The Parsifal Project: a community arts project
2022-06-13 - 2025-05-04 | Living Arts Centre, Mt Barker School, 27 Sims Road, Mount Barker, SA, 5251
The Parsifal Project

The Parsifal Project is a 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 the talents of a diverse cast and a script written by playwright Peter Oswald, the project aims to make a significant contribution to our understanding of the Parsifal legend in light of Anthroposophy, as a 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.
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 five 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 -May 2025: The Parsifal Project performance
Saturday 26 April at 5.30 pm ACST
Saturday 3rd May at at 5.30 pm ACST
Sunday 4th May at 2.30 pm ACST
Venue: Living Arts Centre, Mount Barker Waldorf School, Mt Barker, SA

Project Director: Jo-anne Sarre, Artistic Director of Ink Pots Arts
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.

Feature image credit: Seamus McArdle
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

Complementaries and Counter Images: Working with Steiner's How to Know Higher Worlds through Art
2023-02-10 14:00 - 2023-05-19 16:00 (Australia/Sydney) | Victoria
A masterclass studio
with Fiona Campbell

Imaginative exercises based on meditative exercises given by Steiner in How to Know Higher Worlds using colour, archetypal processes, observation and contemplation
This 7-session course provides an artistic entry into his preparatory exercises of inner and outer observation, contemplation and moral development. It aims to nourishes creativity and feeds the soul life.
Through exploration of the complementaries and counter-colours, we can strengthen both our imaginative faculties and our life forces.
You don’t have to be a trained artist, or even very experienced, to enjoy this course, but you do need self-motivation, some knowledge of Steiner’s meditative and colour work and some painting technique.
Background information
With the increasing, encroaching advent of AI-generated images filling our screens, through film, tv and internet, the essential creativity that lives in the soul of every human being is under threat. AI-generated art is not creative. It does not arise out of human creativity but out of machines. In the face of this attack on our human-ness, we need to bring a counter-impulse by strengthening our capacity to create inner images.
By working artistically and contemplatively with colour and the forming forces, we can nurture the emergent qualities of our humanity, such as our uniquely human capacities to create and to think and to think creatively, We can counter this dehumanising force,
We need to enliven our inner images to counter the life-destroying images of AI-generated art.
Who are the masterclasses for?

For artists, art therapists and art students looking to find a path of soul/spiritual development through the arts.
For anyone seeking a non-intellectual pathway into Steiner’s meditative path.
For anyone interested in gaining an appreciation of art as a revelation of spiritual realities through painting.

To get the most out of this course, it is anticipated participants will work on their own between the fortnightly sessions.
Required: familiarity with the anthroposophic approach to art and painting skills. Watercolour wet-on-dry skills is preferred but other techniques, such as wet-on-wet or chalk pastels are acceptable but technical advice is not directed towards these media.
Please note: this is not a step-by-step instructional class so not suitable for beginners in painting unless you are adventurous and self-motivated!
What dates are the classes?
2-4pm AEDT Friday afternoons
10 February-19 May
The workshops are recorded but live participation is preferred, unless your time zone makes this impossible.
How much does it cost?
Online series: $260 for 7×2 hr masterclasses, including video recording.
How do I register?
Registrations closed. Come back next year!
Payment details and a list of suggested materials and readings available upon registration.
For more information
For more information about the masterclass or for any questions, please contact Fiona Campbell

About 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 and arts educator for more than 30 years.
She is also teaches interdisciplinary research training and consciousness studies. She is a member of the Stream of Life Research Studio, where her focus is phenomenology and creative cognition and is creative consultant for the multimedia Parsifal Project.
Fiona has been involved with Anthroposophy for over 40 years and brings a wealth of knowledge and experience about the core principles and practice of Steiner’s work to her classes. You can find out more about her artwork or listen to an ABC Soul Search interview with her about the anthroposophical approach to art.

“Colour is the soul of Nature and of the entire cosmos…” Rudolf Steiner

Photo image: Black Study I, Fiona Campbell 1996, courtesy of Fiona Campbell

Form Drawing for Teachers
2023-02-19 - 2023-03-12 | Online
The How, the Why, and the When of
a Linear Language of Form in Education

Online workshops with Van James, artist, author, educator based in Hawaii, USA
About the workshops

What is the underlying importances of Form Drawing?
How does it benefit the growing child?
Why is it taught in Steiner-Waldorf schools and when (at what grade levels) is it appropriate and most beneficial?

We will address these questions and many more in this practical online art course for teaching children the creative art of form drawing.
Who are the workshops for?
For class teachers, homeschool parents, art instructors, art therapists and educational specialists.
No experience necessary.

Dates

In Asia: Sundays February 19 and 26 & March 5 and 12 2023,
9:30 AM – 11:30 AM (Indian Standard Time)
In USA: Saturdays February 18 and 25 & March 4 and 11, 2023,

Cost
Rs.6995 = $105 USD
Registration
Please look here for more details.
For more information
Please contact Van James at the Nurturer’s Studio

About Van James
Van James is an artist, author, Steiner-Waldorf educator and international advocate for the arts. A longtime teaching-artist in Hawai’i and a mentor for Gradalis Teacher Education. Van is a council member of the Visual Art Section of North America, a mentor with the Academy of Himalayan Art and Child Development, editor of Pacifica Journal, and an award-winning author of numerous books on culture and the arts including Drawing with Hand, Head and Heart, The Secret Language of Form: Visual Meaning in Art and Nature and the recently published Teaching Art History: Engaging Adolescents in Art, Cultural History and the Evolution of Consciousness.
Find out more about Van James here or Click here for Van’s YouTube Channel on painting

“We must begin with inner, not outer perception, by stimulating in the child a strong sense of symmetry. Even in the case of the very youngest children we can begin to do this. For example: we draw some figure on the blackboard and indicate the beginning of a symmetrical line.Then we try to make the child realise that the figure is not complete; they must find out how to complete it. In this way, we awaken an inner, active urge in the child to complete something as yet unfinished.This helps them to express an absolutely right conception of something that is a reality. The teacher, of course, must have inventive talent but that is always a very good thing. Above all else the teacher must have mobile inventive thought.”

In A Modern Art of Education by Rudolf Steiner
