RAPTURES FROM THE GODHOLE Will Debut at Philly Fringe

What does mysticism have to do with recess? Is quantum superposition the cause of your suffering? Do you really know your ABC's? Enter the psychotic portal of the primordial preschool prophet with MAZEL's RAPTURES FROM THE GODHOLE. Selected for the Cannonball Immersive Award, the show debuts in the Philadelphia Fringe Festival September 18th-20th, in a takeover of Box Spring Gallery. Journey through timespace on the wings of a demented fractal, in search of the ancient origin of light.

Why do things have holes? Why don't we fund public education? Is the universe a human centipede? All life's questions, answered! The eyeball, the wellspring, and the slime sublime await.

RAPTURES FROM THE GODHOLE is an epic work of social-political-cosmic commentary. The work is informed by 3 threads: MAZEL's career as an early childhood educator; MAZEL's background in speculative theological studies and Jewish mysticism; and MAZEL's amateur scientific interests in amoebas, particles, and quantum physics. The culmination is a masterfully entwined madness of science, mysticism, philosophy, and humanity. RAPTURES FROM THE GODHOLE powerfully juxtaposes early childhood development as a parallel portal to the development of the cosmos.

'I call it 'The Applied Mysticism of Toddlers,'' artist MAZEL explains. 'Through my work as an early childhood educator, I have been re-immersed close to the place where life comes from, in this visceral, primordial, incredibly powerful place. Kids are an embodiment of cosmology and continuous creation, echoing something essential of both mysticism and science. Through witnessing young children's continuous creative consciousness, I have come to imagine them as accessing a 'realm of revelation.' I see children as funnels of infinity, whose eyes can still access the prism of all possibilities. Yet they're very quickly trained out of this.'

'Why don't we all explore, dance, sing, or create anymore? In schools, kids are confined and corrected over and over again for years until they no longer play. Having taught in both a public 1st grade context and a private preschool, I have been on the front lines of this socialization. Our country's capitalistic and carceral underpinnings determine the function of our education system. Kids can't help but wiggle, wonder, experiment, and imagine, echoing the infinite, ever-expanding universe. Yet we force them to sit still and shut up all day, telling them 'FIX YOUR BODY' and 'TURN YOUR VOICE OFF' – until we have successfully churned them out into workers. It felt like we were trying to squeeze away their life force, to warden their spiritual, somatic, expressive death. This is where I got the idea of a 'Godhole:' that infinite wellspring our systems wish to kill.'

When asked what the purpose of the piece is, MAZEL laughs and says: 'Well, ideally I'd cause the total restructuring of public education. Realistically, I hope to relight the god-spark in the eyeball of one adult human, for one moment.'

Don't Miss a Philadelphia News Story
Sign up for all the news on the Summer season, discounts & more...