This weekend was a frantic EIF catch up weekend. Riskily as I often hate EIF stuff. And Caledonia did not, to my thin unpopulist mind, bode terribly well for everything else. But remarkably, I loved all that I saw. And would certainly have loved at least two of the things I didn't see. So it's been a delightful festival close.
Friday I trotted along x2 pints the worse for wear to see Paco Pena, a Flamenco dance company. Being dim, I believed this to be the name of the company but set right as ever by Mother, Senor Pena is in fact a guitarist, composer, dramatist and mentor. Or so his website says, at any rate. So it's quite possible that he himself was strumming his instrument at some point on Friday night.
Now I don't know a great deal about dance but I like a bit of music and I like a nice bit of dance and felt that flamenco surely couldn't get that abstract. And these EIF dance things to tend to be beautifully lit. And this show - Quimeras, they called it - ticked all of these boxes. Lovely guitars. And some drumming. Some brilliant dancing. Lovely lights. Beautiful people (my favourite was the spindly flamenco dancer who wore first a white and then a green shirt - I would like to marry him). Even - my dream scenario - some sort of political point being made about colonialism and oppression and a sliver of racism and the difficulties faced by African immigrants in South America (they had a few bits of voiceovers - don't imagine that I could interpret all of this through the wonders of the dance).
My only criticism was an absurd one - they handled the departures of the dancers after their respective 'numbers' oddly clumsily, not quite getting the lights down in time to prevent the audience seeing them shuffling off stage slightly sheepishly. But then let's be kind. I saw their first night and perhaps they weren't used to such a large stage and so the timing of some of the cues had to be worked on. Or perhaps it's just the Flamenco way...
Saturday afternoon, I caught The Man Who Fed Butterflies from a company called Teatro Cinema. The company name does a good job of describing their art - a kind of mix of theatre and - indeed, you're right - cinema. I almost walked out of this show approx ten minutes in as I felt I might not be able to bear its ridiculous theatricality. But I'm glad I bore with it as it turned out that this melodramatic style was a deliberate thing, probably making some deep point if you were clever enough to understand.
This was a funny little story about what may or may not be an ancient Chilean myth which tells of a man who made a pilgrimage once a year to feed the butterflies on their annual migration. This man came from a long line of those who did the same who - it was quite hard to follow the story sometimes - I think appointed a successor towards their dying moments and I think indeed our withered old man who spent a great deal of the show running, panting and gasping did find his successor so all in the end, was well.
But this butterfly story was mixed in with another story about a film producer making what appeared to be an absurd historical epic (hence the dreadful stylistic stuff) though it turned out to be a poignant declaration of love and hope with a girlfriend in a coma whom he'd abandoned in the street to bleed to death amid some sort of coup. And there was the guilt and the love and the unfinished business and the mother re-uniting them when they turn off girlfriend's life support machine except girlfriend miraculously breathes unaccompanied and hoorah you think she's saved but then she's off rising up from the hospital bed and flying off like a butterfly so perhaps she's not as well as you think....
It felt very much like an Almodovar film. Colourful, extraordinary, full of unanswered questions and brooding unfulfilled potential. Oh and the beautiful. Because whilst there were very many eccentric characters, often with very large noses, these all turned out to be played by approximately five relatively young and marvellously talented actors.
Anyway, the point of my excursion was to catch this method of presentation - though I think recreating it could be rather beyond our dwindling budgets. And indeed, the interweaving of film and theatre worked extraordinarily effectively. Hence, for example, the butterfly girl who walked in real life across the stage with a pair of filmed wings flapping behind her. A lot of show-offy swirling perspectives, a lot of computer generated stuff, and some lovely clever effects with lighting only portions of the screens so people appeared to be suspended in apartment windows and things. It was super stuff. Just fantastical enough to suit me down to the ground.
As to Saturday night, I must keep you in suspense as I have work to do.
A bientot.
Friday I trotted along x2 pints the worse for wear to see Paco Pena, a Flamenco dance company. Being dim, I believed this to be the name of the company but set right as ever by Mother, Senor Pena is in fact a guitarist, composer, dramatist and mentor. Or so his website says, at any rate. So it's quite possible that he himself was strumming his instrument at some point on Friday night.
Now I don't know a great deal about dance but I like a bit of music and I like a nice bit of dance and felt that flamenco surely couldn't get that abstract. And these EIF dance things to tend to be beautifully lit. And this show - Quimeras, they called it - ticked all of these boxes. Lovely guitars. And some drumming. Some brilliant dancing. Lovely lights. Beautiful people (my favourite was the spindly flamenco dancer who wore first a white and then a green shirt - I would like to marry him). Even - my dream scenario - some sort of political point being made about colonialism and oppression and a sliver of racism and the difficulties faced by African immigrants in South America (they had a few bits of voiceovers - don't imagine that I could interpret all of this through the wonders of the dance).
My only criticism was an absurd one - they handled the departures of the dancers after their respective 'numbers' oddly clumsily, not quite getting the lights down in time to prevent the audience seeing them shuffling off stage slightly sheepishly. But then let's be kind. I saw their first night and perhaps they weren't used to such a large stage and so the timing of some of the cues had to be worked on. Or perhaps it's just the Flamenco way...
Saturday afternoon, I caught The Man Who Fed Butterflies from a company called Teatro Cinema. The company name does a good job of describing their art - a kind of mix of theatre and - indeed, you're right - cinema. I almost walked out of this show approx ten minutes in as I felt I might not be able to bear its ridiculous theatricality. But I'm glad I bore with it as it turned out that this melodramatic style was a deliberate thing, probably making some deep point if you were clever enough to understand.
This was a funny little story about what may or may not be an ancient Chilean myth which tells of a man who made a pilgrimage once a year to feed the butterflies on their annual migration. This man came from a long line of those who did the same who - it was quite hard to follow the story sometimes - I think appointed a successor towards their dying moments and I think indeed our withered old man who spent a great deal of the show running, panting and gasping did find his successor so all in the end, was well.
But this butterfly story was mixed in with another story about a film producer making what appeared to be an absurd historical epic (hence the dreadful stylistic stuff) though it turned out to be a poignant declaration of love and hope with a girlfriend in a coma whom he'd abandoned in the street to bleed to death amid some sort of coup. And there was the guilt and the love and the unfinished business and the mother re-uniting them when they turn off girlfriend's life support machine except girlfriend miraculously breathes unaccompanied and hoorah you think she's saved but then she's off rising up from the hospital bed and flying off like a butterfly so perhaps she's not as well as you think....
It felt very much like an Almodovar film. Colourful, extraordinary, full of unanswered questions and brooding unfulfilled potential. Oh and the beautiful. Because whilst there were very many eccentric characters, often with very large noses, these all turned out to be played by approximately five relatively young and marvellously talented actors.
Anyway, the point of my excursion was to catch this method of presentation - though I think recreating it could be rather beyond our dwindling budgets. And indeed, the interweaving of film and theatre worked extraordinarily effectively. Hence, for example, the butterfly girl who walked in real life across the stage with a pair of filmed wings flapping behind her. A lot of show-offy swirling perspectives, a lot of computer generated stuff, and some lovely clever effects with lighting only portions of the screens so people appeared to be suspended in apartment windows and things. It was super stuff. Just fantastical enough to suit me down to the ground.
As to Saturday night, I must keep you in suspense as I have work to do.
A bientot.
posted by Claire at 7:36 am
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