The MetamOrphic Ritual Theatre Company work and play with breaking down the border (an artifice of theatre as entertainment only) between ritual and theatre, ie. public rather than private magical rites which are (to varying degrees according to the nature of each production) a combination of pre-meditated/rehearsed and indeterminate spontaneous elements. We recognize the ritualistic roots of drama in (for example) the Rites of Dionysos in Ancient Greece, and seek to return its transformative power, taking 'theatre' beyond its usual bounds of 'pretending' into the realm of Becoming. We don't just act our characters, we Invoke them or related deities and/or archetypes.
What is (/on) the surface, what is below the surface, what is substantial and what is essential?
Interacting with an art installation, Orryelle explores illusions of depth in surfaces, to pry open what lies 'within'.
Employing Butoh dance, ritual theatre and live music, the nature of the body, image and substance will be explored.
The very nature of reality is in question here: not just material substance but the energetic and esoteric realities beneath or beyond (yet via) physical appearances.
This work explores the congruent relationship of positive and 'negative' space to show things which 'aren't there' in the usual sense as they exist in the spaces between more evident imagery, yet have a presence.
In a time when the virtual, representational and mediated are ever more 'present' Orryelle directs our attention to the interaction of the physical, the imaginal and the essential, while questioning whether they can be separated.
Originally developed and performed at EDGE GALLERIES in Maldon Australia May '21 for Samhain southern hemisphere, this new work of Orryelle's has now been distilled for a northern hemisphere Samhain performance at Haekem Gallery/Theatre in central Brussels as a part of the two-day (28th and 29th Oct) multi-arts event Pense Tête :
THURS 28th and FRI 29th OCT 2021 7pm to Midnight each night.
Haekem
Rue De Laeken 66
Brussels
Recent original artworks (paintings, drawings, sculpture) by Orryelle will be on display, and the event also features musical performances by Soundstrider (FR) Orryelle and UrZon (voice, violin, electronica), Rinorrcius (theremin, voice, violin, drones), CZLT (baritone guitar, sitar, electronica), Imperfected and UltraTerrestrial; and Le Penseur & La Pensuse (interactive installation by Franky Bordo 1577 & Reinout Rinus)
The Interactive Womb (human ressurection installation by Vladimir Kai & Reinout Rinus).
Skin Surface Substance Preview (footage from Maldon Performance):
The performance is also an evocation and adoration of Hekate
'...deep commitment and thoroughness throughout for creating a world inhabited by entities embodied...'
-Antero Alli, film-maker, author, Paratheatrical Research
For the first time, a MetamOrphic Ritual Theatre Production has been fully adapted into a Feature Film!
While films were made of 'Loom of Lila' and 'The Choronzon Machine', these were basically video documentation of live productions (using footage from dress rehearsals as well as performances), but SOLVE et COAUGLA -while loosely based on the live production in 2012 & 2013- has been entirely re-created especially for the camera, with more elaborate sets, various exotic locales (in Bulgaria, Portugal, Belgium...) and additional filmic elements such as stop-animation and other layered effects.
Three years in the making, SOLVE et COAGULA is an EsotErotic, Surreal and sometimes psychedelic journey of re-enchantment.
With a weird mix of contemporary subculture and ancient archetypes, its central message of the reintegration of spirit and matter, mind and body is pertinent in our disconnected times...
Dense with mythic and occult symbolism, it also features a diverse operatic soundtrack ranging from neo-classical bardic/operatic to experimental and ritual ambient.
'...What rips his movie from the canvas is the almost palpable energy—with two kinetic climaxes—that emerges from its Homeric narration and stylized repetition' -Giles Edwards
Online streaming ($3.33 rental, $9 purchase -or equivalent in your currency of choice) now available from the link at the end of the trailer below.
For ordering of the SOLVE et COAGULA limited Book (270 copies only) and DVD (includes streaming code), more sample pages and more stills from the film, please go HERE.
MetamOrphic Ritual Theatre Company
Running since 1994, MRT produce 'plays' which are often interactive, performing for our audience to some extent but often at some point blurring the boundaries between audience/initiates and performers.
Sometimes we will take the audience (individually or in groups) through a physical landscape as part of their journey; but even when we work within a one-room theatre we aim to offer the audience as well as performers the potential for at least one level of personal Metamorphosis via our ritual theatre.
Our 'plays' are occasionally fully scripted but often develop from a basic premise, concept or plot which is workshopped and developed by the group.
Our most ambitious projects have been the three Labyrinth installations/performances we constructed at D.T.E ConFest (Easter 95,97) and Earthcore (99) festivals, in which we set up entire elaborate mazes for the audience/initiates to journey through. We played different characters along the paths, interacting with initiates on their journeys so that they fully became part of the drama, which was formed from a series of nightly performance cycles; specific events occurring in certain places and/or at particular times, and the rest improvised or spontaneous within the broad themes of the event.
Because of its scope and significance, the Labyrinth has its own LABYRINTH PAGE on this site. Other productions by Metamorphic Ritual Theatre are summarised below -along with photographs and video stills- from the most recent going back...
Metamorphic Ritual Theatre Company began based in Australia but performances (including collaborations with local performers in new locales) in Europe, USA and UK have also been occurring increasingly in recent years.
Depending on timing and locale, we may be available for performances and/or interactive installations at festivals or events on any of those continents.
Any enquiries please email director-performer Orryelle Defenestrate-Bascule (right): [email protected]
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Synopses and Images from Various MRT Productions:
BOOK of The SPIDER
in Portland USA (April 27th 2019) and at the spectacular Vigeland Mausoleum in Oslo Norway (May 24th 2019):
Orryelle's intensive ritual dance-theatre work exploring and resolving the apparent dichotomy between Fate and free Will. Verses from The Book of the Spider (the received nexus of his tome 'Time, Fate and Spider Magic' (publ. Avalonia 2015) are orated/semi-sung with live and looped violin. To this spiraling soundscape the multilayered meanings of the verse are interpreted with extreme arachnean movement upon a web mandala.
The Oslo show at the spectacular Emmanuel Vigeland Mausoleum(shown above with Orryelle's Hekate statue overlaid) -with its world-famous acoustics and spectacular murals- also featured performances by Ashtoreth(Belgium) and Sysselmann (Norway) on Friday May 24th.
Book of the Spider has been previously performed at The Hekate Symposium 2015 (Glastonbury UK), LaMama Theatre (Melbourne Australia) and Hugin & Munin Oasis (Trondheim Norway) and XB Leibig (Berlin DE).
GUNNAR in the SERPENT PIT
Final performance Sept. 23rd 2017 Blaa Galleri Copenhagen Denmark
A musical dance-theatre performance by Orryelle about the Viking Gunnar who was thrown into a pit of serpents for his misdemeanours. His sister Gudrun threw a harp in to save him, but he could only play it with his feet as his hands were bound.
To entrance the serpents without, he must find the serpents within
This Metamorphic Ritual Theatre Production was previewed in the devising artist's hometown of Castlemaine, Australia and was then returned to its mythic homeland, in the spectacular ambience of Tomba Emmanuelle in Oslo, Norway; featuring Orryelle as Gunnar, Tonje Stabell and Kristine Halmrast as Valkyries, and musical cameos from Kristoffer Momrak, Oystein Gadmar, Erin Leigh and Gustav Holberg.
Above: Pearl Solara Zule as a Valkyrie weaving a warrior's Fate with his intestines, in the Portland performance
Below: Video of selected foot-age from performances in Antwerp Belgium, Seattle & Portland USA, Castlemaine & Melbourne Australia and Oslo Norway (Emmanuelle Vigeland Museum):
In 2015 as a part of the launch of DISTILLATIO (the final volume in his Tela Quadrivium series from UK publishers Fulgur Limited) Orryelle did several musical-theatrical performances in 2015 with his new sculptural Alchemical Chess Set which was inspired by imagery and concepts in that volume.
Below is a video of short extracts from two of these performances, one in Exeter UK with Alison Rockbrand as the White Queen and one in Antwerp Belgium with Charlotte Abracadabra as White Queen (video still above).
A layered music video inc. live footage, stop animation and 2D animation) with the Alchemical chess-set (bronze, glass and clay, edition of 8, details and availability Here) around a multi-track studio version of this song is currently in development.
June Solstice 2015 Hundred Years Gallery London UK.
Within performance night as a part of Orryelle's solo exhibition to launch 'Distillatio' (publ. Fulgur 2015)
July 2015 Exeter University UK, with 'Mass of the Black Sun' ritual dance collaboration with and written by Alison Rockbrand (Travesty Theatre)
July 2015 Washboard Art Cafe Antwerp Belgium, with art exhibition and musical performance
August 2015 Gallery X Dublin Ireland, at the Opening of exhibition of new work by Orryelle and Dolorosa DeCruz
Sept 2015 Little Tengu Gallery Melbourne, solo performance at the Opening of 'Voices on the Wind' group exhibition
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TELA QUADRIVIUM EXEGESIS
30th Oct 2015
The final launch event for DISTILLATIO was in Melbourne Australia, bringing the 4-volume Tela Quadrivium full circle back to its land of conception, culminating the 9-year project with a retrospective exhibition and ritual performance not just of the final volume but of the bookweb entire.
This involved showing how the four volumes could be read around in a spiral formation as well as individually, revealing other pictorial narrative sequences. The live spoken and musical (violin, FX, voice, plus percussion by Amordios) exegis was accompanied by an interactive alchemical display and video-screening which included images from the books (some animated) and extracts from other Metamorphic Ritual Theatre Productions which related to the symbolism and mythos they draw from.
Here is a video clip of a section of the performance, with pre-edited video material (projected in the event) spliced with the live exegis (and music) of the myth of Isis's restoration of Osiris over the four books.
It also features Kestral Znox as Horus, singing Aka Dua:
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SOLVE et COAGULA
A head, having learnt presence, disembodied yet with heightened senses, aware now of the power of the physical form in which it is forever encased, wise yet carnal, desires to make a new body...
Written and sung in verse with a strong dance element reflecting its message of embodiment and the healing of the body-mind split, Orryelle's play about what became of the immortal head of Orpheus begins where the classical Greek myth ends -with the bard being torn apart by the Maenads...
LIVE PERFORMANCES:
Melbourne Australia 2011 (with live statue assemblage)
Seattle (at the Esoteric Book Conference) and Portland USA Sept/Oct 2011
Melbourne March Equinox 2012 (premier of new version with film projections)
London, UK (October Gallery) May 2012
Brighton UK (at Scarlet Imprint's Pleasure Dome event) July 2012
Haarlem, Netherlands (in a 17th-century crypt) July 2012
Lisbon, Portugal Aug. 2012
Turin Italy Sept. 2012
Click HERE for more pictures and a full presentation of Solve et Coagula
And a Visual Report from the Solve and Coagula performances and exhibition at the Esoteric Book Conference in 2011 HERE
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COAGULA Book Launch
Melbourne March 2011
The Melbourne Launch of COAGULA featured Orryelle's Alchemical theatrical presentation of the concepts behind the second Graphic Grimmoire in his Tela Quadrivium series (publ.Fulgur Limited UK). (Thursday, March 31st 2011 @ 'Long Play" Bar & Cinema, Melbourne Australia.)
 Maya as Iris represents the Temperance/Art path/card,
gathering crossroads energies of Hod (Hermes) and Netzach (Aphrodite)horizontally (8+7=15);
and of Tiphereth (Sol) and Yesod (Lunar) vertically (6+9=15)
Above: Orryelle cracking open four snake-twined plaster eggs to birth 4 bronze Baphomet sculptures to represent the 'Multiplicatio' phase of Alchemy (after the birth of one as the golden HermAphroditic child) at the end of the performance.
Each one had a different tone when struck as chimes for the four notes of the chorus of the concluding song.
More Images and full synopsis of the Coagula Launch HERE
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OEDIPUS TYRANNOS
London 2008, Melbourne, London and San Francisco 2009
'A profound retelling of the tale...' -Steve Ash, Oracle Magazine UK, regarding the show's premiere in London in 2008.
OEDIPUS TYRANNOS is a dynamic and contemporary re-working of the classic tragedy from Ancient Greek theatre. Whereas Sophocles' well-known original play of the myth ('Oedipus Rex') is irrevocably fatalistic, this new version demonstrates that Fate and Free Will are not mutually exclusive, and explores the nature of True Will.
Rather than change actual events in the original story, it allows the characters to perceive and thus react differently to these challenging circumstances, with startlingly different results. The power of listening to the subconscious and deep mind is explored, as Oedipus' progress is reflected in different deifications of Fate he meets upon his journey - the enigmatic SphinX (above the introduction to this page), Hecate-Moerae at the Crossroads, Her Eastern analogue Kali-Moerae (played by Phoenix Andromeda, right) and the Pythoness or Delphic Oracle (played by Medea Luminea, above left).
OEDIPUS TYRANNOS was devised and written by Orryelle with Giselle Sibyl (who plays the SphinX) in neo-classical and contemporary verse.
LIVE PERFORMANCE VIDEOS:
Live footage from the Metamorphic Ritual Theatre performance in the Northcote Uniting Church, Melbourne Australia, 27th March 2009.
In this extract from the final scene, Oedipus' visionary epiphany reveals the Sphinx, Delphic Oracle and Jocasta as 3 Faces of his own deified Destiny, bringing his subconscious to light and revealing the true source of the plague which racks his city-state.
BELOW: EXTRACT from SCENE 1, OEDIPUS and The SPHINX
(Live in Melbourne March 09):
Below : Video clip of The Chorus.
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28th Sept.'07 in London
Theatre of Ophidia presents...
THE CHALICE of ECSTASY
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2007 saw a collaboration between Metamorphic Ritual Theatre Co. and Theatre of Ophidia UK, who hosted and promoted Orryelle's work in England in September.
Theatre of Ophidia's affiliation with 'Fright Nights' Supernatural Investigations accessed venues and locations of considerable magical history to enhance the atmosphere of these special ritual performances and create immersive magickal events:
Exhibition and Performances
The exhibition featured new drawings by Orryelle for his Graphic Grimmoire, 'Conjunctio'(published in Sept.'08 by FULGUR LIMITED), plus some new sculptural work.
The PERFORMANCES following the Exhibition featured a combination of METAMORPHIC RITUAL THEATRE (including a new and extended version of '8 GATES') and Magical Music by:
Orryelle (violin & voice), solo and collaborating with 'This Too Shall Pass' (experimental electronica) on a live soundtrack to Parzival ritual theatre (see Synopses below)
Plus Raagnagrok (London synth-sitar duo)
Photos above by Maryam Hashemi.
14th Sept 8 GATES and PARZIVAL as above, at the spectacular LYVEDEN NEW BIELD near Oundle.
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LOOM OF LILA
Loom of Lila was the first MetaMorphic Ritual Theatre Production that relies solely on visuals, sound and movement to convey its concepts. There was no dialogue or words in English; rather the concepts were expressed through Dance, Film, Sound, Sculpture and Installation.
The performance -which was in intensive development since Feb '06- expressed in form and movement the relationship of the individual to the collective, exploring also concepts of microcosm and macrocosm, the nature of Deification, and the dichotomy of Fate versus Free Will...
See Videos Samples and more images and descriptions from Loom of Lila HERE
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THE CHORONZON MACHINE
Photos (c)2001 Saskia Folk
Oct 31st (Beltaine Full Moon), Nov 2nd, 3rd 2001
Carlton Courthouse Theatre, Melbourne, Australia.
A Multi-Media Multi-Cultural Multi-Subcultural Ritual Opera, this epic musical play followed the Fool's journey through the Major Arcana of the Tarot.
The audience operated the play via the 3.33c wooden coins which are collected to start each new scene of paired polar trump cards. The coins started the Tree of Life (interconnected spinning sephiroth Wheels) machine which generates the Play of form...
The CHORONZON MACHINE was also the launch of the first (signed & limited) edition of Orryelle's BOOK of ChAOS Tarot Deck
The CHORONZON MACHINE Ritual Opera is NOW A FILM. The original footage from the already spectacular live production has been edited and enhanced with effects, animations, and diverse studio-recorded music.
The first ever feature-length (80 mins) film of a MetaMorphic Ritual Theatre Production.
The CHORONZON MACHINE FILM -which features the Fool's Journey through the Tarot major arcana- was launched on April Fool's Day '06. For video samples and ordering information please CLICK HERE.
Beginning at the Red and White Springs, this production led the audience through the sacred landscape of Glastonbury, following the Fool upon his journey up the Tor with various scenes unfolding as other characters were met along the way...
Click on image above for photo-illustrated synopsis from this production.
' -Come, O mortals, Cross the Rainbow Bridge from Midgard to Valhalla, beCome your wode-self, and feast with the Gods!'
Click on image above for many photos, verse & video from this special one-off event at the beautiful MONSALVAT Medieval Village and Arts Centre in Eltham, celebrating the Imbolc (Sabbat Festival of the Celtic Fire-Goddess Bridgit) full mooon 2004.
Guests/in-it-I-ates followed the Holy FoolParzival on his quest for the Holy Grail around the grounds and chapel before being transported to the Great Hall of Valhalla for more music, merriment and wyrd theatricks around the feasting tables.
This Productions was a part of... :
The RAINBOW BRIDGE/
RAINBOW SERPENT
Performance Project
This is an ongoing project linking the Germanic/Norse mythologies Metamorphic Ritual Theatre have been exploring with the Rainbow Serpent energies of the company's homeland of Australia. The Rainbow Bridge of the Norse mythos, 'Bifrost' traditionally spans between the realm of the Gods ('Asgard') and the realm of mortal humans ('Midgard'). This link is exactly what Metamorphic Ritual Theatre engages with, as we invoke (rather than just 'act') divine archetypes into our mortal selves.
In this International performance project we explore the added dimension of linking the dreamings of different lands and cultures, with performances on opposite sides of the World incorporating elements of each other to bridge them. The Dreamtime land 'downunder' is translated into German as 'der Underwelt' (the Underworld) and a new angle is given on the Norse dreaming.
(For the full story of my revelations regarding this and related rites and performances see my
Video and Audio documentation of performances in the northern hemisphere are being incorporated into live performances in the southern hemisphere, and vice versa, and verse vica, creating a continuum linking this axis.
To see a short video from 'Le Pendu' (Melbourne June 1st 2004) incorporating these ideas, go through the Well of reMembrance image at left.
'DerGehangte from Down Under' / 'Le Pendu' and '8 Gates' (below) form the nexus of this cycle -reflecting through the Well of remembrance- with performances in Austria and England in 2003 feeding back into works (see 'Le Pendu' below) in Australia, with The FEAST of VALHALLA spectacle drawing together the Tarot and Norse threads of our work...
'Le Pendu' (the old French name for the Hanged Man tarot trump) See-Saws twixt Future (the Norn 'Skuld') and Past (the Norn 'Urd'), and twixt Thought (the raven Hugin, pictured on piano-accordian above) and Memory (the raven Munin), the Present (the Norn 'Verdanthi') as the fulcrum.
This piece is an extension of 'The Hanged Man aus der Underwelt' performance (below), playing with the relationship of divine and mortals self/s through timemit hguorht as Odin hung upon the World Tree sways and swings betwixt various polarities above andna woleb the Well of reMembrance, while his mortal reflection (the performer Orryelle) explores '8 GATES' in the Well below andna evoba
This production is a part of the ongoing RAINBOW BRIDGE Performance Cycle (see 'Le Pendu' VIDEO link in the Well above)
Black and White photographs by Kylee.
Video stills from the Launch of Orryelle's BOOK of KAOS Tarot.
More images from this performance HERE
The script and pictures of the version of Le Pendu @ The Feast of Valhalla
can be read and viewed HERE
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8 GATES (and 9 Worlds):
First performance (then untitled) in Melbourne Australia(Carlton Courthouse Theatre March Equinox 03) with "Emit fo yrotsreH feirB A" (see below).
2nd performance Edinburgh, Scotland -Cabaret Voltaire May 2003
3rd performance London, England -Vertigo Cinema July 03
4th Performance in Vienna, Austria -Lalish Theatrelab, 12th Sept 03 -photograph below copyright (c)Chris Miller
5th Performance Melbourne Australia -Carlton Courthouse Nov 03
6th Performance Melbourne Australia -Carlton Courthouse Theatre, 10th May 2004
7th Performance with Le PENDU (above) @ FACTORY 1, Abbotsford, Melbourne.
October 23rd '04.
8th Performance Bath, UK @ The OMPHALOS MAGICKAL FAIR -followed by a group ritual workshop of the 8 Gates Pathworking. Beltaine May '05.
9th Performance London UK (with Parzival ritual theatre and art exhibition of Orryelle’s drawings and sculpture for ‘Conjunctio’ (Fulgur 2008) -see Chalice of Ecstasy event above) -The Horse Hospital historic building and arts venue. Sept. 2007.
10th Performance near Oundle UK (with Parzival ritual theatre moving through the sacred landscape of the grounds) -Lyveden New Bield castle ruins -organised and promoted by Theatre Ophidia UK. 14th Sept. 2007
11th Performance Venice Biennale Italy (condensed to 30 mins as required for the event) as a part of the ‘Self’ Festival in the Venice Biennale -Palazzo Ca’ Zanardi 16th-century palace, 1st July 2015
(Image above. More documentation from the event Here)
An hour-long (approx.) solo piece which is part short play, part shamanic Underworld journey, concerning past lives, mythological interconnectivity, atavistic resurgence, the Dreamtime, mists, ravens and the density of matter.
Using hypnotic repetition and hceeps sdrawkcab Orryelle begins by taking the audience/initiates into trance and guiding them through a path-working to access past lives.
He then cuts to dramatically relating some of his own experiences with this journey-work, choreographing this tale onto a spider-web mandala used to ritually access 8 Gates of experience.
Shards and fragments of different lives and selves (including a Norse Viking, a sabretooth tiger and a fly-agaric mushroom) eventually link back up in a complex mosaic of non-linear relativity resolved in a paradox of profound absurdity/ absurd profundity.
This piece is also another noitcelfeR of 'DerGehangte from Down Under' (see synopsis below), in that it is the mortal Orryelle's journeys within the Well of ReMEMbrance which the invoked Wode-self of his previous performance peers into -the raven-borne Eye being the link betwixt the Nine Worlds.
Thus the version performed at the Carlton Courthouse Theatre on May 10th 2004 contained added 'Der Gehangte' video footage performance projected as the surface of the Well of reMembrance Odin hangs above/woleb
CLICK ON IMAGE above for a sample of some of this Video Material This production is a part of the ongoing RAINBOW BRIDGE Performance Cycle (see above)
3rd Performance June 1st at LaMama Theatre (Melbourne Australia -bookings), with 'Le Pendu' (see above)
-A short Neo-Classical play with Greek Gods in contemporary contexts, concerning the integration of the primal feminine into the psyche, devised and performed by Tessa Watson & Orryelle Defenestrate-Bascule.
The Patriarch Zeus (left) berates the crowd, telling them that it has come to his attention that 'mere mortals' such as they have been meddling with the new holographic technologies developed by Mt.Olympus inc., and tells of the punishment of 'a young punk known as Prometheus' for daring to pirate these new technologies. The Wisdom Goddess Metis (below) challenges His authority until Zeus flies into a rage and (with live percussion thundering) swallows Her in his swirling cape.
Zeus then proceeds to delineate what a woman should be like, until He projects from the front of His head (conscious mind) the Goddess of Civilization, Athena (right). She assists Zeus in the re-ordering of his Kingdom, but after she exits His headache worsens, until...
...eventually Medusa bursts out the back of His head (subconscious mind).
Zeus is initially turned to stone when He sees Medusa, but She seduces Him with her primal movements and he begins to move with Her, eventually integrating this rampant aspect of His psyche -no longer suppressable. They dance together to form a 'MeduZeus' Caduceus. They become one hermaphroditic horned figure (Bapho-Metis) with primal anima integrated, until Athena returns to deliver the final twist...
More images from the first performance of MeduZeus
and an extended synopsis on the SilKMilK 2 page
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Der Gehangte from Down Under/
The Hanged Man aus Der Unterwelt
Originally Performed at 'Les Orts' Literature Festival Nov 2002 in Nurnberg, Bavaria.
Later Adapted for New Year 2oo3 performance at Confest festival, NSW, Australia, and Jan 2oo3 Exodus festival Tenterfield NSW Australia.
4th performance at the Occulture Festival, Brighton UK, 19th July 2oo3. (photos below)
5th and 6th performances in Austria Sept. 2oo3. -Medieval Festival at a castle in Albrechtsberg, & The Arena in Vienna (photos below).
A short play about the Norse God Odin hanging from the World Tree and discovering the runes.
Odin hangs by one ankle in the classic Tarot Arcana XII posture (from a real tree where possible)
with the Raven Hugin (Thought) in the branches 'below' (above!) and the Raven Munin (MEMory) in the Well 'above' (seen with Norns below), reflecting each other with sound and movement.
After sacrificing outer sight for inner vision, Odin discovers the power of Logos and uses language to formulate and project His Will, yet it is in the Webs of the Three Norns (who in some performances are visible, in others implicate) or Fates who weave their webs about the base of the World Tree that the symbols are seen.
The work deals with the difference in male and female apprehensions of language, and with the intricate relationship between Will and Fate, resolving these apparent dualities as Odin sacrifices outer sight to look deep into the Well of ReMEMbrance.
The part-English part-German version of the play that Orryelle performed in Austria in Sept. 2oo3 had an added layer of reflective properties due to linguistic and geographical polarities between Germanic lands and the writer's homeland Australia.
There is also an element of physical theatre as Odin is pulled into different rune postures (from Jan Fries` "Helrunar", Mandrake of Oxford `93) by the Norns' threads while inverted...
These threads were etheric in earlier productions (below left) but in a Vienna performance physical threads were attached to fresh piercings in Odin's wrists and ankle (below right).
above -Occulture Brighton UK performance (left); Vienna Austria performance (right) 1
For more images (and account) from this performance CLICK HERE
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'EMIT fo YROTSREH FEIRB A'
1st Performance @ Cape Lounge Cafe/Bar (Melbourne)
-Friday 21st March EquinoXuliuqE 2oo3.
-for the Launch of the Book also called 'EMIT fo YROTSREH FEIRB A'
-with support musical performances by Wendy Rule, Kara Lamia, Phoebe Jacobs and Carmen.
2nd Performance @ The Carlton Courthouse Theatre, together with `8 Gates` (then untitled) solo semi-improvisational piece by Orryelle -see above.
- Moonday the 31st of March 2oo3
Right: Phoebe as Lachesis, the Weaver/Mother/Full Moon.
Transmitted verses of, 'The Book of the Spider' -Orryelle's independent and congruent apprehension of the astral grimoire also explored by Kenneth Grant -were adapted to dance, mudra and music (violin, cello, female choir, orchestral and eastern percussion), choreographed ritually upon an 8-rayed veve mandala. An adaptation of Orryelle's lunar adoration Liber QOPH vel HECATE was also included, along with other musical and ritual-theatrical expressions of Time and Fate.
18th Oct. 2002, 491 Gallery Leytonstone, London UK
THE DIONYSIAN UNDERGROUND Grapevine and THE ART ORGANISATION, in collaboration with Australia's METAMORPHIC RITUAL THEATRE Company and Scotland's HUMAN PRODUCT presented a night of orgiastic communion with the Spirit Worlds - the WILD HUNT Bacchanalia, a traditional and Dionysiac Samhain Sabbat adapted to today's technological context.
After a multicultural musical elemental circle-casting and Electrified Swordfight reconciling Old World Magic and Modern Technology (based on WEBSIGHT Exhibition performance), acoustic percussion and electronica converged into a night blending the ancient tradition of the Witches Sabbat and a modern magickal dance party.
With the Sex Priestessses of the Bauwder Orryelle danced psychotropic plants and their spirits into the cauldron, producing some real flying ointment then distributed to the crowd, while we supposited this Vinum Sabbati with greased broomsticks as in the Sabbatic tradition.
(Click on Wild Hunt Sigil below for further video stills and poetry from the event.)
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Crossroads
Performance at 'Span', a music/spoken word event as part of the Next Wave Festival, on the 24th of May.
Orryelle orated the words of the CROSSROADS Cross-section poem as he laid them (written on large pieces of paper) out in a cross on the floor; while various multi-cultural and multi-subcultural musician characters fil(l)ed in(the)formation as he went, until as at the axis of this site, where 'Here' crosses 'Now' all merged into a sometimes harmonious, sometimes discordant juxtaposition of Order and Chaos. Most of these strange characters had never even met before, let alone performed together, thus reflecting the festival's theme of 'Distance'.
It was Orryelle's Will as Spell-ed out during this ritual that the virtual Crossroads too continues to break down distances, developing as a nexus-axis of cross-cultural and cross-subcultural communications, as the new dream-maps emerge...
Melbourne Fringe Festival, Full Moon (5th) and Dark Moon (20th) Oct.98.
Shunyata Awarehouse, Fitzroy.
Chakra piercing/ quantum qabbala rituals, aligning the Chakras, as the primary esoteric energy system of the East, with the Tree of Life/Qabbala, a prominent esoteric tradition of the West, and incorporating elements of other ancient cultures in a post-modern context of Chaos Magic involving Horus, Maat and Pan Currents of magick.
On the full moon Five Elemental Initiates had each of their chakras pierced progressively upwards from base to crown, while costumed sephirothic birds danced for their corresponding chakras then assumed their perches upon a 3D model of The Tree of Life.
On the following dark moon the Five Elemental Initiates were woven together with thread (image above) through the jewellery retained in the chakra piercings from Part I, from crown to base down into manifestation, with birds dancing for their corresponding sephira as they left the Tree of Life.
Click HERE for script fully illustrated with drawings and photographs from the production.
Pentagrammaton Photos by Ben Last
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'Nectar'
-an adaptation of the Ancient Greek Eleusian Rites. Audience/initiates were led through a landscape within a rainforest setting. Greeted at the top of a steep hill by Hermes, their guide, they were brought to a Crossroads, where they met the triple-headed Goddess, Hecate, who offered them a choice of three paths -birth, death or return. Initiates (those who chose 'death' blindfolded) all eventually ended up in a field where Persephone rises up out of the ground, heralding the birth of Spring. Dryads came out of the trees, Demeter rejoiced and Hermes, shedding his lofty ideals of transcendence of desire, metamorphosised into/birthed His son the nature God Pan to have ritual sex with Persephone.
Music by 'The Harlequintet'.
The semi-script of this play appears in IMPious Magazine #2.
Performed in a valley in Rosebank, northern N.S.W. on the Spring Equinox '94.
130 in-it-I-ates were invited to dine, becoming Oddysseus's crew as the drama unfolded both around them and on the stage as viewed through a cracking Magick Mirror; eventually being transformed into beasts (they had been asked to bring an animal mask or totem) as the play culminated.
Click HERE for the illustrated script of this play.
Music by 'The Harlequintet'.
performed/ consume-ate-d at St. Andrews Hall, Vict., on the May full moon, '95.
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'The Gods Made Flesh'
- Audience are given balls of thread by the Spinner of the Three Fates at her spinning wheel as they enter the theatre. The play begins with a stark industrial 'rape of Gaia' scene, after which Orryelle invokes Kokopelli, the North American Indian incarnation of the Horned God, and dances with the burden basket of the woes of the world.
The play then shifts into the ritual creation of a 'flying ointment' made from various psychoactive herbs and fungi, with witches involved dancing around a cauldron. The ointment is then smeared on willing initiates' wrists, while performers employ the traditional application of inserting ointment-dipped broomsticks into vaginas and anus. As the atmosphere begins to warp, the Weaver of the Three Fates takes the end of Initiates' wool threads and weaves them into a web between audience and performers, through which they watch a series of ritual dances and scenes using the magickal symbols of basket, broom, mirror and candle.
Action becomes spontaneously chaotic at the end, with all previous characters (including audience 'plants') emerging to play and all previous musicians playing together discordantly. When the confusion has sufficiently escalated, 'Director' appears in sunglasses, tie and hawaian shirt and yells, 'CUT!!'. The Cutter of the Three Fates appears and abruptly cuts all the threads from web to audience.
Sudden blackness and silence, from which emerges the sound of the spinning of the Spinner's spinning wheel...
Live music by Orryelle, Alex Miller, Kelly, Zoid as 'The Harlequintet'.
performed at La Mama theatre, Melbourne Australia, on 23rd & 24th Oct. '95.
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'Mutating Mythos'
- The stage was split between microcosm -the Alchemist's Workshop with glass bubbles and tubes- and the macrocosm -the World Tree and the Well of Remembrance.
Interplay occurred between these two areas -e.g. the Alchemist swung a small pendulum in his workshop while Orryelle swung upside-down by one foot from the branches of the World Tree- as the drama progressed through the different alchemical stages of black, white/colours and red with appropriate sound, lighting and symbolic birds. The end of the play concerned the fusion of ancient mythology and modern technology.
performed twice at La Mama Theatre Melbourne Feb '95
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Arachne Ascendant
First performed at La Mama Theatre, Carlton, Melbourne, Vict. On 25th (full moon) and 27th of May, '94
Also performed at the '94 Winter Solstice gathering at 'Wolfgang's Palace', Colac, Vict.
A play about Arachne, a mortal weaver in Ancient Greece, and her weaving contest with the Goddess Athena, including poetry from Roman poet Ovid's 'Metamorphoses', culminating with her being turned
into a spider. The second half of the play concerns Arachne's
subsequent elevation to the stars, becoming the mysterious thirteenth sign of the zodiac and a lunar Goddess of fate and chaos.
Music by Alex Miller, Kelly and Orryelle, an earlier incarnation of 'The HarleQuintet'.
An open-ended necromantic performance ritual inwhich after taking audience through a shamanic trance journey with Romantic violinist Paganini and mythical consorts, Orryelle invokes the spirit of Paganini and plays his violin like never before.
- Performed as a post-interval coda with 'Arachne Ascendant' at the two La Mama performances.
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In its early years Metamorphic Ritual Theatre Company also performed visuals at several Mutation Parlour gigs: -firstly at the Toonumbah Festival (northern N.S.W.) '95, weaving webs around the stage. At New Years Confest '96/'97 the two groups fully merged in an aural/visual performance about clockwork/clockplay, eventually breaking down into the Dreamtime, inwhich performers Zen and Kia spiralled into the centre of a medicine wheel beside the stage, where they performed a chakra-piercing ritual in the centre.
Aspects of this performance and of M.R.T.'s first production, 'Arachne Ascendant' (above), were merged in a Mutation Parlour-Metamorphic Ritual Theatre show at 'Club Bacchanal', The Kirk, Sydney, N.S.W., on Friday the 13th, June '97. This performance saw the advent of the 'chaos clock' -a device incorporating wheels from the Spinning Chamber of the Labyrinth- which has since been developed and mechanised by Nygir for the Carnival Saturnalia.
Images (except where otherwise credited) and Text (c) 2015 Orryelle Defenestrate-Bascule
This is an ongoing project linking the Germanic/Norse mythologies Metamorphic Ritual Theatre have been exploring with the Rainbow Serpent energies of the company's homeland of Australia. The Rainbow Bridge of the Norse mythos, 'Bifrost' traditionally spans between the realm of the Gods ('Asgard') and the realm of mortal humans ('Midgard'). This link is exactly what Metamorphic Ritual Theatre engages with, as we invoke (rather than just 'act') divine archetypes into our mortal selves.
An hour-long (approx.) solo piece which is part short play, part shamanic Underworld journey, concerning past lives, mythological interconnectivity, atavistic resurgence, the Dreamtime, mists, ravens and the density of matter.
-A short Neo-Classical play with Greek Gods in contemporary contexts, concerning the integration of the primal feminine into the psyche, devised and performed by Tessa Watson & Orryelle Defenestrate-Bascule.
