Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Wednesday, 27 August 2008
Last night I saw something astonishing who significance I can barely begin to understand.
I can’t claim I was bowled over by it at the time; it’s only afterwards, on reflection, that I begin maybe to glimpse something of its significance.
It was called “Devil’s Ship” by Bazi Theatre Company. Performed in Parsi by a company of five women. And although the company seems to be run by men, who I noticed fussing around self-importantly after the show, the piece is about (and ultimately, I suspect by) the women. The only men on stage are in their graves.
The position of women in Iran is so extreme we can barely imagine it. And so the show came from a place utterly alien to us. The two protagonists introduced themselves by statements like “I am fifty” and “I am the daughter-in-law”. Statements I can now, perhaps, begin to decipher in terms of family relationships and the status of age.. and understand partially and with some difficulty statements that would immediately and profoundly resonate when spoken on their first stage.
The three other characters were the older woman’s two young and rebellious daughters; and a mysterious companion to the younger woman whose identity was never revealed. I don’t remember her introducing herself. Her mask was red, which meant something; she manipulated sinister looking voodoo dolls which she placed in the sand as if to have them crucified. And her veil was of silken fabric and impossibly, unmanageably, long.
Perhaps even the presence of these five women on the stage carried a meaning that we, outside their context, cannot really understand.
Their bodies were all covered in clothing. There was so much attention paid to their concealment. To their cloaks and veils. How must it be to live day in day out with the notion that your body is a thing of danger and shame that must be continually hidden from public view?
In fact I do understand in the sense that my whole life has been spent hiding, concealing, cloaking and veiling the secret of my feminine danger and shame. And like the women continually having to twitch and adjust and take care of this veil.
But somehow I have taken mine off. Which is why my world has suddenly become so different.
That was not possible for them... It is so difficult to explain this story! The women were prisoners, quasi prisoners, on an island of sand. With Sharja, the Gulf, modern living, visible yet inaccessible. The daughter-in-law was having a liaison with a man who offered her the possibility of escape. This violated the memory of her dead husband; and the mother-in-law was blocking her freedom. As they traditionally do.
But something amazing happened: the mother-in-law relented and gave her consent. And then the daughter-in-law refused to go. She wanted to honour the older woman’s choice; and she did not want, yet again, to give her freedom into the hands of a man.
She had a iPod, and this was a strangely shocking thing. On this stage, which was a kind of timeless space of fairy tale and myth. And there was this iPod: a reminder that this story does not belong to the realm of the fabulous alone, but also to a hard weary contemporary reality.
And at the end she gave it to one of the rebellious daughter: who listened with wonder.
A new reality was about to emerge.
I wrote all this, and then went to catch a bus. It didn’t come, as they tend not to, and I was watching a woman, and then a man, and remembering how tormented I used to be at the frontier between men and women. I felt stuck on the male side of it, where I didn’t want to be. And I could see no way I could ever cross it.
Whatever that frontier was in my mind, I have now crossed it. And am taking the first steps on the other, unknown side. This play I think has done the same.
Which is why in some ways it doesn’t quite work: the language is too tentative, too muted somehow. But that’s how it is, at the beginning. New worlds take a while to be fully born.
Last night I saw something astonishing who significance I can barely begin to understand.
I can’t claim I was bowled over by it at the time; it’s only afterwards, on reflection, that I begin maybe to glimpse something of its significance.
It was called “Devil’s Ship” by Bazi Theatre Company. Performed in Parsi by a company of five women. And although the company seems to be run by men, who I noticed fussing around self-importantly after the show, the piece is about (and ultimately, I suspect by) the women. The only men on stage are in their graves.
The position of women in Iran is so extreme we can barely imagine it. And so the show came from a place utterly alien to us. The two protagonists introduced themselves by statements like “I am fifty” and “I am the daughter-in-law”. Statements I can now, perhaps, begin to decipher in terms of family relationships and the status of age.. and understand partially and with some difficulty statements that would immediately and profoundly resonate when spoken on their first stage.
The three other characters were the older woman’s two young and rebellious daughters; and a mysterious companion to the younger woman whose identity was never revealed. I don’t remember her introducing herself. Her mask was red, which meant something; she manipulated sinister looking voodoo dolls which she placed in the sand as if to have them crucified. And her veil was of silken fabric and impossibly, unmanageably, long.
Perhaps even the presence of these five women on the stage carried a meaning that we, outside their context, cannot really understand.
Their bodies were all covered in clothing. There was so much attention paid to their concealment. To their cloaks and veils. How must it be to live day in day out with the notion that your body is a thing of danger and shame that must be continually hidden from public view?
In fact I do understand in the sense that my whole life has been spent hiding, concealing, cloaking and veiling the secret of my feminine danger and shame. And like the women continually having to twitch and adjust and take care of this veil.
But somehow I have taken mine off. Which is why my world has suddenly become so different.
That was not possible for them... It is so difficult to explain this story! The women were prisoners, quasi prisoners, on an island of sand. With Sharja, the Gulf, modern living, visible yet inaccessible. The daughter-in-law was having a liaison with a man who offered her the possibility of escape. This violated the memory of her dead husband; and the mother-in-law was blocking her freedom. As they traditionally do.
But something amazing happened: the mother-in-law relented and gave her consent. And then the daughter-in-law refused to go. She wanted to honour the older woman’s choice; and she did not want, yet again, to give her freedom into the hands of a man.
She had a iPod, and this was a strangely shocking thing. On this stage, which was a kind of timeless space of fairy tale and myth. And there was this iPod: a reminder that this story does not belong to the realm of the fabulous alone, but also to a hard weary contemporary reality.
And at the end she gave it to one of the rebellious daughter: who listened with wonder.
A new reality was about to emerge.
I wrote all this, and then went to catch a bus. It didn’t come, as they tend not to, and I was watching a woman, and then a man, and remembering how tormented I used to be at the frontier between men and women. I felt stuck on the male side of it, where I didn’t want to be. And I could see no way I could ever cross it.
Whatever that frontier was in my mind, I have now crossed it. And am taking the first steps on the other, unknown side. This play I think has done the same.
Which is why in some ways it doesn’t quite work: the language is too tentative, too muted somehow. But that’s how it is, at the beginning. New worlds take a while to be fully born.
Labels: the devil's ship
Monday, August 25, 2008
Monday, 25 August 2008
I was at such a beautiful concert today.. It was this morning, at the Queen’s Hall, and it was only half full, perhaps because the Fringe is ending today, or perhaps because it had a high proportion of modern works on the programme.
But the people who stayed away missed such pleasure!
It was a chamber group – two violins, lute and harpsichord – and they began with Biber. (1644-1704). The programme called him an exponent of “stylus phantasticus”, which I loved. It’s him in every sense: working with etxtremes of emotion. With ecstasy, rapture, dejection, fury, despair. And pushing the language of the baroque to extremes to communicate them.
Berio (1925-2003) does the equivalent now. And besides him, there was an amazing work by a contemporary Mexican Hilda Paredes (b 1957). A neighbour was sitting in front of me, and he said that it was as if some of the music was beyond the limit of his hearing. It was like a beautifully structured celebration of life’s possibilities.
She wrote it for solo violin; and the musician spread improbable quantities of music paper over four large music stands which he placed right across the front of the stage. I imagine because the virtuosic demands of the piece were so extreme he simply couldn’t afford to stop to turn the page. He did the same for the Berio Sequenza; and as he played he moved from one side of the stage to the other. From left to right.
I liked him: there was something immensely pleasing about the way he placed his feet so warmly upon the ground.
They ended with Biber’s Partia no. 3 – a wild and beautiful dance that left us stamping, and then out into the rain with the memory of the music dancing right through my body.
Then I went to the supermarket, which I suppose should have been a let down, but wasn’t: because the lady at the check-out was glowing. It turned out she’d been showing her 3 dogs – Orkney terriers I think they were – at a dog show at Ingliston over the weekend and they’d been accepted for Crufts.
And every part of her was glowing with love and pride.
Perhaps it’s always like that: when we take pleasure in the act of living. Because life then arranges it so new sources of pleasure come to us.
I was at such a beautiful concert today.. It was this morning, at the Queen’s Hall, and it was only half full, perhaps because the Fringe is ending today, or perhaps because it had a high proportion of modern works on the programme.
But the people who stayed away missed such pleasure!
It was a chamber group – two violins, lute and harpsichord – and they began with Biber. (1644-1704). The programme called him an exponent of “stylus phantasticus”, which I loved. It’s him in every sense: working with etxtremes of emotion. With ecstasy, rapture, dejection, fury, despair. And pushing the language of the baroque to extremes to communicate them.
Berio (1925-2003) does the equivalent now. And besides him, there was an amazing work by a contemporary Mexican Hilda Paredes (b 1957). A neighbour was sitting in front of me, and he said that it was as if some of the music was beyond the limit of his hearing. It was like a beautifully structured celebration of life’s possibilities.
She wrote it for solo violin; and the musician spread improbable quantities of music paper over four large music stands which he placed right across the front of the stage. I imagine because the virtuosic demands of the piece were so extreme he simply couldn’t afford to stop to turn the page. He did the same for the Berio Sequenza; and as he played he moved from one side of the stage to the other. From left to right.
I liked him: there was something immensely pleasing about the way he placed his feet so warmly upon the ground.
They ended with Biber’s Partia no. 3 – a wild and beautiful dance that left us stamping, and then out into the rain with the memory of the music dancing right through my body.
Then I went to the supermarket, which I suppose should have been a let down, but wasn’t: because the lady at the check-out was glowing. It turned out she’d been showing her 3 dogs – Orkney terriers I think they were – at a dog show at Ingliston over the weekend and they’d been accepted for Crufts.
And every part of her was glowing with love and pride.
Perhaps it’s always like that: when we take pleasure in the act of living. Because life then arranges it so new sources of pleasure come to us.
Labels: Biber and pedigree dogs
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Sunday, 24 August 2008
A long time ago now, when I still wrote dance reviews, I remember reviewing an early show by Matthew Bourne. I was very naive about reviews in those days, and thought that my job consisted in being very clear about my own response to the piece, and at the same time describing it, and the audience response to it, so my readers could make up their own minds about whether or not to go.
This was before the arbitrary and absurd star rating system reviewers use nowadays. And also before reviewers began to see their task as trying to figure out what they think they ought to say to save face. As opposed to saying what they actually feel.
Anyway I remember I hated Bourne’s show and said so, no doubt as scathingly as I could. And the show was a huge hit and he went on to be the huge star he is today. (What hasn’t changed is my capacity to hold exactly the opposite view to almost everyone else).
Tonight we went to see his latest show, Dorian Grey. It didn’t move me enough to make me want to hate it: instead I just thought it silly and incompetent. For one thing, it was obviously fascinated by the world of celebrity and fashion that it affected to condemn. But more importantly, its dance language was so impoverished, and its blindingly obvious take on the story so superficial.
The night before, I’d seen Ruhe at the Hub. An utterly different world. About two hundred wooden chairs were scattered at random around the room, and as we entered a group of male singers were performing an utterly beautiful Schubert part song. As they sang, they stood on the chairs; when they were silent, they sat down among us.
And then a woman started telling us her story. She was Dutch, she had joined the National Socialist party, and she had ended up working in a special SS hospital north of Berlin. She had cried bitter tears when she heard Hitler had died. Her years in the hospital were the most satisfying in her entire life; and she couldn’t understand why she had to continue to suffer for them.
And then the singing began again. Lovely songs, Schubert largely wrote for groups of friends at private celebrations. Amazing, inventive, profoundly moving harmonies.
And then a man interrupted. A terrifying man. Powerful. Who interacted with the audience he mingled with in a very terrifying way. He, too, was Dutch. He had joined the SS, and really enjoyed it. Admired the bravery, the camaraderie, the toughness. The best years of his life.
And then more singing. Ending with a much darker but still so beautiful song from a young woman composer.
And at the end I think we understood: that evil is not something “out there”. Not something performed by the others, by the monsters. But by all of us. And that goodness and genius, too, were not just “out there” but among us and something we were and still are fully capable of.
There was real compassion here. And a sense of wonder.
The ex-soldier said: “Victors have heroes in their ranks, but the defeated have only war criminals”. I was thinking of the idiocies of Gordon brown the other day, talking to the troops in Afghanistan. This war we cannot win, and where the longer we stay the more we can only commit crimes. This war begun in utter ignorance of history. And Brown, oh so predictably, called ‘our’ soldiers “heroes”.
A long time ago now, when I still wrote dance reviews, I remember reviewing an early show by Matthew Bourne. I was very naive about reviews in those days, and thought that my job consisted in being very clear about my own response to the piece, and at the same time describing it, and the audience response to it, so my readers could make up their own minds about whether or not to go.
This was before the arbitrary and absurd star rating system reviewers use nowadays. And also before reviewers began to see their task as trying to figure out what they think they ought to say to save face. As opposed to saying what they actually feel.
Anyway I remember I hated Bourne’s show and said so, no doubt as scathingly as I could. And the show was a huge hit and he went on to be the huge star he is today. (What hasn’t changed is my capacity to hold exactly the opposite view to almost everyone else).
Tonight we went to see his latest show, Dorian Grey. It didn’t move me enough to make me want to hate it: instead I just thought it silly and incompetent. For one thing, it was obviously fascinated by the world of celebrity and fashion that it affected to condemn. But more importantly, its dance language was so impoverished, and its blindingly obvious take on the story so superficial.
The night before, I’d seen Ruhe at the Hub. An utterly different world. About two hundred wooden chairs were scattered at random around the room, and as we entered a group of male singers were performing an utterly beautiful Schubert part song. As they sang, they stood on the chairs; when they were silent, they sat down among us.
And then a woman started telling us her story. She was Dutch, she had joined the National Socialist party, and she had ended up working in a special SS hospital north of Berlin. She had cried bitter tears when she heard Hitler had died. Her years in the hospital were the most satisfying in her entire life; and she couldn’t understand why she had to continue to suffer for them.
And then the singing began again. Lovely songs, Schubert largely wrote for groups of friends at private celebrations. Amazing, inventive, profoundly moving harmonies.
And then a man interrupted. A terrifying man. Powerful. Who interacted with the audience he mingled with in a very terrifying way. He, too, was Dutch. He had joined the SS, and really enjoyed it. Admired the bravery, the camaraderie, the toughness. The best years of his life.
And then more singing. Ending with a much darker but still so beautiful song from a young woman composer.
And at the end I think we understood: that evil is not something “out there”. Not something performed by the others, by the monsters. But by all of us. And that goodness and genius, too, were not just “out there” but among us and something we were and still are fully capable of.
There was real compassion here. And a sense of wonder.
The ex-soldier said: “Victors have heroes in their ranks, but the defeated have only war criminals”. I was thinking of the idiocies of Gordon brown the other day, talking to the troops in Afghanistan. This war we cannot win, and where the longer we stay the more we can only commit crimes. This war begun in utter ignorance of history. And Brown, oh so predictably, called ‘our’ soldiers “heroes”.
Labels: Ruhe and Dorian Grey
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
