Here are performances I saw these days.
24/07/10 Confluence Akram Khan& Nitin Sawney, Sadler's Wells
Akram's dancing always make me feel the presence of God. Together with live music by Nitin and his band, the performance was very delicious. I don't need to think and analyse. Nothing is complicated. But I just had such a great time. Thinking about my own practice, I want to reach that level. Like the quotes they used in the performance (quotes from the programme):
Jung spoke of a collective unconscious.
Michelangelo referred to the discovery of his sculptures within the stone.
Musicians of ten speak of acting as mediums for music to manifest itself and dancers contemplate that it is through Shiva's dance that our universe was created and will be destroyed.
25/07/10 Festival of Paper- unfolding the journey of art through paper, BHVU Gallery
Mildred Rambaud was performing Butoh with a huge piece of pleated waxed paper that she created. I am sharing a night with her in October at Cafe OTO. Very focused performance as intense as Butoh should be. Sexual in sophisticated way. She is a strong woman though she always smiles like a boiled potato outside her performance.
29/07/10 Mark Kozelek, Union Chapel
One man show. He sings and plays guitar of the songs he made although he improvise at some degree too. It took for a while for me and perhaps for him to get really into it. A few songs at the beginning I felt the performance was flat but after a point, the magic started to work. I can hear (and even see) the thread of sound coming out from his body, which extends and tangles with other threads. Another level of music and performance that really make me appreciate the art, spirituality and human.
Union Chapel is a chapel so people sit down on the hard wooden bench with soft drinks. It is a famous music venue and it was surprising for me to discover the fact. This also make us appreciate the music more.
15/08/10 Tanguera, Sadler's Wells
The summer show at Sadler's of course target very general public, who may be tourists or people who go theatre once a year. Tanguera has a story to follow, which I did not follow as usual when I watch musical theatre. For me, the dancing and singing happening on stage now is more exciting than the simple story. I used to watch musical theatre a lot- two or three a month. Then there was a time when I had enough because I figured out all the template in musical theatre. I saw the template here again. The notable fact is one of the dancers was 72 years old. Wow. I thought she was in her 40's on stage.
17/08/10 Lost Villages, Sam Seager, The Orange Dot
Photography exhibition of an English man who spent three months travelling and shooting abandoned or dying villages in Japan. He writes nice text for each picture too, which shows the warmth of elderly habitats and also himself. This is not how I see Japan and its people but the objects in the background of the figure triggers some nostalgic feeling of me. Why do they always wrap everything with plastic carriers from a shop? My mother always do. There was a picture of abandoned hotel in Kozushima island. Many hotels were made in 80's when they were in boom but now they have few people who visit the island. I don't know exactly where Kozushima is, but I have heard the name a lot everyday basis in 80's. My father made an architecture there, perhaps a hotel. Does he know that they are abandoned like this? It could be that my parents are still living in that era, without changing or decaying. Or I just don't know the change and decay because I have been away so long.
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