You Are the Music while the Music Lasts

REVIEW

Emmanuel Church, Loughborough
26 January 2008

Reviewed by: Dan Green

“You Are the Music while the Music Lasts” was a look into the notion of a stranger in our midst – the presence of a foreign body, perhaps unwelcome, a disruptive element, upsetting the status quo and making the expected impossible.

Taking place in Emmanuel Church Loughborough, perhaps a symbol of white, middle class supremacy, the control and authority of religion, the mix of twice Olympic choir champions Cantamus Choir and Mikhail Karikis was staged as part of Loughborough Universities RADAR programme. It consisted of 14 vocal works performed by the choir disrupted by two readings from Ovids Metarmorphoses. The final work was one written by Karikis in collaboration with the choir.

At first it felt like a choral event, the all female choir beginning at the rear of the church, processing through to take their places on the stage. All dressed in the same pale blue, yet all with an individual take on the dress, they stand, sing and move as one group, portraying an almost Austen like air of decorum and femininity. Perfection, achieved through practice away from prying eyes, public performance without drawing attention to oneself too much, we were in the presence of hundreds of years of western cultural history, whether through the projection of image or the choice of music (apart from a few ‘ethnic’ pieces).

Enter Karikis. He first appears in the two readings, the second of which brings him half way towards the stage, dressed with red fur on his ankles and a jester like neck adornment, stamping his foot and shouting. He retires to the rear, before coming forward again at the start of “A Stranger Here”. It is at this point that the stranger becomes apparent, boldly walking forwards until he is on the stage, singing out of time and out of tune with the choir, forcing his way until the choir are forced to cease and Karikis is left now as soloist. His use of vocal noises, coughing and the encouragement to the choir of ‘sing to me’ mixes into a cacophony of confusing sound, unlike anything we had previously heard.

This could easily have become pantoesque, but the urge is resisted as the choir come back in, and by the end of the 5 movements choir and interventionist sing together, the stranger having infiltrated. Perhaps that is too suspicious. Maybe it is acceptance, an outstretched arm welcoming the outsider in, even letting him influence them.. Is he a rebel? I think not. His character could stand for many things; any time the established and the new lock horns. This may have been best played out, however, in the audience – the realisation that I am one of the few here who is not parent or grandparent of one of the choirgirls. I feel like an outsider. Tonight I became the stranger within.

Writer detail:
Dan Green is a third year fine art student at Nottingham Trent University, working within the spaces where contras meet, exchange, combine and proliferate.

INTERFACE

REVIEW

You Are the Music while the Music Lasts

Post your comment