A magnificent real-time performance of a sacred Buddhist sutra, from renowned theatre and opera director Peter Sellars in collaboration with a luminous group of artists.
In this creative response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Sellars directs three virtuosic artists in three continents. Each improvises in their own unique artform to create a simultaneous meditation on a passage from the
Vimalakirti Sutra, a foundational Buddhist text from around the first century CE. What can we learn from the pandemic? In the hands of Sellars, together with calligrapher Wang Dongling, dancer Michael Schumacher and South Indian singer Ganavya, the sutra is performed as an astonishing shared visual poem. Words become actions, and bodies become the bearers of the text’s message of pain, beauty and hope – ultimately offering a portal to transformation.
