Synopsis
Once a western interpretive dancer in Toronto had gone way neutral and silent from the times, the place, and her conditioning. A serendipitous phone call from a Canadian woman friend invited her to Bali. Followed by a dreamtime vision by a Pemangku Dalang, a Bali Priest-Shadow Puppeteer, dressed all in white welcomed her into his Holy Mountain culture. He presented stories, symbols, masks, and music. She’s given the name of a Bali dance teacher who works with the Pemangku. She accepts and enters a quest for her roots of dance, her life itself through their traditional Agama Bali Dharma culture, with a Shiva cult emphasis, within the theatrical arts of Bali. Tantra embeds every move with prescribed formulas, for Bali, as an island, considers itself in balance of Good and Evil.
The dancer experiences through energetics. Silenced and mused, she loves. The suffering of Karma chastises on her heels. Transformation through her fingertips and toes. A crimson flower blooms. Characters accessible through dance in Bali inhabit each archetype, that reveals a feminine and masculine voice, accessible to any gender, a way toward using a voice with power, humor, and joy in the world today.
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Music: Etude #1 by Phillip Glass, Piano solo by Anton Batagov
“Work to meet the needs of your existence by bringing the feelings throughout your body to life so that every part of it feels responsible for your role as a human being...”
Susila Budhi Dharma, Muhammad-Subuh Sumohadiwidgogo. 1975 | Subud Publications International
Buy The Book
Leaning Against Mount Agung is the story of author and dancer Marti Reggio. Her formative journey from her childhood in California to her study of dance in Canada and New York City. An unexpected invitation and a mysterious dream leads her to Bali where her journey continues, learning individual spirit-movement dance and absorbing the Bali Hindu Dharma, Buddhist and Muslim culture. Tantric arts celebrate the folktales, legends and myths in this memoir.
COMING SOON
You are not alone
Those facing barriers of stigma. You’re not alone. Acknowledge experience leads to change. Take-in the value. Travel through, in, and of the Holy Mountain arts in Bali and modern arts and psychological culture of North America. First time author Marti Reggio shares her journey.
Buy the AudioBook
The AudioBook narrated by the Author Marti Reggio, takes us on a journey from Toronto to New York City and across the sea to Bangkok, Java and Bali.
“As with visuals, text is best heard when spoken aloud. Break the silence and observe the rhythm of your voice to find meaning in the word. In repetition, I found my voice pulsating with hers, our journeys. That way, we may think we know. She takes us to places we've been or never been. Through cavernous memories and hopeful yearnings of an artistic woman, we approach the unknown. Discovery is the goal.”
- GODFREY REGGIO, director of Koyaanisqatsi of the Qatsi Trilogy; Once Within a Time
COMING SOON
“The canary in the mine shaft, locked in a golden cage with no means of escape from a toxic environment, surrounded, with only the song in its heart. An unseeable tiny cave in a heart, the brilliance of a Star. It’s not from the Sun, it’s distant, my Star. ”
MARTI REGGIO | LEANING AGAINST MOUNT AGUNG
A Short Film Based on the Memoir
“We see the world through language, but our language may no longer describe our world. Marti has left one world to try to see another. Her search for literacy is not unlike how humans first dance and learn to read. Long before pictographs and alphabets, through metaphors of Earth, air, water, and fire. It is into this elemental place she has submerged. Entering a wilderness where language was reborn.” - GODFREY REGGIO, director of Koyaanisqatsi of the Qatsi Trilogy; Once Within a Time
Photo courtesy of Linda Carfagno
“Marti is a natural at dialogue, non-linear style, poetics, multi-layered, all at once. Can land it.”
Kate Braverman 1949-2019 | Novelist, short story, poet, SANTa fe
Thanks to the New Mexico Film Foundation and their generous support.
If you would like to donate to Marti Reggio’s documentary short project SIGHT UNSEEN, scan the QR Code below
If you prefer to write a check,
Payee: New Mexico Film Foundation
MEMO: Sight Unseen
Address: 313 Camino Alire, # 8, Santa Fe NM 87501
All donations are tax deductible to the donor
“I am not the best person for writing these things. I truly absolutely love your book and could relate to in in such a deep intimate way but not sure I know how to capture what I felt/experienced in words. I could dance it to you better than write about it….”
PAULA MACALI | Integrative Bodywork
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