A
D I V I N E
BY LEAR DEBESSONET
This is the story of how a divine encounter with Anne Bogart changed my life. It was 2001, and I was 20 years old. I had wanted to be a director since early elementary school, but growing up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, I wasn’t sure what the life of a professional director entailed. Mine was a theatre of church, Mardi Gras, and football games—it was JOY, exuberance, and, most importantly, community. By the time I was 18, though, I was holding a lot of wild existential questions, and an ache filled my heart. I wondered if theatre might be a place for that ache and a place where questions could be not necessarily answered but entered. When my college directing mentor, Betsy Tucker, pointed me to Anne Bogart’s essays, I knew I had found my Guide. I’d like to phrase this gently, but I can’t—I became OBSESSED with Anne Bogart. First, I read her book Viewpoints, and then I read everything else I could find about her (reviews of her shows, interviews). I got a long black sweater like one I saw her wear in a picture and felt oh-so-directorly when I wore it. Anne appeared in my dreams, usually gold and glowing, one time legit sitting on a throne (I know, I know). She spoke about directing in a way that to me signaled spiritual practice. The director was approaching the altar with fear and awe, organizing a rehearsal room to leave space for a visit from the Divine. Because Anne devised original pieces out of a question, I believed her method would allow me to crack into the longing in my spirit, the rageful despair and great hope I felt, and the questions about God in the world. That summer, I attended the SITI Company’s training at Saratoga Springs, a rite of passage for many. There, I got to see her work. It was for me, as Anne might say, an aesthetic arrest. Never before had I understood that the languages of space, body, movement, breath, and lighting speak as powerfully as text. Her work moved me in a way I didn’t understand. I’d find myself crying at the sheer beauty
E N C O U N T E R
of when the company held completely still. When I watched Will Bond perform his solo piece, Bob, I didn’t realize until the end that I had been holding my breath, leaning forward so far I almost fell off my chair. Anne’s work was a romance and an awakening. And I had no idea how she made it, but I knew I wanted to learn.
“Anne taught me that this type of fear is part of making art. It doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong—it means you are doing something right.” That summer, Anne taught me that there was actual power in being scared shitless. My mom used to tell me and my sister that if we were ever in a shipwreck, we shouldn’t waste time fighting the initial sink—we should let ourselves float all the way to the bottom and then push up from the ground with all our might. If kinda scared was the float down, scared shitless was the ground from which you could rocket up.
W I T H
Less than a year later, during my last semester in college, I faced the question of how to begin. How does a director begin? How does an artist make a life? I had no idea. I thought I might want to move to New York, but I had also grown up to believe New York was a place of danger and sin, and that a young woman from the Deep South might get smushed at her first step off the bus. As spring approached, I felt inspired by a plan. I would take a discernment trip to New York City. I bought a cheap plane ticket (it was a strange time, so shortly after 9/11) and stayed with the one friend I knew. I mostly spent those days walking around the city, imagining what it might be like to live there. After two days, it was time to fly home. My heart was full. I sat down in LaGuardia Airport and opened my prayer journal onto my lap. I was writing earnestly, praying God would see me in my smallness and confusion and guide me, when I glanced up—
Anne taught me that this type of fear is part of making art. It doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong—it means you are doing something right. Terror means you have your hand on the Ouija board. It means that’s the moment when you have to act—make a choice. Even the Suzuki method her company practiced was a physical metaphor for enduring discomfort and rising from the ashes. (Sidenote: I was never an athletic person, so the idea that a director needed physical training that involved stomping around a dance studio in biking shorts and socks scared the bejeezus out of me, but hey! I faced my fear!) That summer was a crucible in which something new could be born.
Anne Bogart PHOTO Michael Brosilow
SPRING/SUMMER 2021 | SDC JOURNAL
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