II
What The Beggar’s Opera is Not
Dears, before getting any answer at all on my previous letter, I have to write to you again because of a matter that causes me some unrest.
I saw recently in an Art Fair a “fake” beggar. I spoke with him and he told me he was the work of an artist. I went and spoke with the artist about his intentions and reasons, what was behind the work. He told me he basically wanted to attract attention to social unjustice by reminding the superficial public of an art fair that misery existed. He had created a company where unemployed people begged for money at cultural events, and he paid those people. The name of the company was “Misery Unlimited”, and the company was what he considered his work to be. So as to say, he produced an "artifice" (the beggars were fake, perhaps they were unemployed, but they were not beggars) to remind people of a truth (misery).
Without wanting to go into criticism about that project, I feel is necessary to clarify from the very beginning some points about "The Beggar’s Opera".
1- It is not a social project. It is not our intention to draw attention towards the less fortunate sectors of society. It is not our intention to criticise cultural events nor cultural public. We do not consider ourselves to be better than them, worse if anything.
2- It is not your mission to “disguise” yourselves as beggars. You are not “infiltrated” in the community of beggars, and your aim is not to get money. This said and this being clear, you might act as beggars or decide to disclose your true identity, you may beg and accept money, or not, you may adopt any of the beggar attitudes and beggar character-identities described in the previous letter, or create new ones, but you will do all this with the only intention to create an interesting situation. That’s all that matters.
3- Your aim is to gather information about the city, the people and the enormous cultural event that is Munster Sculpture Projects. You use these informations to get at your second, more important aim: to construct a character (The Beggar) that is part of the public space landscape of Munster, and to construct a good Story made out of the every day stories you see and you create. These stories, these good stories, are to be told and to be read in the internet site of The Beggar, and in the theatre presentation we will regularly make.
4- If we have to choose a model, at the moment I am specially inclined to choose the model of Diogenes, the cynic, the dog.
Hope to get soon a reaction from you, all best,
Dora
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