Jeff
Grygny: Art & Vision
Jeff Grygny is currently writing his first novel, a philosophical science fiction adventure entitled "Pyrates of the Kozmos."
He spent 2006 and part of 2007 living and working at Shambhala Mountain Center, one of the oldest and most respected meditation retreat centers in the United States. Acting as Head of the Department of Practice and Study, he was responsible for ongoing classes in Buddhist practice and philosophy, arranging sacred environments, and organizing and assisting with tantric rituals as taught by Lamas of the Kagyu and Nyingma lineages of Tibetan (Vajrayana) Buddhism.
Early Theater Experience
Grygny's theatrical activities started in Whitefish Bay High School, where drama teacher Dale Gutzman was writing and directing excellent student productions. Jeff continued working with Gutzman both onstage and behind the scenes at Milwaukee's University School, a private school, where Grygny, at 19, played Polonius to Mark Waters' 15- year-old Hamlet. (Waters, a.k.a. Mark Rylance, was eventually to become the Artistic Director of Shakespeare's Globe Theater in London.)
Undergraduate Study
At the University of Wisconsin, Grygny took classes in Philosophy, Film, Science, Psychology and Literature. He took two classes with the eminent literary scholar Ihab Hassan, sometimes known as "The Father of Postmodernism." Hassan's polythematic analysis of literary material made a deep impression on Grygny's developing intellectual views, and he adopted a title for his Interdisciplinary major: "Relations of Mind and Matter," a thematic synthesis of Psychology, Comparative Literature, and the philosophical implications of modern physics. Grygny's thesis paper, "The Next Scientific Revolution." predicted the eventual unification of Art and Science (a prediction which, while yet unfulfilled, has made great progress with evolutionary sociology, chaos theory, and magnetic resonance imaging of living human brains.) Grygny graduated with honors and was inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa honors fraternity in 1976.
Post-College Employment
With a fresh degree in Interdisciplinary studies, Grygny entered the work force as a Shakespearean actor with the People's Theater, a federally-funded multiracial professional theater company with the mandate to perform Shakespeare scenes in Milwaukee public schools. Grygny applied his mask-making talents at Barnes-Lorber Costume Company making mascot heads. And he began doing street theater at King Richard;s Rennaissance Fair in Bristol, WI, where every summer for twelve years his projects grew into a theater company: "The College of Wizards," performing comic fantasy plays and skits, years before Harry Potter. He directed a few plays, and appeared with his college friend Bob Zimmerman as Gruffyd and Snedgus, the singing, dancing druids of Milwaukee's Irishfest.
Introduction to Dharma
After college, immersed in the counterculture of the 70s, Grygny continued speculating on some of the themes of his studies: archetypes, evolution, consciousness, and being. Finally following the common spiritual dictum that some kind of tradition was needed for a deep inquiry, he sought out a teacher, and discovered that a small Tibetan Buddhist study group had just opened in Milwaukee on North Avenue, directed by respected physician Dr. David Shapiro. The teacher was the controversial lama Chogyam Trungpa, whose charisma, humor and artistry inspired Grygny to spend several years studying meditation, eventually taking initiation into the teachings of Vajrayana, the Buddhist esotericism preserved in Tibet and brought to the West in the Tibetan diaspora. Joining theory and practice, these teachings gave Grygny's academic speculations life and body, and became entwined with the course of his research for the next twenty years.
Graduate Study
After working for a few years as a truck driver and school bus driver, Grygny entered the Master's program at the University of Minnesota. Somewhat of a young turk in the conservative theater school, the head of the department once called him "One of the most difficult students we've ever had." (This was probably from asking difficult questions, rather than from destructive behavior, though he recalls once removing a carpet from a stage against department policy.) While there, he wrote a one-act play about William Blake's trial for treason, which was staged as part of the School's one-act festival. He acted in several departmental productions, including Schnitzler's "La Ronde", and played the title role in Moliere's "The Miser." For this performance he received a nomination for the Irene Ryan acting award.
Intrigued with current trends in literary studies, Grygny sought out an advisor from the English department, and wrote a thesis paper on postmodernism in performance, along with a history of dramatic theory and a structural analysis of Alfred Jarry's avant-garde classic "Ubu Roi."
Doctoral Study
Grygny entered doctoral study at a new Interdisciplinary Humanities program at the University of Texas at Dallas at the invitation of renowned Theater scholar Robert Corrigan, whom Grygny had met while taking theater courses at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee when Corrigan was Dean of Letters and Science. The Interdisciplinary Humanities Graduate Program hosted original scholars and an international student body. Grygny dug into postmodern theory with a purpose; he intuited that in the postmodern critique of 18th century assumptions harbored openings for a deep reconstruction of human knowledge harkening back to ancient notions of wisdom, yet accessible to the insights of quantum physics, making possible a deep reconciliation among the polarities of science, art and spirituality.
Part of these investigations led Grygny to take summer classes at the Naropa Institute, a contemplative college founded by Chogyam Trungpa, site of programs in psychology, writing, dance and theater. Grygny learned mudra theater practice, said to be based on traditional Tibetan sacred dance training, the intensive experiential discipline known as "Bodymind Centering" and contemplative movement. By the end of these classes, Grygny had discovered the technical means to join theory and practice of contemplative performance. Returning to Texas, he began a prolonged experiential study of somatic disciplines, including authentic movement, contact improvisation and tai chi, and a year-long participation in a movement improvisation group called "Nine Fish Jumping." He also participated in departmental productions and created two original performances "The Edwardian Mystery Play" and "A Little Show of Alchemy."
Performance artist and Macarthur grant recipient Fred Curchack, feminist epistemologist Nancy Tuana and Dean Corrigan, along with Naropa faculty Lee Worley, comprised the advisory committee for Grygny's doctoral thesis: Playing Out: Practices and Views of Contemplative Performance."
Post-College: Teaching and Other Employment
By the mid- 1990s, the climate of American culture and Academia were no longer open to revolutionary philosophies. The market for University Humanities teachers was- and remains- sparse. After a month-long trip to Nepal, where he visited various sites sacred in the Vajrayana tradition, Grygny found a adjunct faculty position at Columbia College, a private undergraduate school in Chicago, and taught "Humanities for the Performing Artist" and "Critical Thinking." He applied his understanding of performance practices to create innovative ways of teaching literature, history and philosophy.
Unable to live on part-time teaching, Grygny began working a series of administrative jobs. He worked for three years as an Administrative Assistant at the Community Renewal Society, a century-old social service organization operated by the progressive United Church of Christ.
Performance work in Chicago: 1997-2005
In 1997 Grygny began making original performance in Chicago, starting the Charybdis, a multi-arts space in Wicker Park. He wrote and performed "Love Transformer" an alchemical ritual, with the Avant-Garde Blue Rider theater, and for the "Dreaming the Divine" spirituality performance festival he wrote and performed "Padmasambhava and Yeshe Tsogyel Tame God," a farce based on the meeting of Christianity and Tibetan Buddhism. He acted in Murder Mystery comedies, and played roles in various corporate and non=-profit evetns.
He also produced "The Edwardian Mysteries" in Chicago. The play, a metaphysical masque involving literary, artistic and occult figures from the turn of the 19th century, brought the audience into the action of the play and was dubbed "brilliant and subversive." by the Chicago Reader. Grygny continued to make original performances in underground venues, and collaberated on ritual performances with the Chicago Radical Faeries, a gay anarchist pagan group. After the U.S. invasion of Iraq he organized rituals for peace, and participated in the massive street actions in Chicago. In 2005, as part of an internet performance called "Witches and Wizards for a Free World" he made "The Art Magik" a short comic video with deep ecological themes.
