Mandala
and the Men's Movement(s)
by Clyde Smith (1999)
For Graduate Students' Conference at The Ohio State University
Based on Masters Theses (Smith, 1995)
In this paper, which is based on a larger study,
I discuss an interdisciplinary dance/performance work called "Mandala"
in order to forefront it as an example of what R.W. Connell (1995) terms
the “enormous possibilities of re-embodiment for men” (152).
Created and performed in various incarnations from 1988 to 1992 by the
male members of Contraband, a San Francisco based dance/performance company,
"Mandala" illuminated themes often associated with the mythopoetic
men’s movement. However, "Mandala" was influenced by multiple
men’s movements largely unfamiliar to the general public, by feminist
and queer forces and by the openly experimental nature of gender exploration
in San Francisco. These multiple influences not only make it difficult
to compartmentalize this work, but also bring into question reductionist
critiques of the mythopoetic men’s movement that fail to consider
its reception at a grassroots level, what Michael Schwalbe (1996) terms
the “mythopoetic rank and file” (12). In the title, I refer
to men’s movement(s) in the plural to indicate that, like the women’s
movement, the organized activities of men directed towards personal and
social change are multifaceted and sometimes conflicting.
"Mandala" was an evening length
men's performance piece created and performed by Keith Hennessy, Jess
Curtis and Jules Beckman who were then core participants in the dance/performance
company Contraband under the direction of Sara Shelton Mann. "Mandala"
began as a short piece called "For Your Own Good" in the spring
of 1988 and was developed through an ongoing process resulting in a reasonably
final version which I saw in December of 1990 at Theater Artaud in San
Francisco. This paper is a partial overview of a larger study which draws
from my memory of the event, a videotape of the December performance,
interviews with Keith, Jess and Jules, relevant literature, including
writings by the performers, and my own lived experiences of the issues
raised in "Mandala." In this writing all unattributed quotes
are from interviews I conducted with Keith, Jess and Jules in March of
1995.
I originally encountered “Mandala”
during the time I lived in San Francisco from 1989 to 1992. Upon my arrival
in the Bay Area, I realized that I had landed in a sort of "life
laboratory" in which identities based on gender and sexuality were
in an exploratory state of flux. Humans who could not readily be assigned
traditional gender roles or who crossed those boundaries were in evident
abundance. San Francisco was a sexually open and ambiguously gendered
milieu where life, art and politics fluidly intermingled rather than remaining
separate. This setting formed the context for my initial reception of
“Mandala” and for its creation. In the course of this study,
I came to understand that “Mandala” can be viewed, in Renato
Rosaldo’s (1993, orig. 1989) words, as a “busy intersection
where a number of distinct social processes intersect” (17). San
Francisco, its cultural context, is not “a self-contained whole
made up of coherent patterns” but more a “porous array of
intersections where [such] distinct processes crisscross from within and
beyond its borders” (20).
"Mandala" utilized dance, performance
art, music, props, text and lighting to create a powerful theatrical event.
The artists describe their work in the booking information as,
a full evening performance tracking the ecstatic journey of three young
Euro-American men, seeking an initiation into the world of their fathers
at the same time that they must reject the world that their fathers have
created. They search their bodies for a truth that is not apparent in
the image of the American male. They create a ritual of sweat, breath
and blood. The movement of sport and battle release age old knowledge
of themselves and their ability to love life, the world and each other.
The event began in the street in front
of Theater Artaud and then proceeded inside. Keith Hennessy, in a note
accompanying the videotape, described the opening scene as,
a "pre-show" of uninitiated male chaos. Doing contact with a
moving car & no driver. Colliding with an abandoned car. Drinking
beer, smashing the bottles & . . . pissing off the car. A mock/dance/fight
in which Jess dies. Jules & I set fire to the abandoned car &
drive away.
The performance continues inside in three sections with a brief coda.
The first section uses song, dance and performance art to introduce various
themes. If the opening spoke of who the performers were at an earlier
time, this section speaks of who they were when they began work on this
project. It includes references to sport, to revolution, to abandonment,
to loneliness. The second section is a series of monologues by each man
about his relationship to his father. In many ways, this section is the
core event of the evening. Each monologue reveals personal information
via performance art techniques and each is sad and powerful in its own
way. All three share a theme of abandonment. The third section focuses
on who the men have become through "confronting" their fathers
and working as a group. This section builds to a ritual event involving
nudity, purification, knives, dancing and drumming. As an encore they
sing "Nine Hundred Miles," a folk song cut from the show that
each of their fathers had sung to them when they were young.
During the course of the evening, we saw
men in process from wild, "uninitiated" males to men confronting
their fathers to men drawing together in ritual mode to realize their
own maturation. The themes of men being with men, men and their fathers
and male initiation into adulthood were central to this project. We witnessed
men playing, working and moving together, revealing personal material,
touching and supporting each other and making a lot of music. Most of
the songs considered men's experiences of various kinds. Percussion also
played a large part in this performance and the men's drumming turned
the cavernous space of Theater Artaud into an aural environment.
The underlying structure as well as the
creation of "Mandala" drew on an approach to ritual inspired,
in part, by the mythopoetic men's movement. Keith Hennessy was deeply
involved in the mythopoetic men's movement and Jess Curtis and Jules Beckman
were also influenced by such activities. All three wrestled with issues
addressed in this movement, including a concern with men creating space
to do healing work with other men as well as a focus on fathers, ritual
and drumming.
The mythopoetic men's movement emerged
in the early 1980s identified, in large part, with the publication of
Keith Thompson's (1991, xviii) interview with Robert Bly in New Age magazine
in May of 1982. This movement focused on gatherings of men doing rituals
grounded in mythological work, particularly Archetypal Psychology, which
is both a branch of and a name for Jungian psychology developed by James
Hillman. Hillman and Michael Meade were key figures in these gatherings
as were many other men. Keith points to Bly, Hillman and Meade as particularly
influential on his thinking at the time. As these activities grew in popularity,
the mass media both publicized and parodied them. In the process, Robert
Bly became synonymous in the public eye with the mythopoetic men's movement
and his writing and commentary began to stand in for a diverse grouping
of people.
Feminists and other social critics who
critiqued the mythopoetic men's movement often did so by focusing on Bly
and Iron John (1990), once it was published. These critiques rightly called
Bly and, occasionally, other figures on their misogynist tendencies. Susan
Faludi (1991), in Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women,
portrays Bly in an extremely unfavorable light. She characterizes the
"true subject of Bly's weekends" as "power--how to wrest
it from women and how to mobilize it for men" (310). In fact, the
very notion of men only meetings upset many critics. Jill Johnston (1994)
states that "these meetings smack of the paranoid and racist overreactions
of the David Dukes of the world, who feel that white (male) societies
are threatened by black advances, however miniscule these advances actually
are" (29-30).
These and other criticisms are well worth considering and if reports by
figures like Faludi and Johnston are correct, then Robert Bly is not the
benevolent creature one might imagine. But Bly is not the mythopoetic
men's movement and this movement is not the only manifestation of men
organizing to change themselves. In fact, the Contraband men received
and participated in the mythopoetic men's movement in the context of multiple
men's movements with an acknowledged articulation of feminism's impact
on their lives.
Keith Hennessy (1992), in a pamphlet addressed
to the "media-identified men's movement," says that he "intends
this essay to be a bridge between three overlapping 'men's movements'--mythopoetic,
socio-political, and gay spiritual" (3). He identifies the mythopoetic
movement, grouped around such figures as Bly, Meade, and Hillman, as primarily
heterosexual. The socio-political men's movement is composed of groups
addressing "issues of racism, classism, rape/abuse/violence, homophobia,
sexism, poverty, censorship." He identifies these men as "a
lively mix of gay, het and bisexual men."
Keith describes the "gay spirit community"
as a "loose web which includes, among others, Radical Faeries, the
work of Joseph Kramer, Harry Hay, and Andrew Ramer, the spirit-based SM
communities, and 'alternative' AIDS healing circles and services."
These men he identifies as "primarily gay and bisexual" and
he asserts that all these movements are composed of men who are "primarily
european-descendent, american-born and middle class." Keith, who
leads a variety of men's workshops, writes,
I offer these images to the men who claim Robert Bly, Michael Meade,
James Hillman, and Robert Moore as teachers because it is in their presence
that I was inspired to first speak these words. I offer my queer anarchist
pagan artist voice in the spirit of solidarity with all the voices--of
women, of indigenous peoples, of african and asian- americans, of latino/[s
and latin]as, of the institutionalized, and more--who speak to liberation
and revolution and peace and respect for the earth. (10)
Keith, Jess and Jules all share this larger
perspective of what men's movement is and can be. They also recognize
that much of what they do is inspired by women's work. Jess Curtis points
out that,
the feminist movement has . . . an awesome impact on a lot that we
do ranging from the art world and Judy Chicago and Linda Montano, the
impact that feminist women have, like Karen Finley. That work's all
really important. And then the work of Reclaiming and Starhawk's writing
. . . I remember Keith turning me on to reading Mary Daly and, wow,
that's a really incredible perspective that she presents in a critique
of the systemic misogyny of our culture . . . She was a real inspiration
around seeing the roots of and how pervasive the conceptualization of
misogyny is.
This learning from women includes bringing these lessons into
working with men. Jules states,
I definitely know that growing up I felt a sense of envy about
the way that women seemed to naturally touch each other and
acknowledge each other and compliment each other and support each other.
. . . I had an envy of that. And I saw this quality of sisterhood that
I knew that I wanted in my life with my brothers . . . And I mean brothers
in the larger sense. And for me, figuring out what the obstacles to
having that . . . was a lot about learning what it was to be male.
Part of what was learned from women was not
only that the "personal is political," which informed feminist
performance art and the making of "Mandala," but also the necessity
for gender specific space. During the women's movement, women created
women's only space to do the work that they found necessary and that they
could only do with other women. While men's groups also emerged in the
1970s, some of which were men only support groups, the widespread creation
of spaces to facilitate men changing did not emerge. In certain respects,
the mythopoetic movement appeared because of that void. So, in recognizing
the limits of that particular movement, we also have to recognize the
needs that are expressed by some men's positive reception of the mythopoetic
men's movement.
An important feminist figure, bell hooks
(1994), thinks that,
men have not fully named and grappled with the sorrows of boyhood in
the way feminism gave us as women ways to name some of the tragedies
of our "growhood" in sexist society. I think males are just
beginning to develop a language to name some of the tragedies for them--to
express what was denied them. (212-13)
While hooks acknowledges the value of men gathering with men she also
points out that "men's groups, like women's support groups, run the
risk of overemphasizing personal change at the expense of political analysis
and struggle" (1984, 72). The issue of an "overemphasis"
on personal change is often included in critiques of the mythopoetic men's
movement.
Keith believes that stopping the abuse
of women by men can be an important aspect of men gathering. However Keith
also points to "issues of emotional safety and protection,"
and what he terms "archetypal or spiritual reasons that . . . men
need to have spaces where men gather." Keith states,
I know the history of men gathering . . . especially white men bonding
with their own secret languages is not generally a good story for women
or people of color. And at the same time I want to say, it still needs
to happen . . . [some] white men . . . still need to gather in their
own support groups and process stuff that they can't elsewhere or have
experiences they can't elsewhere.
My own reading of such issues is greatly influenced
by my experiences in San Francisco. In particular, my understanding of
what men's space can be occurred while dancing with a men's dance company,
The High Risk Group. This was my first truly positive experience of working
in a group of men. Earlier experiences of male violence and competitiveness
caused me to feel unsafe with other men. During this time with The High
Risk Group, I experienced a profound sense of the possibilities for men
coming together for self healing and cultural action.
Studying "Mandala" also lead
me to a fuller understanding of the unfulfilled potential represented
by the multiple men’s movements. In the late 1960’s, the United
States saw the emergence of a women's movement that has since affected
every sector of our society. Even where positive changes have not resulted,
people remain conscious of gender issues. As the women's movement emerged,
a small number of men began to support feminist activity and to find ways
to facilitate men changing themselves. These attempts included men's support
groups as well as male critiques of such separatist activity.
One powerful document of this interaction
of men with the women's movement is The Women Say, The Men Say (Shapiro
& Shapiro, 1979). This document reveals that the women's movement
had male allies from the beginning, yet this support has gone largely
unrecognized. bell hooks (1984) notes that,
men who have dared to be honest about sexism and sexist oppression,
who have chosen to assume responsibility for opposing and resisting
it, often find themselves isolated. Their politics are disdained by
anti-feminist men and women, and are often ignored by women active in
feminist movement. (79)
R. W. Connell (1995), a sociologist of “masculinities,”
also points out that,
men who try to develop a politics in support of feminism are not in
for an easy ride. They are likely to be met with derision from many
other men and from some women . . . they will not necessarily get warm
support from feminist women. (150)
This lack of support from women and the inability
to enlist men who choose to benefit from the “patriarchal dividend”
(150) does make it difficult for men to find new ways of being that can
change gender relations. "Mandala" represents one way of proceeding,
in its syncretic mix of men’s movement, feminist and queer influences
as well as its example of what Connell terms the “enormous possibilities
of re-embodiment for men” which demonstrate that “there are
different ways of using, feeling, and showing male bodies” (152).
Jess Curtis, Jules Beckman and Keith Hennessy produced a work at the intersection
of many social processes. It is at such sites where those who desire the
free play of gender possibilities in a just society must stand, embodying
and prefiguring the world we wish to inhabit.
References
Bly, R. (1990). Iron John: A book about men. New York: Vintage Books.
Connell, R. W. (1995). Politics of changing men. Socialist Review, 25
(1), 135-159.
Faludi, S. (1991). Backlash: The undeclared war against American women.
New York: Crown Publishers.
Hennessy, K. (1992). Addressing the queer man's role in the new world
anarchy and the future of the men's movements in the dis/United States:
A letter to the media-identified men's movement from Keith Hennessy. San
Francisco: Abundant Fuck Publications.
hooks, b. (1984). Feminist theory: From margin to center. Boston: South
End Press.
(1994). Outlaw culture: Resisting representations. New York: Routledge.
Johnston, J. (1994). Secret lives in art: Essays on art, literature, performance.
Chicago: a cappella books.
Rosaldo, R. (1993, orig. 1989). Culture & truth: The remaking of social
analysis (2nd ed.). Boston: Beacon.
Schwalbe, M. (1996). Unlocking the iron cage: The men’s movement,
gender politics, and American culture. New York: Oxford.
Shapiro, E., & Shapiro, B. (Eds.). The women say, the men say: Women's
liberation and men's consciousness. New York: Dell.
Smith, C. (1995). Mandala and the men’s movement(s). University
of North Carolina at Greensboro: Greensboro, NC.
Thompson, K. (Ed.). (1991). To be a man: In search of the deep masculine.
New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher.
Clyde Smith can be reached at: clydesmith(at)culturalresearch(dot)org
Content ©1994-2007 Clyde Smith |
