conference of the birds

I was reading some stuff about Peter Brook and his approach to theatre. We based a lot of our conversations around the film on discussions we were having about 'Conference of the Birds' and Peter Brook's excursion to Africa where he ran his actors through the mill to get some sort of collective experience going. Its seems like a very sensual process, and its designed in a way to move away from cliche or intellectual approach, so there might be something new and unified created as a result. Importantly both the actors (participants) and audience are considered equal parts of the same triangular existence. Affirmation, Negation, Conciliation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conference_of_the_Birds
and
http://www.gurdjieff.org/nicolescu3.htm
"The most spectacular illustration of the crucial, primary role of experience in Brook’s work is perhaps in the preparation for Conference of the Birds. Instead of plunging his actors into a study of ‘Attar’s poem, or committing them to an erudite analysis of Sufi texts, Brook led them off on an extraordinary expedition to Africa. Confronted with the difficulties inherent in a crossing of the Sahara desert, obliged to improvise in front of the inhabitants of African villages, the actors went inexorably towards a meeting with themselves: ‘Everything we do on this journey is an exercise … in heightening perception on every conceivable level. You might call the performance of a show ‘the grand exercise.’ But everything feeds the work, and everything surrounding it is part of a bigger test of awareness. Call it ‘the super-grand exercise.54 Indeed self-confrontation after a long and arduous process of self-initiation is the very keystone to ‘Attar’s poem. This kind of experimental, organic approach to a text has an infinitely greater value than any theoretical, methodical or systematic study. Its value becomes apparent in the stimulation of a very particular ‘quality’: it constitutes the most tangible characteristic of Brook’s work."
AND:
http://www.nancho.net/advisors/brook.html
"To ratchet that up one more level, beyond the individual performer, there are certain times in even a simply good play, when the cast will sort of congeal [Yes.] into a living, intuitive whole or awareness. [Yes!] Can you as a director intuitively participate in that unity, and what do you think of that state of group mind?

PB: That is what the director is for.

How can discipline and spontaneity be made to coexist and interact? Where does spontaneity come from? How can one distinguish true spontaneity from a simple automatic response, associated with a set of pre-existing (if unconscious) clichés? In other words, how can one differentiate between an association—perhaps unexpected, but nonetheless mechanical—with its source in what has been seen already, and the emergence of something really new?

http://www.gurdjieff.org/nicolescu3.htm

Quantum theory has its place in the ‘Valley of Astonishment’ (one of the seven valleys in Conference of the Birds) where contradiction and indeterminacy lie in wait for the traveller.