Venezuelan Brass Ensemble

Venezuelan Brass Ensemble
The Bridgewater Hall, 30 January 2011

This concert contained myriad moments of majestic splendour and sonorous power.

There were four pieces in the programme, with only one of them (Giancarlo Castro’s ‘Gran Fanfaria’) specifically written for brass instruments, though you wouldn’t think that from the virtuosity of the performances.

They have a particular quality when played in unison, do these trumpets and trombones and horns and all the rest.  Though it can be sometimes smooth and silvery (sic) and often surprisingly intricate, the predominant tone is of rumbling thunder and latent explosiveness.

The music evokes many images: a battle with sword clashing against shield, an army marching off to war, landscapes from old Westerns…

When Elgar Howarth’s arrangement of Mussorgsky’s ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ reaches its climax, it is absolutely spectacular: like fireworks going off in sequence or the clean report of rapid gunfire.  You cannot really escape from martial metaphors as far as brass music is concerned.  Anyway, could a conventionally instrumented (or armed…) orchestra achieve such a pyrotechnic effect?

Whatever the answer, this was without a doubt my favourite moment in a cracking concert.

come, been and gone by Michael Clark

come, been and gone
Choreography by Michael Clark
Music by David Bowie, The Velvet Underground and others
Michael Clark Company
The Lowry, 28 January 2011

Credit: Jake Walters

Never look back; something might be gaining on you.  Not absolutely trustworthy advice.

Michael Clark’s work is in three movements and it traces, or so I have been informed, an autobiographical journey.  As the titles of the respective movements indicate, it is a journey that ends with renewal, if not unalloyed triumph.

Of time lost and gone (‘been’), we are given dance to the music of The Velvet Underground, notably ‘Venus in Furs’ and Lou Reed’s epic performance of ‘Heroin’, still sounding edgy, dark and amoral as hell after all these years.  In the later movements (‘come’ and ‘come again’) Bowie’s work predominates, with the songs ‘Heroes’ and ‘Aladdin Sane’ seeming especially significant.

The dance is extraordinary – it has the vital rhythm of rock and roll (or a certain kind of arty rock) yet a formalism borne of Clark’s love of classical ballet.  It is like viewing a gloria duplex in motion, or a fantastical beast like say a griffin or a chimera.  I cannot adequately describe it.

One could quite easily come again and again to see this work – and come away once again, renewed and revitalised.

Fear Eats the Soul

Fear Eats the Soul
Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Germany, 1974
Cornerhouse, 25 January 2011

Still from Fear Eats the Soul

As an early expression of Fassbinder’s great talent, this resituated retelling of All That Heaven Allows, in the final analysis marginally more optimistic than the original, could hardly be bettered.

They fall in love, a middle-aged German widow (actually she’s Polish, now that I think of it) and a young Moroccan immigrant, and then they marry and their daring love, though battered and blue-bruised, holds strong in the end.  So, a little bit more optimistic than Douglas Sirk’s 1955 film.

Fassbinder is clear-eyed about the racism and bigotry of mid-70s German society and the indignities to which the marginalized (the old and the foreign) are subject; he registers also venality, infidelity and cultural misunderstandings.  Never mind: decency and dignity, understanding and forgiveness and Eros’s great gift can be found here too.

Brigitte Mira’s performance makes the film, or at any rate raises it up a fair few notches, and there are three scenes at least that all should hold dear: the one where she and Ali decide to go on holiday, the fractious visit to Ali’s place of work where she meets with derisive laughter and the final conciliatory dance.

An excoriating look at a flawed society, yes, but also an unusual and unusually moving love story.

NEDS by Peter Mullan

NEDS
Directed by Peter Mullan
UK, France & Italy, 2010
Cornerhouse, 23 January 2011

Still from NEDS

A letter sent from the almost forgotten past, a postcard written in blood.

At its centre: an immensely charismatic performance by Conor McCarron, who plays John McGill, an academically talented lad surrounded by threats, intimidation, violence and aggro.

They hurt you at home and they hit you at school

They hate you if you’re clever and they despise a fool

Till you’re so fucking crazy you can’t follow their rules…

Lennon’s great song pretty much sets out the circumstances and course of John’s life, its tensions and fault-lines.

There is a kinship to This is England and to Awaydays also, this latter film set in Liverpool and concerning itself with football violence, but Mullan is ultimately his own man with his own distinctive vision.  There is a strong Christian vibe here, albeit an idiosyncratic one, not least in the ending, a riff on that ‘the lion shall lie down with the lamb’ line.

For some reason, I thought also of Hammett’s Flitcraft parable: John responds to the threat of violence with violence of his own, but when it’s absent he gets on with his school work.  Being bright as a button, he adapts to circumstances and goes where he’s wanted, joining a gang of mates.  His undoing is the contiguity of violence and a concomitant awareness of death.

Mind, doesn’t this, though, plague us all?

Black Swan

Black Swan
Directed by Darren Aronofsky
USA, 2010
Cornerhouse, 22 January 2011

Still from Black Swan

It is rare to find a film as rich in meaning as Black Swan.

What is especially noteworthy is the way in which it melds reality and the psychological state of a disturbed yet gifted young woman.  Nina (Natalie Portman) wants to be the perfect ballerina and she sees self-harm, punishment and deprivation as stepping stones towards that goal.

In the film, you are quite often unsure whether what you are seeing is actually happening or is simply the outpouring of Nina’s porous, paranoid psyche.  She excels in the role of the White Swan, a role which requires perfect technique and great self-control.  Her whole life has been a preparation for this performance, you could say.  But her attempts to master the role of the Black Swan flounder; she cannot abandon or surrender the control that she has built up over a lifetime.  In time, her efforts to dance the Black Swan precipitate a breakdown.

We are in the territory of the Apollonian and Dionysian aspects of art, Jung’s notion of the shadow, technos and poesis, good and evil, and so on.  Although it should be said that Aronofsky treats all of this with a gentle touch.

Some of the scenes are a little over the top, perhaps, and overall it is somewhat perplexing on a first viewing, but what film worth its celluloid wasn’t that?  Thought-provoking and beautifully made, Black Swan could also be regarded as a superior chick flick; there is only one male character of note.

Miss Nightingale

Miss Nightingale
By Matthew Bugg
Mr. Bugg Presents
The Lowry, 20 January 2011

There is a love triangle at the centre of this terrific musical which, like Matthew Bourne’s Cinderella, is set during the London blitz.

It involves an English knight (Richard Shelton), a Polish refugee (Ilan Goodman) and a fascinating chanteuse: the erstwhile Miss Nightingale (Amber Topaz).

The quirk or twist is that both men are gay – something we learn early on – and are besotted with each other, though neither one is above proposing to the lady in order to evade prying eyes.

Matthew Bugg’s musical has light and shade.  On the one hand, Miss Nightingale’s numbers are rather risqué and provocative, with the ludic ‘Let Me Play On Your Pipe’ being a prime example.  Her persona is that of a jildy girl with a lot of sauce, you might say.  In the other palm, there are songs of real power and poignancy, such as ‘Waiting’, ‘Love’ and especially ‘Someone Else’s Song’.  For some songs, two or all three principals can be heard; these were to my mind the most moving.

You are as involved in these characters’ lives as you would be in any big production or canonical musical.  And this show is satisfying on other fronts as well: an engrossing story that offers a significant slant on the past.  It is wonderful, heart-grappling stuff.

Miss Nightingale is at The Lowry until 22 January, and then moves to The King’s Head Theatre in London until 19 February.  Details here and also here.

Cinderella

Cinderella
Music by Profokiev
Birmingham Royal Ballet
The Lowry, 19 January 2011

Credit: Bill Cooper

It was quite glorious, this production of the classic ballet.

Elisha Willis was fetching and stunning in the lead role, and Gaylene Cummerfield and Carol-Anne Millar, as the horrible sisters Skinny and Dumpy, provided much comic relief.  There was humour and pathos, light as well as shadow, which is as it should be.

The sets and costumes were vibrant with colour and the corps de ballet weaved intricate geometric patterns, becoming in one wonderful instance a constellation of stars.  An immense intermeshing of clockwork springs and wheels was the centrepiece of the set when we arrived at the close of the ball: the ticking getting louder and louder as midnight approached.

This was very much a traditional version of Cinderella, unlike Matthew Bourne’s decidedly adult but still sumptuous affair.  You could quite happily take your children along to see this one.

All told, BRB’s Cinderella was a rapturous experience, entertaining and exhilarating in equal measure.

Cinderella is at The Lowry until 22 January then touring throughout the UK until 2 April 2011.  More details here and also here.

Fallen by Upswing

Fallen
By Upswing
The Lowry, 14 January 2011

Sera Adetoun in Fallen. Credit: Hilary Shedel

A young woman descends from the sky like a wounded angel.

She feels the ground underneath her soles as a throbbing ache, she walks on fire. Her body, her very breath, is a burden when she comes to contemplate all that she has lost.

Fallen is an enchanting work of theatre that uses circus skills (acrobatics, above all) along with dance to tell a story, a story of imprisonment, loss and detention.  It could be described as ballet + or perhaps ‘hypermodern’ dance.  In this latter conceptualisation, Vicki Amedume, founder and artistic director of Upswing, choreographer and performer of Fallen, would take the role of Richard Reti, innovator and artistic genius.

If you are seeking a theatrical experience that is transporting, immersive and replenishing, then Fallen is prescribed.  And there is not only the spectacle of the story on stage; Jules Maxwell’s score is splendid too.

Fallen is touring throughout the UK up until the middle of April 2011.  Details can be found here and  here.

Blue Valentine

Blue Valentine
Directed by Derek Cianfrance
USA, 2010
Cornerhouse, 15 January 2011

Still from Blue Valentine

A film that I tried awfully hard to like, but it never really caught fire for me.

My encounters with Ryan Gosling have been chequered.  He was superlative in the film where he was a teacher in Brooklyn (Half Nelson), then he disappointed in the one where he played a guy who has a doll for a girlfriend (Lars and the Real Girl) and here he disappoints too.

There’s a lot of sub-Raging Bull stuff going on, domestic arguments between Dean (Gosling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams) over the breakfast table, in the car and elsewhere.  Also, there is a small portion of sub-Last Tango in Paris stuff.  It is indulgent emoting, pretty much, but to those involved it could conceivably have seemed like the dissection of a relationship…  That’s the story, if there can be said to be one.

And another thing: the screen somehow looks cluttered and messy all the time.  Perhaps there is a design and intention to this, but it is irksome.  You’re not shown what is essential, what you need to see – that’s how you feel when you’re watching it.

If you want to see talent wasted and thrown away, go and see this film.  I don’t, personally.  What a sorry piece of work.

Killer by Dave Zeltserman

Killer
By Dave Zeltserman
Serpent’s Tail, January 2010
ISBN: 9781846686443

Do you know the story of the scorpion and the water buffalo?

Dave Zeltserman does, I’m fairly certain, because this brilliant novel is a neo-noir take on it.

It starts out like No Beast So Fierce: Leonard March, author of an umpteen number of underworld hits, gets out of the slammer and meets with his probation officer.  When arrested, he had ratted out a mob boss and cut a deal with the powers that be, so dodging punishment for the murders he carried out.  Because of this, the media are now on his back, victims’ families are up in arms and the mafia want payback in blood.  His days seem to be numbered.

The novel plaids from the present to the past in alternate chapters, and the chapters set in the past usually describe a killing that March had had a hand in.  At first, you think the conceit is simply this: in the past March was a predator, while in the present, now old and faded, he is prey.  Hunted by many, he is an accident waiting to happen.  It is just a matter of when the blow will fall.

But there is more and the switch of gear, when it occurs, is startling.  All that has happened before (for the switch comes late on and is closely followed by an allusion to Jim Thompson’s best novel) is seen in a wholly new light.  Although, as a reader, you cannot honestly claim that the clues haven’t been there all along.  To prospective readers I’ll give only two words of warning and perhaps enticement: unreliable narrator.

This is a novel that I’d class with Devil Take the Blue Tail Fly, The Bad Seed (whose author, William March, shares a surname with Zeltserman’s protagonist) and a stack of Jim Thompson and Patricia Highsmith titles.  If you revere any of these works, you’ll dig Killer.

Killer is a stone cold read.  It hits.

For the publisher’s description of Killer please click here.