A few notes on the festival... to date
So far I've seen five shows at the festival (it was meant to be six, but I didn't make it to one today, decided I couldn't deal with heart transplants). Liza Lim's The Navigator, Tim Crouch's an oak tree, Patti Smith and Philip Glass' Allen Ginsberg Tribute, The Shuffle Club at the Spiegeltent and Philip Glass and Leonard Cohen's Book of Longing. I've also done some stuff around the city including Ecstatic City.
I must say it, I love Melbourne during the festival. The atmosphere picks up, the Spiegeltent comes back, there's music, there's art and there's exciting people in town. I've appreciated the stuff I've seen so far, whether it be for artistic, intellectual or emotional reasons.
Despite the amount that I really do love Kosky, I must say I was unable to take in any of what The Navigator was trying to do. The libretto was opressively convoluted and ended within spirals of repetative metaphor, which did nothing for me - left me unbelievably cold. I think, the power in opera, whether it is narrative or thematically based, needs a heavy basis in the music which is connected to the concretion of the libretto - it needs to be a relationship that doesn't need linguistic understanding, because the music and there afterward, the direction speaks to the idea for the audience's ease of understanding. Here, Kosky's play with strong visual images were clearly his work, but did nothing to bring the audience out of their artistic haze. I don't feel the opera was any stronger through his direction than it would have been without. Maybe that was my hatred for the piece itself being placed on top of the show that was, clouding my ability to judge the performance as a whole. All in all, there were many moments where I thought 'thank god, that's the end' and it kept going in its self indulgent arc. This so far, has been the lowlight for me.
Crouch's an oak tree, while being panned by most critics I found a lot of enjoyment in, as a contra to what we have come to expect from theatre. The idea being that there is so much artifice put through in contemporary theatre that the reaction is being beaten out of people's performance, therefore, the show revolves around an actor meeting him an hour before the performance commences for a sound check, having no idea what their character or the story is about and taking sole direction from Crouch as the show progresses - whether that is him feeding the actor lines, telling them to react/act, or giving them sections of script to read either as their character or as the actor. I personally loved this on a purely creative level, and thought it opened up a real side of things that normal theatre goers wouldn't see - a rawness and roughness that has its own intrinsic beauty.
Ecstatic City is quite a nice little thing, if anyone's interested in short film, it's worth poking your head in and seeing some of the short films on offer. Despite it being novel to watch short films in middle of the massive water feature outside the gallery, there's also some really touching and beautiful work. The Shuffle Club are playing the festival and the remainder of the Spiegeltent season, and they are doing their thing again, it's a staple and it works. And it's fun. Everyone loves swing.
The two shows I was somewhat apprehensive about, and picked because of their foundation in the writing rather than what they are in whole I have been pleasantly surprised and moved. Patti Smith and Philip Glass' performance and tribute to Allen Ginsberg was beautiful. It was a lovely combination of photography, personal experience, music and poetry - some of the music being written by Glass to be accompanied with Ginsberg's writing, and they performed together, some written by Patti Smith, but both strengthened by their personal relationship with Ginsberg. Patti's voice had the ever so subtle touch of parrotting Ginsberg's delivery of his own work, never enough to parody his animation, but enough to get the feel of the performative nature of his language. Glass was understated, but intense. The combination made for something electric. I believe these two are still touring this show internationally wherever they tend to cross paths. Do it, it's worth it. The Book of Longing proves without a doubt what a master of words Cohen is, but moreover, how masterfully arts can interlock. This series of pieces, some performed by singers, some recorded tracks of Cohen reading his own work, and some simple solo pieces played in a downlight with a projection of artwork behind the musician. I can say, I found some of the stagecraft of this show ridiculously overworked; singers continuously sitting, leaving stage, coming back on, moving from one chair to another, where perhaps a more conventional concert type performance I feel would have been far more effective in simply conveying the beauty of the music and the words and how the interplay worked. Similarly, while the lighting design was stunning - including strong cyc lights and beautifully focussed and shuttered profiles - it was not entirely necessary in the full intensity the whole time. As a theatre kid, I did find my mind drifting towards examining lighting states, or set construction or direction instead of keeping my eyes on the prize.
This has been a good start to the festival, and I got heaps more to see, but am pretty happy that the festival's come back to town!
I must say it, I love Melbourne during the festival. The atmosphere picks up, the Spiegeltent comes back, there's music, there's art and there's exciting people in town. I've appreciated the stuff I've seen so far, whether it be for artistic, intellectual or emotional reasons.
Despite the amount that I really do love Kosky, I must say I was unable to take in any of what The Navigator was trying to do. The libretto was opressively convoluted and ended within spirals of repetative metaphor, which did nothing for me - left me unbelievably cold. I think, the power in opera, whether it is narrative or thematically based, needs a heavy basis in the music which is connected to the concretion of the libretto - it needs to be a relationship that doesn't need linguistic understanding, because the music and there afterward, the direction speaks to the idea for the audience's ease of understanding. Here, Kosky's play with strong visual images were clearly his work, but did nothing to bring the audience out of their artistic haze. I don't feel the opera was any stronger through his direction than it would have been without. Maybe that was my hatred for the piece itself being placed on top of the show that was, clouding my ability to judge the performance as a whole. All in all, there were many moments where I thought 'thank god, that's the end' and it kept going in its self indulgent arc. This so far, has been the lowlight for me.
Crouch's an oak tree, while being panned by most critics I found a lot of enjoyment in, as a contra to what we have come to expect from theatre. The idea being that there is so much artifice put through in contemporary theatre that the reaction is being beaten out of people's performance, therefore, the show revolves around an actor meeting him an hour before the performance commences for a sound check, having no idea what their character or the story is about and taking sole direction from Crouch as the show progresses - whether that is him feeding the actor lines, telling them to react/act, or giving them sections of script to read either as their character or as the actor. I personally loved this on a purely creative level, and thought it opened up a real side of things that normal theatre goers wouldn't see - a rawness and roughness that has its own intrinsic beauty.
Ecstatic City is quite a nice little thing, if anyone's interested in short film, it's worth poking your head in and seeing some of the short films on offer. Despite it being novel to watch short films in middle of the massive water feature outside the gallery, there's also some really touching and beautiful work. The Shuffle Club are playing the festival and the remainder of the Spiegeltent season, and they are doing their thing again, it's a staple and it works. And it's fun. Everyone loves swing.
The two shows I was somewhat apprehensive about, and picked because of their foundation in the writing rather than what they are in whole I have been pleasantly surprised and moved. Patti Smith and Philip Glass' performance and tribute to Allen Ginsberg was beautiful. It was a lovely combination of photography, personal experience, music and poetry - some of the music being written by Glass to be accompanied with Ginsberg's writing, and they performed together, some written by Patti Smith, but both strengthened by their personal relationship with Ginsberg. Patti's voice had the ever so subtle touch of parrotting Ginsberg's delivery of his own work, never enough to parody his animation, but enough to get the feel of the performative nature of his language. Glass was understated, but intense. The combination made for something electric. I believe these two are still touring this show internationally wherever they tend to cross paths. Do it, it's worth it. The Book of Longing proves without a doubt what a master of words Cohen is, but moreover, how masterfully arts can interlock. This series of pieces, some performed by singers, some recorded tracks of Cohen reading his own work, and some simple solo pieces played in a downlight with a projection of artwork behind the musician. I can say, I found some of the stagecraft of this show ridiculously overworked; singers continuously sitting, leaving stage, coming back on, moving from one chair to another, where perhaps a more conventional concert type performance I feel would have been far more effective in simply conveying the beauty of the music and the words and how the interplay worked. Similarly, while the lighting design was stunning - including strong cyc lights and beautifully focussed and shuttered profiles - it was not entirely necessary in the full intensity the whole time. As a theatre kid, I did find my mind drifting towards examining lighting states, or set construction or direction instead of keeping my eyes on the prize.
This has been a good start to the festival, and I got heaps more to see, but am pretty happy that the festival's come back to town!
Photos of stuff...
Because defiled childhood memories are always funny...
Julie Taymor and TED
I'm in love with this woman... Seriously.
Can I have her theatre babies?
(Beware, this is a half hour film!)
the drive to write and read inspiring Things...
Two weeks ago, I read a friend of my brother's - and now it seems my friend too... connections are so exciting - first novel. I can honestly say, it was gripping and exciting writing. The story itself was charming, as were the characters - whom I really did feel I wanted to continue to know and explore - but intriguingly it was almost like a dream that came out of the fog, enough to remember the events and the way that it made you feel, but the details somehow illude you. I have honestly never read anything like it.
I promptly devoured this novel in a week's time, and then wanted to read it again - ironic, given that the story hinges on rereading of texts. And, I found, like a good piece of poetry, something new sprung up out of the book and took me by surprise. I strongly suspect on a third reading, a similar experience may happen.
So, on the weekend I was delighted to sit down with the author and have a good bash through what she's concerned about, what didn't work for me, why it wasn't working and how to tighten things up and make the criticisms that other people had given her more 'hers'. Because as it stood, you could see what she was doing because people 'needed' it, as opposed to the writing that she was clearly versed in and had opened herself to. On a personal note, it was rather nice to hear her say that despite all the supervisors she had had and the people who had read the book, I had given her the most helpful and the most in depth advice she'd had yet, so I will be reading further drafts. So, you know, if this whole theatre gig doesn't come through, I can always try reading for a living...
The thing that was markedly beautiful about this process - the novel started from another piece of writing done seven years ago, and largely done over the last year and a half - was that even when she had given me something to read and we started looking over specific details, she responded 'Oh no, I've already got rid of that, I hated that', showing that she still was working on it day to day even where she felt stuck and was unsure. She has also started a new novel - which sounds equally stunning - and is balancing both with her full time job.
In this world where we expect our stories to tell us everything and go blow by blow, it was also refreshingly dense in its meaning, imagery and occurances - and yet, the language stays simple, but gives so much. It's cerebral and doesn't try to dumb down its concepts. As such - she's clearly having trouble getting published, for those reasons she believes.
She says that Australia won't touch this sort of text - and I tend to agree, but here's the real sticking point. How do Australian writers - who are not writing the 'Australian Story' find publishers outside Australia, when surely the corporate view is something along the lines of 'well if your own country won't deal with it...'. The arts mentality in this country drives me nuts. We say that the market's needs drive the corporations' eventual product. Are we simply dealing with the problem that if 1% of the population like a certain niche genre then 1% of America is still 2.5m people, where here it is 200,000. Comparing things in this brute figures, it is easy to see why fringe art is struggling so badly here. We've got a market who are hungry to be spoiled, but, from a marketing POV, if only 1% of that 1% hear of a text (which is probably still overestimating on the meat market that is books with the ocean of overseas published books side by side Australian texts and which Australian publishing houses are now printing to boost their output numbers) then that's potentially only 2000 people who will pick up the book... It's too much of a risk to run a 1000 book run on a whim, when you can sell a cookie cutout book about the Aussie battler which touches the soul and shows the rural lifestyle in all its harshness, which every Australian still waiting to be told 'who they are' will pick up...
Commercialisation of art doesn't work.
There's something to be said for Danielewski's self made fame, say I.
I promptly devoured this novel in a week's time, and then wanted to read it again - ironic, given that the story hinges on rereading of texts. And, I found, like a good piece of poetry, something new sprung up out of the book and took me by surprise. I strongly suspect on a third reading, a similar experience may happen.
So, on the weekend I was delighted to sit down with the author and have a good bash through what she's concerned about, what didn't work for me, why it wasn't working and how to tighten things up and make the criticisms that other people had given her more 'hers'. Because as it stood, you could see what she was doing because people 'needed' it, as opposed to the writing that she was clearly versed in and had opened herself to. On a personal note, it was rather nice to hear her say that despite all the supervisors she had had and the people who had read the book, I had given her the most helpful and the most in depth advice she'd had yet, so I will be reading further drafts. So, you know, if this whole theatre gig doesn't come through, I can always try reading for a living...
The thing that was markedly beautiful about this process - the novel started from another piece of writing done seven years ago, and largely done over the last year and a half - was that even when she had given me something to read and we started looking over specific details, she responded 'Oh no, I've already got rid of that, I hated that', showing that she still was working on it day to day even where she felt stuck and was unsure. She has also started a new novel - which sounds equally stunning - and is balancing both with her full time job.
In this world where we expect our stories to tell us everything and go blow by blow, it was also refreshingly dense in its meaning, imagery and occurances - and yet, the language stays simple, but gives so much. It's cerebral and doesn't try to dumb down its concepts. As such - she's clearly having trouble getting published, for those reasons she believes.
She says that Australia won't touch this sort of text - and I tend to agree, but here's the real sticking point. How do Australian writers - who are not writing the 'Australian Story' find publishers outside Australia, when surely the corporate view is something along the lines of 'well if your own country won't deal with it...'. The arts mentality in this country drives me nuts. We say that the market's needs drive the corporations' eventual product. Are we simply dealing with the problem that if 1% of the population like a certain niche genre then 1% of America is still 2.5m people, where here it is 200,000. Comparing things in this brute figures, it is easy to see why fringe art is struggling so badly here. We've got a market who are hungry to be spoiled, but, from a marketing POV, if only 1% of that 1% hear of a text (which is probably still overestimating on the meat market that is books with the ocean of overseas published books side by side Australian texts and which Australian publishing houses are now printing to boost their output numbers) then that's potentially only 2000 people who will pick up the book... It's too much of a risk to run a 1000 book run on a whim, when you can sell a cookie cutout book about the Aussie battler which touches the soul and shows the rural lifestyle in all its harshness, which every Australian still waiting to be told 'who they are' will pick up...
Commercialisation of art doesn't work.
There's something to be said for Danielewski's self made fame, say I.
The C-bomb
It may surprise some of you, that I have an extremely dirty mouth. I also am a free upholder of the Steven Fry school of thought, saying that those with potty mouths generally are, in fact, the enthusiasts of language - in that they understand the art of language play and words. It can also be noted that since moving in with me, one of my housemates who would have never used the 'C Word' now uses it quite frequently - all a testament to me. One of my favourite little things to say is 'Oh MFC' which does stand for something that I can understand why people don't like - but I believe it is my right to use those words how I please. And, I must say that it is no effect of the media that I came to embrace the word, or its rising use in pop-culture. This is in response to the current Senate enquiry regarding ratings and obsenities, using a range of linguistics, personal theories and modern femanist critique particularly about the word Cunt - if you find it offensive to see the word, please don't read on unless you're going to bring something measured to the debate - not simply 'I don't like the word'. Thank-you.
Also - a follow up...
How is it that Bill Henson was cleared of all charges and it went by without my notice? It pisses me off that someone can so easily be defamed and then the pieces not be picked up again and proper apologies made.
I still have things to say, most primary of all, is to those who say it was an issue of consent not the content of the images - this has no legal grounding. We can't just go about changing the law because people don't like what one person does. The way the law works - whether we support what parents give their children consent to do or not - is that parents make decissions for their children up to the arbitrary age of 18. If we suggest that these people cannot make decisions for their children, then that makes all sorts of uncomfortable juristiction around things like surgery and the like, where we expect a 12 year old to understand the way their body works.
The issues surrounding this case are exceptionally close to my heart for a number of reasons. However, I do think issues such as paedophelia and terrorism (for example) are things where people are puppeted about to give the impression of doing 'something' to fight a battle that sadly, probably will never be won... and as a society we are all too willing to attack the innocent person in order to send a message to the 'bad guys'.
As for exploitation of the child, if parents are involved in the shoot, and in deciding what proofs are acceptable and what are not, then what's the issue? Having seen the way that Henson manufactures and controls the image he is looking for - that is, he is not a happy snaps man - the art is highly controlled and gently worked upon until the angles, the expression and the light works in the favour of the final shot - this is hardly 'be a lemur for me' photography - which does change the intent of the photograph. In this way, the print is more like a painting than a modeling shoot. If the image was a painting, would people have the same reaction?
Henson's work has often toed the line on much more risque fronts, but because it is unabashed nakedness we are witness to in these pieces, we are more critical. How is it that Henson has got away with children essentially in bondage before and no one turned a head, and these images for showing skin are criticised and torn to public pieces? This surely proves that the debate is about nakedness versus covered bodies. Art, in my opinion, works best when it forces us to ask questions of ourselves, society and/or politics. Henson's work certainly did that - there's no denying that - but the question still remains - are we so prudish that we cannot view a naked body (of any age) and not see it without making it sexualised? Can we not define our emotions, our needs and our identities without the need for clothing - to see the body in its whole ability to reflect thought in different ways? What is so inherantly evil about showing vulnerability through our bodies and our faces?
And (controversial as this is) Hetty Johnston should be ashamed of herself - she cannot continue to systematically ruin people's lives and careers because of the atrocities that happened to her as a child. And as a society, we should be more vocal about such systematic take downs I believe.
I still have things to say, most primary of all, is to those who say it was an issue of consent not the content of the images - this has no legal grounding. We can't just go about changing the law because people don't like what one person does. The way the law works - whether we support what parents give their children consent to do or not - is that parents make decissions for their children up to the arbitrary age of 18. If we suggest that these people cannot make decisions for their children, then that makes all sorts of uncomfortable juristiction around things like surgery and the like, where we expect a 12 year old to understand the way their body works.
The issues surrounding this case are exceptionally close to my heart for a number of reasons. However, I do think issues such as paedophelia and terrorism (for example) are things where people are puppeted about to give the impression of doing 'something' to fight a battle that sadly, probably will never be won... and as a society we are all too willing to attack the innocent person in order to send a message to the 'bad guys'.
As for exploitation of the child, if parents are involved in the shoot, and in deciding what proofs are acceptable and what are not, then what's the issue? Having seen the way that Henson manufactures and controls the image he is looking for - that is, he is not a happy snaps man - the art is highly controlled and gently worked upon until the angles, the expression and the light works in the favour of the final shot - this is hardly 'be a lemur for me' photography - which does change the intent of the photograph. In this way, the print is more like a painting than a modeling shoot. If the image was a painting, would people have the same reaction?
Henson's work has often toed the line on much more risque fronts, but because it is unabashed nakedness we are witness to in these pieces, we are more critical. How is it that Henson has got away with children essentially in bondage before and no one turned a head, and these images for showing skin are criticised and torn to public pieces? This surely proves that the debate is about nakedness versus covered bodies. Art, in my opinion, works best when it forces us to ask questions of ourselves, society and/or politics. Henson's work certainly did that - there's no denying that - but the question still remains - are we so prudish that we cannot view a naked body (of any age) and not see it without making it sexualised? Can we not define our emotions, our needs and our identities without the need for clothing - to see the body in its whole ability to reflect thought in different ways? What is so inherantly evil about showing vulnerability through our bodies and our faces?
And (controversial as this is) Hetty Johnston should be ashamed of herself - she cannot continue to systematically ruin people's lives and careers because of the atrocities that happened to her as a child. And as a society, we should be more vocal about such systematic take downs I believe.
Recipe
So, whipped this up for my housemate the other night, and was surprised how quickly it happened, how tasty and how gourmet it looks - seriously easy and worth the impressive title I have given it!
A break of silence for the issue of public debate...
Allice Liddell taken by Chales Lutwidge Dogson, better known as Lewis Carroll.