Summary
Why were snakes at the original Olympics? How are the arts and sports intimately connected? How did the Greek tragedy come to be? Somehow, we cover all of these questions in Part 1 of our Special 2 Part Interview with Peter Sellars.
Peter, with his gift of storytelling, takes us on a journey to the Olympics in ancient Greece, where health, theater, and the arts were of equal importance in this celebration of togetherness. Fast forward to today, we look at how arts and sports are both lifelong commitments to navigating struggle in thrilling, liberating, and uniting ways.
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More about Peter Sellars
MacArthur Fellow Peter Sellars is a world-renowned Director and artist, regarded as one of the most influential opera, theater, and film directors of the past four decades. Peter explores challenging moral issues through his work, abstracting traditional performances into a socio-political spectacle. His work spans disciplines and cultures across both academia and art. He also happens to be a distinguished professor in the UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance, where he has taught since 1988, and is the founding director of the Boethius Institute at UCLA. As mentioned on the Boethius Initiative site, Peter’s work illuminates art’s power as a means of moral expression and social action. Sellars has led major arts festivals in Los Angeles, Adelaide and Vienna. His many awards include a MacArthur Fellowship, the Erasmus Prize, the Gish Prize, and the Polar Music Prize. Sellars conceived and directed “this body is so impermanent…” in response to the global pandemic.