SHOCK AND AWE.... We must judge a work of art by only one criteria: is it vital? - Fellini 1. Where do we find ourselves. We do not need atomic bombs at all to uproot us, the uprooting of man is already here. All our relationships have become merely technical ones. It is no longer upon the earth that man lives today...Heidegger 2. Our world of grandeur has been turned into a reckless carnival. We’ve got the volume up so high that we can’t “hear” our own voice. In a torrent of bits, language has become primarily an agent of diversion and manipulation in America. The authority of our imaginations, our humanity is undermined by a social order that identifies and values us only as economic entities, consumers. We are not encouraged to see, think, feel and experience with human authority... we are always pitted against something or someone...reminded of our differences instead of our likenesses.We are denied the authenticity of personal experience and touch. The decline of nations can be traced not to the corruption of morals but the corruption of language...the failure of words to retain their institutional binding power, to preserve their humic past, and to access their historicity. For even our morality depends on the historical resonance of its foundational words: liberty, duty, sacrifice, compassion, equality. The “false eloquence” of the times exploits the traditional charisma of such words while at the same time emptying them of their historical memory...Vico
avalon musician woodstock, new york
©bill hayward
©bill hayward
3. In portraits of the collaborative self, bill hayward’s Americans returns us to the language of our common humanity and the authority of imagination. These portraits are about the creation of a human place wherein we honor spirit, body and heart...where meaning and voice are restored to the individual. A place in which we honor and explore the common legacy of human heart and truth.
stephen petronio choreographer new york, new york