The Parsifal Project: a multimedia community project
13 June,2022 @ 12:00 am - 30 April,2025 @ 11:59 pm
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The Parsifal Project
Ink Pot Arts Inc, in collaboration with Painted Space, is a multimedia community project that aspires towards a contemporary envisioning of the famous medieval legend, one that recontextualises the Parsifal legend for a modern multicultural audience.
What is it about?
Writers, poets, philosophers and artists tell us that myths and legends hold spiritual insights into the sacred wisdom of past cultures, but what about the spiritual insights we need to navigate our current world? Drawing on the cultural heritages we bring with us, the Parsifal Project seeks find meaningful resonance between this medieval myth and contemporary intergenerational audiences.
Using rigorous scholarship and the talents of a diverse international cast of creatives, the project aims to make a significant contribution to our understanding of the Parsifal legend in light of Anthroposophy, as a truly cosmopolitan Michaelic impulse and as a metaphor for modern human development. The story is our future; if so, its mythic themes could be critical to today’s youth, to all of us. It’s a creative initiative essential to our times.
Building on the two intensive stages of 2022, we are now working towards Stage 4 performance in 2025, using the script written by playwright Peter Oswald and informed by the experiences and insights of the performance cast.
How can I get involved?
But there is still time for you get involved! And this is a unique opportunity to take part in the development of this multifaceted process. Become part of the performing company or do a course with us. There is a regular speech class working on the theme in Mt Barker, SA and regular webinars on the historical, mythical and spiritual background to the story.
We are also looking for funding and support, such as accomodation in the Adelaide Hills March-April 2025 for performers from interstate.
Contact us! for more information.
Whether your interest is in the spiritual foundations of the legend, the literature, creative writing or performing, there is something here for anyone and everyone fascinated by the whole collection of Grail legends and its interpretations, medieval or modern, book or film.
Timeline for the project
The project has four stages highlighting different arts and media:
June – July 2022: Parsifal Unpacked
Completed. Explored the original story through performance, literary text and thematic discussion.September – November 2022: Parsifal Reimagined
Completed. A series of writing workshops where we reimagine the story through the lens of current cultural perspectives.January 2023 – November 2023 : Parsifal Rescripted
Ongoing script development in conjunction with performance-based creative development intensives with on-the-floor exploration on the themes explored in Stages 1 and 2.February 2024 – February 2025: Parsifal Reinterpreted
Auditions, eurythmy and music workshops from February. Rehearsals begin in April 2024, using the script based on Parsifal Rescripted.April 2025
Performance dates TBA at the Living Arts Centre, Mount Barker Waldorf School, Mt Barker, SA
Find out more
Project Director: Jo-anne Sarre, Artistic Director of Ink Pots Arts
Creative Consultant: Fiona Campbell, Painted Space
About the facilitators
Jo-anne Sarre
Jo-anne Sarre has worked in the performing arts sector as a freelance director, actor, storyteller, playwright and educator since her four-year Speech and Drama training at The Harkness Studio, Sydney in 1986. She has a Diploma of Teaching (Primary 1980-1982), a Diploma of Creative Speech and Drama (The Harkness Studio in conjunction with The Goetheanum School of Spiritual Science 1983-1986) and first-class Honours in Drama (Flinders University 2009). Other trainings include MICHA in the US and various Michael Chekhov practitioners in the UK and Europe (1997-2009).
Jo-anne has performed in local, national and international arenas as an independent performing artist including as a freelance storyteller, with the Aphaia Eurythmy Group (Poetry Recitation), and as an actor with Ink Pot Theatre, The Rose Theatre Company and Portal Productions UK (The Soul’s Awakening). During her career, she has trained Steiner/Waldorf teachers across Australia (Rudolf Steiner College, Sheoak College), in the UK (Emerson College), India and China. This includes supporting teachers in their own artistic development in poetry recitation, storytelling, acting and directing as well as assisting in classrooms, directing plays etc with both primary and high school students. In 2016, she was also Assistant Voice Coach at Flinders University Drama Centre with Dawn Langman.
As co-founder of Ink Pot Theatre (the professional touring company) and founding Artistic Director of Ink Pot Arts Inc (a community arts not-for-profit), she has been actively engaged in bringing high-quality theatre as a catalyst for personal transformation and community cultural development inspired by Anthroposophy.
Fiona Campbell
Fiona Campbell is a visual artist, researcher, lecturer and arts educator. She has an interdisciplinary PhD on creativity and cognition and has been a professional artist, writer and arts educator for 30 years.
She is a member of the Stream of Life Research Studio which explores the phenomenological nature and spirituality in human life; she also teaches research training, cultural and consciousness studies in higher education.
Fiona trained in visual arts at Tobias School of Art, England. As well as her doctorate (UTS), she holds a BA Honours in English & Linguistics (Macquarie University), a MA in Information Science (UTS) and a diploma in Waldorf Education (Emerson College), a diverse range of studies and trainings that inform her teaching and research work. She also has specialist training in Communications, Anthroposophic studies, sacred art and cultural studies, notably the Arthurian and Grail legends.
You can find out more about Fiona at Painted Space, or listen to an ABC Soul Search interview about her anthroposophic-inspired approach to painting.
Want to be involved? Contact us!
Image credit: How Sir Galahad, Sir Bors and Sir Percival Were Fed with the Sanct Grael: but Sir Percival’s Sister Died by the Way (1864), Dante Gabriel Rossetti. (c) Tate. Photo: Tate
Photo credit: Jo-anne Sarre
“Most societies have come to define themselves by their historical myths and national narratives. We are, who we say we are… People grow up believing they live within a story … what is the story we believe we are living within? Where is our narrative going? “
Prof. David Blight, 2009