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Also, as this is a post that is blog-like in it's endeavours, the latest entries are here at the top, the earlier ones below. Righto.
Monday: Lady time
I had thought Minchin was the highlight. I saluted his brilliance while hating him for his genius. But then she came. The Dark Angel. Camille. Chanteuse.
Sweet, subtle, savage, sexual Camille. Dazzling, unobtainable Camille.
She materialized at the end of what I had thought of in my schedule as Ladies night, which had begun hours earlier in the refined confines of the Baptist Tabernacle, with the women of the Erocia trio, who did things to chamber music I didn’t think possible.
It led me through Darryn Harkness’s fittingly haunting live solo soundscape that accompanied the screening of Nosferatu, and while he wasn’t a woman, Ellen, the films forlorn female lead, who willingly makes the supreme sacrifice, certainly was.
But then, Camille.
She epitomised one of the best things about a festival, which is to create a self-satisfied divide between those who managed to be a part of the select group who are lucky enough to have witnessed those few, ephemeral moments of a performance so jaw-droppingly good, and those who haven’t.
We were the lucky few of the festival, a smug band of brothers, (including of course, our lady-brothers) who experienced her power.
We laughed, we cried, we clapped, we stood, and we clapped some more. She made us feel privileged. And we were. I fear I will not see her likes again. Magnifique.
And really, if you asked me what she did, I would smile, and simply say that all she did was sing cover songs.
Saturday: Dazzled by the rising sun
Most of what I know about Japanese art has been gleaned from their pornography. And their game shows. Many of which appear to be pornographic. The common through line though is that while they can often be a little disturbing, they are also both delightfully barmy.
There’s nothing remotely pornographic about Ishinha’s Nostalgia, a show that at times is as madcap as a bucket of kittens.
Of course, it’s all in Japanese, (or if not all Japanese then at least all something incomprehensible), so it’s a little hard to decipher what exactly is happening. I was shocked to discover in the programme notes afterwards several plotlines of which I was totally unaware.
One scene, which I had thought was set at a battery chicken farm, and as such, was a powerful polemic against the practise, turned out according to the notes to be merely birds roosting on a jungle gym. Oh.
The question then is should you read the notes first, or allow yourself to simply watch a show and then compare what you think happened in your self-constructed narrative arc with what your chums thought? The results can be as funny as the performance.
And who knows, it may be that the show’s actual text is totally banal, so it’s simply better to remain ignorant, and let the spectacle wash over you.
And what a spectacle it is. Such was the sumptuous nature of their scenery I found myself on several occasions applauding set changes. At least I could understand them.
<<< Read part two <<< Read part one