Posted by Susannah Snider

And it was completely worth it.

In fact, I would have surrendered a year of sunbathing to see the panel of experts--opera director Peter Sellars, visual artist Bill Viola and director of the USC Brain and Creativity Institute Antonio Damasio--discuss myth as it relates to Wagner's Ring" cycle.

The three men graced REDCAT Theater's stage for an afternoon of what Damasio called "monologues, dialogues and tri-alogues."

The discussion began with Damasio's scientific explanations of myth-making as a purely human activity, something that even chimpanzees, our closest cousins, don't do. Myth is so crucial to us, he explained, that it may even predate spoken language.

The panelists had a magnetic chemistry. Viola and Sellars listened raptly to Damasio's lecture, soaking in the scientist's take on storytelling. The two artists connected as well, revealing that they share books and philosophies.

Viola described myth as a structural part of our culture, comparing it to the lines on the informational paperwork you fill out at the DMV--it organizes and categorizes our essential information. He argued that myth has taken on a disparaging meaning, standing for "untruth," when it actually has an essential place in the architecture of our society.

Sellars--who was characteristically decked out in a loud shirt, his hair spiked up six inches above his head--described myths as horrifying tales, devices to help humans prepare for the worst. The "Ring" creates a world where love is impossible, he explained, inaction (via suicide) is the only form of redemption and every effort the characters make yields horrid results. "If you thought you were f**cked up, then these myths are really f**cked up," he said to the audience while Viola exclaimed, "Don't scare them!"

As the lectures wound down, Viola screened his installation piece, "Three Women," a supremely affecting work in which three female figures emerge from a grainy black and white film into vivid color, then disappear again.

Possibly the best part of the afternoon was Sellars' decision to bring the "Ring" myth up to speed with the current economic situation. He spoke on how Capitalism had failed us, arguing that the youngest generation (my generation...yeek) will fare worse than our parents'. Sellars sees the "Ring" as an economic treatise that "[speaks] to the last 18 months of American life."

"All those Goldman Sachs palaces will have to end in the giant blaze of Valhalla," he said.

Two hours later, the crowd emerged from the dark theater (pitch-black because the lights had gone out during the last few minutes of discussion) into the LA sunshine. There was a good hour of beach weather left in the afternoon and a lot to think about.