October has been a crazy month - it was the Fringe Festival and the Melbourne Arts Festival, then there was a festival in between about there being so many festivals. I don't think I have ever been so busy.
We kicked off with Liner Notes #2: The Velvet Underground. For LN, writers are chosen to respond to a track each off a classic album, in this case it was The Velvet Underground and Nico, otherwise known as The Banana Album. I got 'Venus In Furs'. I wrote a poem about sadomasochism - for research I read a little of the original 'Venus In Furs' by Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch. There's nothing like a bit of slapping, torture and leather to kick off the fringe festival.
Next Liner Notes I'm putting in a bid for Like A Virgin by Madonna.
Laura Jean McKay. Her track: Sunday Morning.
Justin Heazlewood, The Bedroom Philosopher, his track: All Tomorrow's Parties
Michael Nolan, the hostof the evening singing Venus In Furs with The Mime Set (below), who covered VU beautifully.
What a night.
2.
The Second Gig was Sweet Cowboy at the Toff In Town. This was a completely fresh show written alongside the new western styling of The Mime Set. It was an incredible night, and got a review in The Age!
Published in The Age on the 12/10/07
Sweet Cowboy
FRINGE FESTIVAL REVIEW.
"In you go," says the doorman, and I enter the venue to find a Japanese guy in a cowboy hat urging the audience to shout "Kanpai!''. It turns out I've been hand-stamped incorrectly and have caught the final minutes of West vs East.
But the Wild West theme continues as I settle down with a cheeky red for Sweet Cowboy. In a series of poetic vignettes, Sean Whelan and Emilie Baker unfold the stories of Tom and Skye, invoking cowboy imagery and vibrant characterisation.
There's a bittersweet tone to the tales, with a dash of loneliness, and we become immersed in the characters' lives as scenes are recounted from overlapping perspectives.
The accompanying music from the Mime Set has a languid, enigmatic feel, meshing with the dreamy beauty of the spoken words. The result is a delightful tale of intersecting human relationships.
Sean M Whelan and myself, with a tiny slice of Chris Chapple... drums
Sean, myself and Ms Sam, her vocals digging right through to the bottom of your spine and lighting a sparkler there.
We are performing Sweet cowboy again above the Toff at the Rooftop Bar of Curtin House - taking it to the next level, literally.
It's going to be spectacular!
Sunday the 18th Of November, 7.30 pm, Curtin House rooftop, level 6, 252 Swanston St. City.
3.
The Next Gig was Voiceprints at La Mama Poetica for the Melbourne International Arts Festival. It was a four-day season and packed out every session. I am still thrilled at how well it went. I did a poem called Bratz Camp, soon to be published in 'Unusual Work'. We also received a review in The Australian!
From page to stage
Published in The Australian
John Jenkins | October 16, 2007
INSPIRED by innovative multimedia polypoetry concerts in Europe, La Mama Theatre presented its Voiceprints season from October 11 as part of the 2007 Melbourne International Arts Festival.
Polypoetry strives to make the art form new, exploring poetry in theatrical settings, making a shift from page to stage. Voiceprints was a theatrical mix of performance, spoken word, sound poetry and graphic poetry. Director Tanja Beer imposed theatrical unity through timing and careful use of space. Robyne Latham (set design) and Jenny Hector (lighting) framed the action in red, black and yellow.
It opened with the improvising chorus Unamunos Quorum freezing into tableaus to improvised rhythms of scat-like word jazz. They were joined by the poet Jeltje, whose Feeding Pigeons released a sense of flight and freedom to upbeat, syncopated rhythms.
Peter Murphy delivered a darker set, including a sardonic plea for the world's under-loved outsiders in a piece called Small Change. Ania Walwicz launched two intriguing word-salad narratives from a text called Palace of Culture: one about a trapped dog, the other a stream-of-consciousness tour of a wilful child's mind.
Pi O was next. Seated in a bare wooden chair, he spoke to projected photos of his family's arrival from Greece in the late 1940s, their settlement in the Bonegilla migrant hostel, then dog-eared life in '50s Fitzroy. Images of torn posters, graffiti and disintegrating signs set the Walk section of Pi O's magnificent 24 Hours, which brings to life the mean streets of migrant arrival.
Then Emilie Zoey Baker shifted the mood to gleeful satire with a cautionary poem (Bratz Camp) about a girl who exists solely through her internet fame.
Musicians Elissa Goodrich (vibraphone) and Javanese singer Ria Soemardjo (also on violin) explored musical dimensions with poems by the great Sufi mystic Rumi. Translations by Iranian-born poet Ali Alizadeh, set to music, cast a hypnotic trance: full of exquisite calm, yet torn by spiritual longing.
Sydney-based sound poet Amanda Stewart's amped-up microphones set the air ablaze with her scattergun delivery of Trading Centre. Aided by delay switches, taped backgrounds and superb vocal control, Stewart ended with mt, a fast-tongued mix of almost liquid-sounding phatic sounds.
Finally, Japanese poet and composer Adachi Tomomi had a small table dripping with switch boxes and slippery cables. He delicately uncoiled this teasing spaghetti junction, all the while performing key works of Japanese sound poetry, before ending with his own piece, Voice and Infrared Sensor Shirt. Donning an outfit that started to ululate alarmingly, Tomomi was totally wired. His every movement triggered weird soundtracks.
Even at two hours, Voiceprints seemed a sprint: an eye and ear-opening testimony to the theatrical power of poetry in an exciting new format.
Unamunos Quorum
Tomomi Adachi
and ∏O (below)
So as October closes its eyes and November stretches and scratches its belly, I can finally relax and look forward to the festival that celebrates the one week when there isn't a festival on in Melbourne.
As part of Bar Open's 10th Anniversary celebrations, Babble is back, and so is Liner Notes.
