"Life, revolution and theater are three words for the same thing: an unconditional NO to the present society." - Julian Beck
"Paradise Now ... more relevant now because we're closer to now than we ever have been." - Hanon Reznikov
Arthur Magazine proudly presents our newest release
PARADISE NOW: The Living Theatre in Amerika
DVD featuring rare, never-before-distributed films and a bacchanal of
revolutionary multimedia documents from The Living Theatre's historic and
influential '68-'69 American tour. A fulminating art-meets-life installation
brought to you in collaboration with
The
Living Theatre and Universal Mutant, Inc.
PARADISE NOW ANTHOLOGY DVD direct from ARTHUR using PAYPAL - ORDER NOW!
USA - $29.95 postpaid
Canada - $34.95 postpaid
World - $39.95 airmail
PREVIEW ON YOUTUBE
- PARADISE NOW: THE LIVING THEATRE IN AMERIKA
(1969) a film by Marty Topp, produced by Ira Cohen for Universal Mutant
"Marty Topp's beautiful film of 'Paradise Now' reveals how the theories of
revolutionary change and the experience of sexual liberation are not separate paths to the beautiful nonviolent anarchist revolution. Practiced together
they are a single thrust, encompassing both political action and sensual joy,
leading to the dreamed-of terrestrial paradise." -- Judith Malina
- EMERGENCY: THE LIVING THEATRE (1968) a film by Gwen Brown,
featuring precious footage of Living Theatre productions
Mysteries and smaller pieces,
Paradise Now, and
Frankenstein
"The fusion of Brown's freewheeling direct cinema and the Living Theatre's
performance for revolutionary change (amidst the heydays of both) unite as a
dynamic concoction of the era, yielding for the viewer a shifting terrain of
both critical insight and ecstatic zeal, not as a vacant nostalgia for a
pre-commodified radicality, but as tactical inspiration for future days." - Andrew Wilson of Artist's Access Television
- THE PERMANENT REVOLUTION: CHANGE! (2007) a film by Will Swofford and Georg Gatsas
On Thursday August 23rd, 2007, in the south plaza of New York's Union Square The Living Theatre presented Paradise Now in the streets marking the 80th anniversary of the capital executions of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti - Italian immigrants unjustly executed for their anarchist political convictions.
Witness the restaging of their landmark play Paradise Now in New York's Union Square on the site of a historic mass protest by over 500,000 supporters of Sacco and Vanzetti on the fateful day in 1927 when they were electrocuted by the State of Massachussets.
COMMEMORATIVE PRINTED MATTER
- TWO DOUBLE SIDED 14 x 19 POSTERS 1) THE MAP OF PARADISE as drawn by Julian Beck and 2) AN INFRARED ODYSESSY a stunning montage of photographs by Don Snyder from Paradise Now at Brooklyn Academy of Music
- 36 PAGE FULL COLOR MAGAZINE BOOKLET including texts by Antonin Artaud, Allan Graubard, Julian Beck, Judith Malina, Ira Cohen, Don Snyder, photographs, stills from the films, ephemera and much more
ADDITIONAL SPECIAL FEATURES
- INTERVIEWS with directors Julian Beck*, Judith Malina, Hanon Reznikov, company member Steve Ben
Israel, and producer Ira Cohen *(courtesy of Mark Ari)
- THE SPINNING WHEEL by Steve Ben Israel,
soundtrack to EMERGENCY sourced from
agit-prop radio broadcasts
- LOVE & POLITICS, an introduction to the themes and personalities at the heart of the work of The Living Theatre, including scenes from The Living Theatre repertory and poems and texts by Malina, Reznikov, Julian Beck. Filmed at The Pink Pony NYC and LaMama ETC with an introduction by Ira Cohen
- FULL THEATRICAL SCRIPT SLIDESHOW of Paradise Now, A Collective Creation of The Living
Theatre, as written down by Julian Beck and Judith Malina documenting more than 100 performances of the event
- MYSTIC FIRE GALLERY of excerpts from Living Theatre documentaries including Sheldon Rochlin's watershed documentary, Signal Through the Flames
- AKASHIC VIDEO GALLERY of excerpts from current and forthcoming Arthur DVD releases
In 1968 The Living Theatre, led by Julian Beck and Judith Malina, triumphantly
returned to America from years of self-imposed exile in Europe with their
theatrical breakthrough Paradise Now. The
play introduces the practice of collective creation, dissolving the boundaries
of human interactions and forging a harmony between the actors and audience. Of
this process, Julian Beck writes, "Collective creation is the secret weapon of
the people... This play is a voyage from the many to the one and from the one to
the many. It's a spiritual voyage and a political voyage, a voyage for the
actors and the spectators. The play is a vertical ascent toward permanent
revolution, leading to revolutionary action here and now. The revolution
of which the play speaks is the beautiful, non-violent, anarchist revolution.
The purpose of the play is to lead to a state of being in which non-violent
revolutionary action is possible."
The result of this shared voyage is the spontaneous creation of a temporary
anarchist collective- free from the enslavements of war, violence, the State,
money and the self.
"Paradise Now is possibly The Living Theatre's greatest achievement ...
unsurpassable!" -- Ira Cohen
"This past spring, in a group art show at New York's Swiss Institute, an old
black-and-white television played a grainy print of bodies writhing to the tune
of distant drumming. 'As long as you have people working for money and not love,
there will be violence,' intoned a tall, angular man on the screen. The bodies-
women in scant bikinis and men in what looked like loincloths-piled together in
an orgiastic tribal dance, some simulating (or perhaps actually having) sex as
the voice continued: 'Psycho-sexual repression is impeding the revolution.' What
looked like an underworld-of the 1960's counter-cultural variety, in this case-
is the Living Theatre's Paradise Now, as documented in the 1969 Ira
Cohen-produced film Paradise Now: The Living Theatre in Amerika ... soon
to be released on DVD from Arthur Magazine." -- CAN THEATER STAGE A REVOLUTION?
- Traci Parks, Fall '07 Preview, V MAGAZINE
"Joyous, brutal, exploding with the kinetic energies of psychic catharsis...
Marty Topp's PARADISE NOW: The Living Theatre in Amerika has captured the
essence of this extraordinary theatrical experiment. It is unquestionably
one of the finest artistic documentaries to come out of the United States
cinema. It's heartfelt sincerity should be sheer inspiration to the many
young people throughout the country who are struggling to make meaningful and
influential work. It is the reverberation of a crucially important message
that must not be neglected, for the consequences are too terrible to endure.
Marty Topp's achievement is not just in the making of a great film, but in
making us remember again, Paradise as a reality." - PARADISE ON FILM - Don
Snyder, July 1970, East Village Other
"Like an astonishing portion of the country's popular music, the spectacles of
The Living Theater proved to be in content and form outside the social system-
not structured by it nor, except as outlet, implementing it: liberated
territory." -- Revolution at the Brooklyn Academy - Stefan Brecht, The Drama
Review number 43: Spring 1969, The Living Theater Issue
MORE ABOUT THE LIVING THEATRE
Founded in 1947, The Living Theatre has staged more than 80 productions
performed in eight languages in 25 countries on four continents - a unique body
of work. Visit their new space on Clinton St. in NYC - more
info:www.livingtheatre.org
IRA COHEN'S "THE INVASION OF THUNDERBOLT PAGODA" DVD -- SECOND PRINTING SOLD OUT!!
Celebrated internationally for more than 35 years, Ira Cohen's legendary 1968 film The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda will be available again June 1, 2007 as a fully restored director's cut DVD. Featuring more than two hours of ritual hallucination and primordial sounds, Invasion is a psychedelic bullet to your third eye, made possible by Arthur Magazine in collaboration with The Ira Cohen Akashic Project and Saturnalia Media Rites of the Dreamweapon.
Ira Cohen says: "It was in 1968, the year before Woodstock, between the giant bottle of liquid mercury Tony Conrad found in a doorway on 42nd St. and the Mylar chamber, we experienced a shared voyage conceived in three parts: The Opium Dream, Shaman and Heavenly Blue Mylar Pavilions, an alchemical journey born of out common consciousness -- culminating in the akashic bindu drop swirling in the sky's reflected azure. No minimalism here, but a maximalist adventure . . ."
DVD FEATURES
* High-quality transfer from the original 16mm film, with color correction supervised by the director
* The legendary soundtrack, newly remastered by Tim Barnes, featuring The Universal Mutant Repertory Company (Loren Standlee, Ziska Baum, Angus MacLise, Hetty MacLise, Raja Samayana, Tony Conrad, Henry Flynt and Jackson MacLow)
* Two new, never-before-released alternative soundtracks to "Invasion" by Sunburned Hand of the Man and Acid Mothers Temple SWR (Tsuyama Altsushi, Yoshida Tatsuya and Kawabata Makoto)
* 16-page commemorative booklet featuring mylar photography and poetry by Ira Cohen and Angus MacLise, and critical texts by Ian Macfadyen and Allan Graubard
* "Brain Damage," a new film directed by Ira Cohen and produced by Saturnalia created from never-before-seen original 16mm outtakes, featuring a new soundtrack composed by Will Swofford with the Expanded Instrument System
* "From The Mylar Chamber," an original slideshow of 60 mylar photographs with soundtrack by Angus MacLise and original poetry by Ira Cohen.
* Director's Commentary track by Ira Cohen
ABOUT "INVASION"...
"Long, Strange Trip for a Hypnotic Film": New York Times on the making of the film and DVD
"Underground film maker, poet, photographer and multimedia shaman Ira Cohen has finally realised his 1968 masterpiece on DVD."--Edwin Pouncey in The Wire (Sept. 2006)
J. Hoberman in the Mar. 16, 2006 Village Voice: "Part 'Dr. Strange,' part 'Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome,' ['The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda' is] so High '60s that you emerge from its 20-minute vision perched full-lotus on a cloud of incense, chatting with a white rabbit and smoking a banana.... 'Invasion' is a languidly opiated costume ball in which an assortment of masked and painted bohos, some sporting outsize elf ears, loll about a candlelit, Mylar-lined set, blowing soap bubbles and nibbling majoon. ...In lieu of action, Cohen uses all manner of superimposition and prismatic image-splitting; his big effect, however, is the deliquescent Mylar reflection. What saves 'Invasion' from preciosity is the vague menace of Angus MacLise's improvised pan-piping, tabla-tapping, creature-yipping score. Although this masterpiece of Tibetan-Moroccan-Druidic trance music was reissued on CD several years ago, it truly blossoms in conjunction with the exotic smorgasbord served at Cohen's psychedelicatessen."
