Back on the dance festival write-ups. Week 3 was one of contrasts – from mass-audience outdoor stuff to more intimate audiences and with performers from many different countries all sharing the same stages.
Monday 3 May
It was the Bank Holiday and we went back to watch Utopia again. What we were going to do was get a bunch of people filming from different places around Victoria Sq and then edit it together. What we didn’t realise is that the time had been brought forward, so we arrived while it was halfway through. That was disappointing. Still, it was good to see the cossack dancers again.
Strictly’s the kind of thing I avoid like the plague, so I had to be fed snippets of info about the various dancers and their back-stories by my better-informed companion for the evening (cheers, Ellie).
The dancers were, of course, excellent. Despite the fake tan, sequins and fixed grins, you can’t escape the fact that these are no fools. It was the ladies who impressed most, doing the same as the men but backwards and in heels (and usually spinning too).
Leaving aside the more snobbish criticisms (and I’ve got em), what I disliked about Strictly was the speed of it. In order to achieve maximum dazzle everything was performed as if it was sped up, providing a kind of visual chipmunk effect. Quite often the ladies were flung around the stage with such force that they seemed to be doing all they could to stay upright in those heels (which, of course, they did).
Oh, and while we were supposedly shown a range of dance styles over the course of the evening, everything (ballroom, flamenco, salsa, swing) looked like a Strictly dance.
It was entertaining, it just wasn’t my thing.
Tuesday 5 May
A slightly more rarified experience was Complot, performed by Chanta La Mui at the Town Hall. This promised to be flamenco as they’re performing it in Madrid these days. I’d attended a press call earlier in the day and chatted with the show’s promoter, Ana Garcia, who’d explained that the dance form was constantly evolving with new elements brought in regularly, but that this didn’t tend to be reflected in the styles of flamenco shown outside of London.
It was a good show – I’ve not really got into flamenco, but there was enough to hold my interest and make me wish that there had been a slightly larger audience in attendance. The bits that I remember most clearly are:
the sweat that flicked off the head of the male dancers – it’s the level of effort that goes into creating that power and grace on stage that impresses me most, and that applies equally to flamenco as it does to streetdance and ballet
the music, and the singing in particular, which really wasn’t my cup of tea
a part that involved some incredibly fast, rhythmic stamping by all three dancers that left me wondering ‘….how?!’
Friday 7 May
The predicted highlight of my week was Akram Khan Company performing Gnosis at the Town Hall. It turned out to be a show of two halves. The first left me cold – starting well enough but giving way to an improv session that didn’t do much for me (it had been a long day). Akram was chattier than expected though, and a genial host. He also recommended that those of us in the stalls find our way to the balcony for the second half which we duly did.
The second half was the main event – a duet between Akram and Yoshie Sunahata, a beautiful and incredibly talented kodo drummer who also danced and sang. The piece was inspired by the Mahabharata story of Queen Ghandari, who blindfolded herself for life to follow her blind husband.
My dance review vocabulary lets me down at this point – all I can say is that, against a stark black stage, the pair managed to create an entirely engrossing world of their own in which they told an affecting story.
As with the flamenco, I’m left with two particularly strong details:
Queen Ghandari raising her son by means of pushing, pulling and guiding with her stick which managed to convey all manner of motherly emotion; and
the dramatic ending – Akram Khan stood front and centre, spasming and convulsing with increasing violence, his body threatening to tear itself apart. A jaw-dropping end to a great show.
Social Media Releases for the music industry – MonkeyWatcher – Advice for bands – “send a quick press release by email, and provide a link to a social media release (SMR), or, in other words, a page aggregating the various items you want to share (music, pictures, videos, blog posts, tour dates, etc.)” I get a lot of adjective stuffed press releases from bands’ PR companies too – the essentials with links to further stuff would be so much more useful
Putt’s Law – “Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage, and those who manage what they do not understand”
Population : One – One Person is One Pixel – “Every pixel in the illustration represents one person alive on Earth. The first one is you. The rest are everyone else”. Reminiscent of Stans Cafe’s ‘Of All The People…’. It never hurts to get a sense of perspective once in a while
Birmingham schools named in gang report – Google Maps – Someone’s plotted all the schools named in a report as being “at risk of becoming ‘feeder schools’ for city gangs into a Google Map. No idea which report and the colour-coding is a mystery. Still. As a side note, if anyone knows how to search Google Maps for user-generated maps then please let me know
kala phool – Mother India – 21st Century Remix – The edit and live soundtracking of Mother India which Kala Phool produced last year was one of the best things I’ve seen in the past 12 months. I’ve just heard they’re taking the show on a UK tour between August and October. No dates yet but you heard it here first
nycgo / this is new york city – New York’s official website for visitors was relaunched in Jan 09, partnering with Google, Travelocity, Time Out New York and others
I had an email in the week about a little gig/party that someone was going to be hosting at their house – part of the (mobile phone sponsored) Unlit tour that has been making it’s way around the country for the past month. It sounded interesting so last night, after some Arstfest-related fun, I popped along with Jo Geary and Frankie Ward in tow, meeting (fellow ‘premier Birmingham blogger‘) Bobbie Gardner down there too.
The set-up was a big tent in the back garden; nicely lit with a small crowd of people already gathered and three acts to entertain us. Jont was hosting – he’s been organising Unlit gigs for the past 10 years or so.
First up were The Old Dance School who threatened to be a bit fiddly-dee but were actually a lot of fun. Birmingham/based too, I think.
I might nearly have seen them at the Moseley Folk Festival this year but I’ve a funny feeling we were drying off in the pub at that point. Anyway, they were good and I filmed a bit of them:
Next up was Bust My Flex, a guy with a guitar who sang scatty, odd songs – almost blues pastiches – and the odd instrumental. I liked the way that he put his whole body into playing his guitar and sounded nothing like you’d expect from looking at him. Here he is (the pic’s by Bobbie, by the way):
The third act was poet and occasional ukelele player, Tim Clare. He was a lot of fun, with his first poem the cleverly obscene ‘Gay Day’. It’s up on his MySpace and worth checking out although it was delivered much better live.
I wasn’t so keen on the second poem but the third and final one was a funny little gem. Again, the Sound of Music-inspired ‘Favourite Things’ is on Tim’s MySpace but here’s my video of part of it:
We sloped off after that, although the party looked like it was going to carry on. Btw, here are the rest of my pics.
The Unlit chaps were streaming video with Qik on the night but the bits that I’ve seen were dreadful (mainly shots of Jo and Frankie’s backs). They were filming with other cameras too and I expect that’ll be edited and uploaded soonish.
Actually, the social media side was pretty interesting (err… to me). They’re blogging often, Twittering (although to a handful of people and they’re not following anyone back – shoutcasting rather than chatting, then) and are upping pics to Flickr and vid to YouTube.
It’s got me thinking dangerous thoughts though. Sure, I’ve got Film Dash to sort out, but a few little impromptu gigs? How hard can it be? It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while, especially after coming across Welcome to our TV Show a little while back. Hmm…
I had a pretty incredible day on 31 May. It started and ended at the Hippodrome with some Fierce Festival events – Motionhouse’s Underground early on and then the Courtesan Tales later. More on them later.
Between those two I went down to one of Birmingham’s least celebrated spots – underneath the Hockley Flyover – to catch the Flyover Show. This was the brainchild of Soweto Kinch – top jazz saxophonist, MC, producer, writer, poet and all round general legend. I’d been banging on about the event since I heard about it, giving it a few bumps on CiB and chewing my friends’ ears off too.
The event was also the perfect excuse to interview Soweto for the first CiB podcast so earlier in the week I’d had the privilege of him making me a cup of tea round at his flat while Frankie conducted her first CiB interview.
Anyway, it sounded like an ace idea and the line-up was pretty good too. Ty and Bashy being good names on the hip hop side of things; Soweto and Andy Hamilton being great quality jazz names – all for free. I got down at about 4.30pm, stayed til the end and loved every second. There was an amazingly good atmosphere with loads of families down there and the whole thing ran seamlessly from one impressive act to another.
Soweto Kinch was onstage most of the day and even took part in the youth theatre group’s performance – something that I started watching with polite curiosity but finished watching with something closer to awe. Some of the kids involved in that were just incredible.
Here are some of my photos from the day:
Best of all there was no trouble. There were worries before the event, what with the whole postcode rivalries thing, but nothing happened so it’s not something I’m going to dwell on.
I heard a rumour that they might try to put on a similar event some time. I really hope so because this one achieved exactly the lofty aim it was trying to.
There are loads of pics of the day on the BBC’s site and The Birmingham Post have a review. Oh, and typing this has reminded me that I need to check out Zena Edwards who was incredible and who I’d never heard of before.
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