. People sit and look together," he remarks.

Perhaps more so as the text is replaced by chanting and movement, and the colors induce figures and properties to glow as if in divine light.

Will Wilson's I La Galigo draw in and inspire the public in that sense? Let's wait and see.