This passage from Doris Lessing's Nobel Prize acceptance lecture caught my eye:
"What has happened to us is an amazing invention, computers and the internet and TV, a revolution. This is not the first revolution we, the human race, has dealt with. The printing revolution, which did not take place in a matter of a few decades, but took much longer, changed our minds and ways of thinking. A foolhardy lot, we accepted it all, as we always do, never asked "What is going to happen to us now, with this invention of print?" And just as we never once stopped to ask, How are we, our minds, going to change with the new internet, which has seduced a whole generation into its inanities so that even quite reasonable people will confess that once they are hooked, it is hard to cut free, and they may find a whole day has passed in blogging and blugging etc."
The whole lecture is fantastic, and thought-provoking - the sections on Africa are so moving.
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2007/lessing-lecture_en.html
Monday, January 28, 2008
EAR
One of the nice things about LIMF is that none of the performances outstayed their welcome; most were about the hour mark. Coming out of the QEH on Saturday, I saw there was some free music event going at in the RFH so, enhanced with January positivity from my reading of the Power of Now, I thought, I’m here, let’s check it out.
Well I was amazed. First of all, I had no idea there was a whole ‘nother level (in a downwards direction) to the RFH. The Spirit Level, in the basement, featured
a blue room, a gamelan room and lots of hip young things lounging about on very uncomfortable looking white blow up cushions. Plus a load of stragglers coming in from LIMF.
EAR stands for the “emerging artists in residence” at the Southbank. They have a microsite at www.southbankcentre.co.uk/ear.
First up I saw Japanese sound artist Mieko Shimuzu. To be honest, her first number was pants. I thought about toddling off. Luckily I didn’t cos the rest of her set was fantastic – kind of electronica influenced soul-pop in a Matthew Herbert / Jamie Liddell vein. Her recorded stuff on her myspace sounds really top notch: http://www.myspace.com/micouk.
Mico in the gamelan room
All this was as nothing to the jaw dropping set from cellist / composer / singer Ayanna Witter-Johnson. As soon as she started to sing, I saw the heavens open. It was one of those moments when the noisy room of over-excited kids all shut up at once. It was one of those rare and delicious moments when you see someone and know instantly that they are going to be a star. I thought she came across as the secret love child of Stevie Wonder and India Arie (yes that good!!) and, found myself telling her so later when I bumped into her in the main hall (the Power of Now has a lot to answer for). What I should have added though is that yes she sounded like that and also managed to fit in a dollop of contemporary classical into the equation, but also that she sounded completely unique, with her own distinctive sound and vibe. I’m not one prone to messianic fervour, but I think she could the one, the saviour of all that is good in music. http://www.myspace.com/ayannawitterjohnson
AWJ (centre) and friends in the blue room
Still reeling from AWJ, I caught the end of a performance by Natascha Eleonore which sounded great – great tunes, brilliant production and meaty samples/backing noises. And I read she is working with high end producers and various Afro-Cuban legends, and you know what, she sounds fresh and funky and I guess will be hugely popular. If they still have charts, she will be in them. http://www.myspace.com/organicurban
Back in the ballroom, I caught a set by Nila Raja. Hard to judge her on this; there were too many people talking / moving about and it was too big a space. It sounded good but you know, everything is relative, and maybe I was losing focus and presence in the now, so I came home for a nice cup of tea. http://www.myspace.com/nilaraja
The next EAR is in April.
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment is available from all good bookshops, new age outlets, and Amazon right now. It should come with a health warning.
LIMF Modes II
Wow. The weird and wonderful world of the London International Mime Festival continued.
First up this week were BlackSkyWhite from Russia with a production called Astronomy for Insects, one of the most peculiar, disturbing and downright sinister things I have ever had the (great) pleasure to see. Impossible to describe except by reference to the Other; imagine vintage doctor Who choreographed by Punchdrunk, or Kafka’s Metamorphosis performed by the Teletubbies/In the Night Garden people, or Quartermass animated by the Brothers Quay and you might get somewhere close. We may have been on a space ship peopled by our ancestors or descendants; or witnessing life from the consciousness of a still born puppet/human/Pierrot hybrid. Or maybe not.
Next up was Dead Wedding, a collaboration between puppeteers Faulty Optic and the very wonderful abstract electronica /contemporary classical composer and performer Mira Calix (see previous posts, especially http://robingrebsonsguidefortheperplexed.blogspot.com/2007/03/mira-calix-man-of-mode.html). Mira must be one of my favourite musicians of the last few years. This was a haunting, uncanny, troubling and often moving re-creation of the Orpheus myth, imagining his desperate attempts to be reunited with Eurydice where the Greek legend ends, after his previous rescue attempt has resulted in failure and death.
I guess what this show, and LIMF as a whole, proves, is that the theatrical space is and should be a magical one; that you can create magic from two padded envelopes with minimal faces drawn on. In Dead Wedding the envelopes came to represent the hopes, dreams and agonies of the central characters. Excellent all round from the live score performed by Mira and her three person mini chamber group, brilliant puppetry using all sorts of different puppetry techniques, and some excellent animation thrown in as well.
Saturday’s double bill was a last minute booking from me because on the travels I had heard much talk about the companies, and was having such a great festival I thought why not? In the afternoon I caught a pared down version of Woyzeck by the wonderfully named Sadari Movement Laboratory from South Korea. Performed on a bare stage, the cast in black vests and tights, the only props were chairs, which were used as evolving metaphors for Woyzeck’s plight, from cages of the mind to physical imprisonment to twirling flashing symbols of mental breakdown. The soundtrack all Astor Piazzolla which gave the work a fresh, vibrant feel.
Similarly minimal, and again using chairs as a main prop, were the Collectif Petit Travers with their show Le Parti Pris Des Choses. I was initially a little worried that I was at last going to have to watch some real mime, and even some juggling, but I was quickly grabbed by this eccentric trio. Their main thing was try to make what was virtually a contemporary dance piece out of juggling and physical movement and some spectacular and scary trapeze work. I’ve never scene a Cirque du Soleil show but I have rather gotten the impression that their shows are empty, soulless, spectacles, carnivals of nothingness. Certainly in the intimacy of the Purcell Room, the trapeze work here seemed genuinely dangerous and thrilling. The narrative seemed to be a love triangle; the moral: never come between a man and his balls. The said (juggling) balls) were used in the climax in vast quantities to produce a spectacle of cosmic proportion. This was a show with a menacing undercurrent of violence and perversion, which of course how we used to think about the circus before cirque and their ilk sanitised them. It was also wonderfully, nostalgically French (you could all but imagine Gerard Dipidoo or Daniel Hotel walking on stage). And great chamber music before and during too.
On the closing day of the festival I caught Silent Tide, a collaboration between various instrument makers/musicians and puppeteers/performers. There was something odd about the scale of this performance – the giant industrial instruments and the tiny puppets, so tiny we were issued with opera glasses, and this was in the tiny theatre in the ICA. The puppetry was exquisite, but hard to watch in these conditions. Overall this was production somehow didn’t quite add up to more than its parts. The hand-out spoke of a show contrasting mankind’s need for movement with the immobility of urban life, but the scenes themselves – people marching to a city in the dessert (foot festival or invaders or nomads?), the dessert sky becoming filled with the cranes of the oil industry, the Manhattan skyscrapers full of restless unhappy people drinking / shopping / arguing themselves into extinction, somehow they were too familiar, too politically pre-loaded to work in such an abstract setting. The music was ominous and drone like but not that transporting. The finale however was brilliant, in which a female puppet figure starts to ape the movements of an angel that we saw crawling out of the dessert sand at the start (perhaps discovering the angel within her); she then climbs up the side of her apartment building, then up a kind of Oval type industrial building, before launching into flight, exploding into flames as she does so. It was an image of transcendence and enlightenment, and a magical way to end the festival for me this year.
First up this week were BlackSkyWhite from Russia with a production called Astronomy for Insects, one of the most peculiar, disturbing and downright sinister things I have ever had the (great) pleasure to see. Impossible to describe except by reference to the Other; imagine vintage doctor Who choreographed by Punchdrunk, or Kafka’s Metamorphosis performed by the Teletubbies/In the Night Garden people, or Quartermass animated by the Brothers Quay and you might get somewhere close. We may have been on a space ship peopled by our ancestors or descendants; or witnessing life from the consciousness of a still born puppet/human/Pierrot hybrid. Or maybe not.
Next up was Dead Wedding, a collaboration between puppeteers Faulty Optic and the very wonderful abstract electronica /contemporary classical composer and performer Mira Calix (see previous posts, especially http://robingrebsonsguidefortheperplexed.blogspot.com/2007/03/mira-calix-man-of-mode.html). Mira must be one of my favourite musicians of the last few years. This was a haunting, uncanny, troubling and often moving re-creation of the Orpheus myth, imagining his desperate attempts to be reunited with Eurydice where the Greek legend ends, after his previous rescue attempt has resulted in failure and death.
I guess what this show, and LIMF as a whole, proves, is that the theatrical space is and should be a magical one; that you can create magic from two padded envelopes with minimal faces drawn on. In Dead Wedding the envelopes came to represent the hopes, dreams and agonies of the central characters. Excellent all round from the live score performed by Mira and her three person mini chamber group, brilliant puppetry using all sorts of different puppetry techniques, and some excellent animation thrown in as well.
Saturday’s double bill was a last minute booking from me because on the travels I had heard much talk about the companies, and was having such a great festival I thought why not? In the afternoon I caught a pared down version of Woyzeck by the wonderfully named Sadari Movement Laboratory from South Korea. Performed on a bare stage, the cast in black vests and tights, the only props were chairs, which were used as evolving metaphors for Woyzeck’s plight, from cages of the mind to physical imprisonment to twirling flashing symbols of mental breakdown. The soundtrack all Astor Piazzolla which gave the work a fresh, vibrant feel.
Similarly minimal, and again using chairs as a main prop, were the Collectif Petit Travers with their show Le Parti Pris Des Choses. I was initially a little worried that I was at last going to have to watch some real mime, and even some juggling, but I was quickly grabbed by this eccentric trio. Their main thing was try to make what was virtually a contemporary dance piece out of juggling and physical movement and some spectacular and scary trapeze work. I’ve never scene a Cirque du Soleil show but I have rather gotten the impression that their shows are empty, soulless, spectacles, carnivals of nothingness. Certainly in the intimacy of the Purcell Room, the trapeze work here seemed genuinely dangerous and thrilling. The narrative seemed to be a love triangle; the moral: never come between a man and his balls. The said (juggling) balls) were used in the climax in vast quantities to produce a spectacle of cosmic proportion. This was a show with a menacing undercurrent of violence and perversion, which of course how we used to think about the circus before cirque and their ilk sanitised them. It was also wonderfully, nostalgically French (you could all but imagine Gerard Dipidoo or Daniel Hotel walking on stage). And great chamber music before and during too.
On the closing day of the festival I caught Silent Tide, a collaboration between various instrument makers/musicians and puppeteers/performers. There was something odd about the scale of this performance – the giant industrial instruments and the tiny puppets, so tiny we were issued with opera glasses, and this was in the tiny theatre in the ICA. The puppetry was exquisite, but hard to watch in these conditions. Overall this was production somehow didn’t quite add up to more than its parts. The hand-out spoke of a show contrasting mankind’s need for movement with the immobility of urban life, but the scenes themselves – people marching to a city in the dessert (foot festival or invaders or nomads?), the dessert sky becoming filled with the cranes of the oil industry, the Manhattan skyscrapers full of restless unhappy people drinking / shopping / arguing themselves into extinction, somehow they were too familiar, too politically pre-loaded to work in such an abstract setting. The music was ominous and drone like but not that transporting. The finale however was brilliant, in which a female puppet figure starts to ape the movements of an angel that we saw crawling out of the dessert sand at the start (perhaps discovering the angel within her); she then climbs up the side of her apartment building, then up a kind of Oval type industrial building, before launching into flight, exploding into flames as she does so. It was an image of transcendence and enlightenment, and a magical way to end the festival for me this year.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
LIMF modes 1
Akemashite Omedeto Gozaimasu, as they say in Japan. Or Happy New Year to you.
As I have promised/threatened previously, my primary writing this year is on my novel, so I am attempting to adopt a more succinct approach to recording my out and abouts.
Everyone seems terribly depressed at the mo, but not me. I find myself in fine fettle. One of the reasons for this is the superb extravaganza that is the London International Mime Festival (LIMF). The name is wonderfully misleading; there are no starving drama students running into invisible walls or golden glitter encrusted living statutes to be found, just the finest companies from around the world specialising in visual / movement theatre, object manipulation and puppetry. OK there’s a guy called Pep who does things with balloons but I shan't be going to that.
First up were Mossoux-Bonte, and a show called Nuit Sur Le Monde. It was a kind of triptych, and moments in the first and last sections were as stunning examples of visual theatre as I have seen for many a year. In the first part, multiplying members of the cast e-merge from and back into a thick set wall. They move a little like good old Morph, evoking claymation, puppetry, and Ray Harryhausen style animation. Sometimes they sink back into the wall, disappearing into it like bass reliefs, and when they re-emerge it is as if the three dimensional effect is heightened. In the final part, lit in a weird harsh red light, they shuffle out towards the audience on their knees like damaged puppets or demented mutants. The middle section is not as successful for me – the cast are dressed in white robes, and perform movements evoking uneasy awakenings and awkward interactions which made me think of the innocents before the fall; then stripped naked they seem to discover the pain of childbirth, hardship and death. Overall a stunning start to LIMF.
Next up were sculptor Mique Barcelo and performance artist Josef Nadj and a stage comprising ten tons of clay. Each night, in a work called Paso Doble, the artists attack the clay, and attack themselves and each other with clay, producing an ever evolving three dimension action painting/sculpture. It may lack the cerebral quality of Mossoux-Bonte’s work, but nonetheless was absorbing and the work produced (images below) was surprisingly stong, evoking thoughts of Picasso, Gaudi and Dali. The performance itself had touches of Godot, and Laurel and Hardy (high praise indeed).
As I have promised/threatened previously, my primary writing this year is on my novel, so I am attempting to adopt a more succinct approach to recording my out and abouts.
Everyone seems terribly depressed at the mo, but not me. I find myself in fine fettle. One of the reasons for this is the superb extravaganza that is the London International Mime Festival (LIMF). The name is wonderfully misleading; there are no starving drama students running into invisible walls or golden glitter encrusted living statutes to be found, just the finest companies from around the world specialising in visual / movement theatre, object manipulation and puppetry. OK there’s a guy called Pep who does things with balloons but I shan't be going to that.
First up were Mossoux-Bonte, and a show called Nuit Sur Le Monde. It was a kind of triptych, and moments in the first and last sections were as stunning examples of visual theatre as I have seen for many a year. In the first part, multiplying members of the cast e-merge from and back into a thick set wall. They move a little like good old Morph, evoking claymation, puppetry, and Ray Harryhausen style animation. Sometimes they sink back into the wall, disappearing into it like bass reliefs, and when they re-emerge it is as if the three dimensional effect is heightened. In the final part, lit in a weird harsh red light, they shuffle out towards the audience on their knees like damaged puppets or demented mutants. The middle section is not as successful for me – the cast are dressed in white robes, and perform movements evoking uneasy awakenings and awkward interactions which made me think of the innocents before the fall; then stripped naked they seem to discover the pain of childbirth, hardship and death. Overall a stunning start to LIMF.
Next up were sculptor Mique Barcelo and performance artist Josef Nadj and a stage comprising ten tons of clay. Each night, in a work called Paso Doble, the artists attack the clay, and attack themselves and each other with clay, producing an ever evolving three dimension action painting/sculpture. It may lack the cerebral quality of Mossoux-Bonte’s work, but nonetheless was absorbing and the work produced (images below) was surprisingly stong, evoking thoughts of Picasso, Gaudi and Dali. The performance itself had touches of Godot, and Laurel and Hardy (high praise indeed).
Finally for this report, Teatro Corsario’s adult fairy tale Aullidos brought hard-core puppet sex to the ICA. If (like me) you have ever dreamt of mermaids performing cunnilingus or wanted to see a puppets penis go from flaccid to erect in front of your very eyes, then this was the show for you. It was like a Brothers Grimm tale retold by Angela Carter and then staged by a 10 year old Pedro Almodovar. The puppetry was excellent – I particularly liked a superb fight scene which managed to incorporate Crouching Tiger and Matrix style slo-mo effects, and the final scene where the wolf-boy hero (having given the heroine a good licking with his remarkably long tongue) carries her off at high speed.
Inspired by LIMF I have dug out my old black polo neck, a look I haven’t sported since my youthful prime. Also in my sights is the perfect theatrical-type black shirt; nipping into Selfridges I was amazed to see that the place was full of black shirts. It is this season’s big thing. Weird how this has happened. Did the fashion world know LIMF was coming? Is mime going to be this year’s dubstep/ kate and pete / new black? Are we to be treated to Celebratory Come Miming or Puppets on Ice? I do hope so.
More reports from LIMF next week.
Inspired by LIMF I have dug out my old black polo neck, a look I haven’t sported since my youthful prime. Also in my sights is the perfect theatrical-type black shirt; nipping into Selfridges I was amazed to see that the place was full of black shirts. It is this season’s big thing. Weird how this has happened. Did the fashion world know LIMF was coming? Is mime going to be this year’s dubstep/ kate and pete / new black? Are we to be treated to Celebratory Come Miming or Puppets on Ice? I do hope so.
More reports from LIMF next week.
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