res 8

P A U L I N E O L I V E R O S

Montano: Your work is not definable. You are always examining

new aspects of your reality. In the seventies you were interested in per-

forming and composing rituals. Is there anything from your childhood

that you can remember doing ritualistically?

Oliveros: I used to play in the dirt with lead toy soldiers underneath

our house in Houston. It was around the time of World War II, and

this play was my way of relating to the earth and dealing symbolically

with the adult world. Every day I would go outside, through the pas-

ture and woods, down to the bayou to look at and catch crawfish. That

was a repeated action or ritual. Later, as a teenager, I would do a re-

peated action every Sunday: I would listen to the New York Philhar-

monic on the radio, then go for a walk in the park, go for some Texas

barbecue, go to a movie, and, finally, come back at night to listen to

Toscanini and the NBC orchestra on the radio. I did this alone for

many years.

Montano: Why did you become interested in composing rituals?

Oliveros: Just as playing with toy soldiers brought order to my life

during World War II, performing ritual events in the seventies served

the same function during the Vietnam War.

Montano: Did you purposely incorporate ancient sounds and instru-

ments in your own rituals?

Oliveros: I suppose I drew on ancient materials. I remember visiting

the Pueblo ruins in  at Mesa Verde in the southwestern Four

413 R i t u a l / D e a t h

montano_a_b_i-xvi_001-538 10/30/00 16:09 Page 413

Corners. The pit dwellings, earth forms, and accounts of that way of

life had a profound impact on me, and even though I didn’t experience

any rituals there, I saw the relics, the way of life, and the living plan.

Another influence was karate training, which I began when I was forty

years old. I drew on the attention states from that discipline, translating

the information and working on it in my music through that period.

Karate was a strong influence because having to work out that hard

each day affected everything that I did. Right now, because my life is

chaotic, it’s interesting to see how difficult it is for me when I don’t

have order in my daily life.

Montano: Are you developing any new rituals to counteract the

chaos?

Oliveros: I’ve done my work consistently all my life, and it’s there as

an anchoring force, so that no matter how chaotic my emotional and

spiritual life is, I can still do my work. The work itself becomes a ritual.

It settles me. If I were physically threatened, that is, living in El Sal-

vador or Guatemala and had to survive that way, it would be difficult

to work. I would have to develop a different survival strategy. Now my

exploration is interior. The kind of ordering that interests me comes

from the inside out, not from the outside. So actually the irregularity

and chaos have been interesting elements to work with. In the recent

Science News there are studies on the mathematics of chaos. In the tran-

sition from order to chaos or chaos to order, there are universal pat-

terns. I’m now beginning to feel movement to order. I’m experiencing

a new body feeling. I can see the edge, a more regular pattern.

Montano: Rituals are concerned with efficacy, results in the per-

former and audience, not making things. Was that your interest?

Oliveros: Yes, I wanted the work to effectively change my mind. It’s

about centering.

Montano: There are many kinds of rituals and many kind of offi-

ciants.

414 R i t u a l / D e a t h

montano_a_b_i-xvi_001-538 10/30/00 16:09 Page 414

Oliveros: In some rituals there are officials appointed to office, and

their efficacy is by this appointment; they have to learn certain proce-

dures to officiate. Those procedures don’t necessarily require deep con-

centration. Then there are officials who are practitioners, and their ef-

ficacy is dependent on attaining greater awareness or attention through

practices. The efficacy of the official and the officiant is dependent on

that attainment. It’s a mode of consciousness. A good example of this

way is the Tibetan Tara ritual. The officiant spends seven days and

nights in meditation, visualizing the form of Tara, and then he confers

her qualities on the recipients at the public ritual. Both ways have their

importance.

Montano: What rituals do you prefer now?

Oliveros: In daily life I want a pleasant rhythm. A dailiness so that

there is sharing, interaction, and a feeling of completion and accom-

plishment that comes from that rhythm. In art, it’s the preparation and

performance or execution of a work, the total cycle. In spiritual prac-

tice I prefer Tibetan initiations. For example, tonight I’m going to be

initiated in the Medicine Buddha. I will make an effort to do that even

though it means that I will drive back upstate to Woodstock from the

city this afternoon for the initiation and then come back tomorrow for

my concert. It’s that important to me.

Montano: Are there any American forms that excite you?

Oliveros: Right now the shopping mall interests me. I’m doing a

piece with Tony Martin called The Shopper’s Opera. That whole scene

is certainly an American ritual. One way of making the mind attentive

is with spectacle. The Shopper’s Opera goes right into the marketplace

and, hopefully, the spectacle will heighten and illuminate the meta-

experience of shopping so that people may receive the metaphor of

shopping or find the nonordinary in the ordinary experience. That way

when they go back to the shopping mall the next week, after our

event, they will have something to heighten their experience.

415 R i t u a l / D e a t h

montano_a_b_i-xvi_001-538 10/30/00 16:09 Page 415