I am not a connoisseur of chamber music but last Friday (4th Oct)  I was fortunate enough to be in Dublin staying with old friends, the McCutcheons, and so had the pleasure of seeing the Prazak Quartet playing in St Patrick’s Church, Dalkey. Gill McCutcheon is the daughter of John Ruddock (1924 – 2013) whose life mission was to bring chamber music to the people of Ireland. According to Gill, he was never very commercial but was always happy with a full house, even if no one had paid. Such concerts were known as artistic successes. John, who sadly died in May this year, would have been thrilled with the turn out on Friday.

As I said, I know little about chamber music, but watching this Quartet was fascinating. The acoustics in St Patrick’s are very good, but it was the technical brilliance of the musicians that amazed me. The flick of a wrist, the barely perceptible nod of a head… the timing was so taut. The music seemed layered and tight, but it also soared. It struck me how extraordinary it is that wood, bows and strings could be so manipulated to make such music. Watching the four men play made me realise for the first time in many years just how wonderful, skilled and clever musicians (and composers, of course) are. It is so easy to forget this in the cross fire of rock, pop, and pipe muzak that assaults us very day.

So watching and listening to the Prazak Quartet was pure pleasure. A big thank you to the McCutcheons. By the way, the Quartet played, Haydn, Beethoven, and the music of a Czech composer, Leos Janacek. The latter was new to me. It was exciting and dramatic, worth checking out.

The Prazak Quartet

Pavel Hula (Violin)

Vlastimil Holek (Violin)

Josef Kluson (Viola)

Michal Kanka (Cello)

http://www.prazakquartet.com/

            Last night I was out in rural Longford. It was a black night and we had mislaid our way. The long dark Longford lanes were deserted. Fortunately we came across a large grey isolated church (as one does in Longford) spilling out its ancient congregation. Suddenly we were caught in the glare of a hundred headlights and mobbed by crowds of old people shuffling along the road dressed in raggedy jackets, hoiked up trousers, mismatched twin sets and wearing large, creased weathered faces. In a roundabout fashion, we got directions and soon arrived at our destination: The Haggard, Moyne. We parked (there was a good crowd) and walked around a rather fine stone building which turned out to be artists’ studios. Around the corner was a thatched clay cottage, built in all the old traditional materials. We popped in for a peek.

            No one was there. A fire was burning in a rather fine grate. Blackened cooking instruments and kettles hung above. Four empty, cushioned comfy chairs were waiting to be sat in. So we did. I felt like Goldilocks. The room was full of firelight. Suddenly a door to the left opened up and Oscar Wilde came rushing out. He nodded a greeting and sauntered up the stairs to the wooden open balcony that stretched across the room above.

            “Don’t worry, take your time,” he said, and he disappeared into a room off to the right.

            We were there to see a monologue about Oscar Wilde performed (by Michael Judd from Dublin). The performance was taking place in the converted outhouse next door. We sauntered over and were given two chairs to sit in (the place was packed) and a glass of wine to enjoy. A young harpist from Abbeylara, Laura O’Reilly, was playing some rather fine music. This was the Haggard. It is a comfortable space with a wooden pitched roof with beams from which hung old small hand ploughs. The floor was concrete and wood, there was a small corner stage, though Oscar was performing from the centre of the room. There was a blackened range, dressers stacked with old tableware, shelves stuffed with different artefacts like an old trombone and squeezebox. We chatted with our neighbours and there was a great intimate atmosphere.

            The performance was grand. You can’t go wrong with Oscar Wilde, except not to have enough of him! But it was the setting that made it and the man who created it, Michael Masterson. He is a good looking, enthusiastic, passionate host who gave the lingerers who hung around after  for a bit of an aul sing song, tea and sangwiches. When we needed to leave, Michael showed us out and around the whole place, studios, cottage as well as the small out house packed with gorgeous tiny kittens. He was as proud as punch, as if he had made them himself!

            It’s a great venue for community performances, sing songs, story telling,  anything. Check it out. It’s The Haggard, Moyne, County Longford. God knows where it is. Go to Moyne and just ask for Michael Masterson’s place. Everyone knows him.

Wunderkammer at The Gaiety. The Dublin Theatre Festival.

‘Wunderkammer’ is a box of ‘discovery’ in which wealthy explorers of the 18^th and 19^th century would place exotic trinkets that have no particular home. We probably all have our own ‘wanderkammer’, explorers or not: boxes, or tins, where we put our small treasures.

Wunderkammer is also the name of the most extraordinary and special show that kicked off the Dublin Theatre Festival this year at The Gaiety. It is aptly named.

It is a show performed by a troupe of gymnasts and dancers but that description doesn’t do justice to the skills, strength and showmanship of the performers. This is performance at its best. It is a magical, awe inspiring, and creative display of human achievement which will make you gasp. It defies belief. It is performed with humour, joy and passion. It is burlesque, and pastiche combined. It is touching. The movement, the grace, the energy is tremendous.

So what is it? The show is a display of human movement, skill, strength and tension. Male and females bodes are tossed, spun and swung around the stage space with such extraordinary breath taking grace and beauty. The performers dance and play with each other with engaging humour. They seem to defy gravity. They make it look easy. It is witty. There is flirtation, sexuality, sensuality, and games. Each scene has its own integrity. Each performer brings their own passion, but the trust and team work is incredible. Their bodies are beautiful. The costumes were great too…as was the way they were taken off and put back on.

Afterwards we went to the after show chat. The troupe are a mix of nationalities. All have trained since childhood. One of them described the show as being the culmination of their day…they put the moods of the day into the show so that it is constantly changing, and each one of them has to be aware of the tensions of the other.

One young boy asked what they ate. Lots of meat, broccoli, sprouts…green vegetables!

Walking home I wondered out loud that given the strength and suppleness of their bodies, what the sex must be like. My companion responded

“I think that’s what we all wanted to know and didn’t have the audacity to ask.”

I’m sure she was right. Go and see it.

Book review of A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki..

A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki. (shortlisted on Booker)

This is a complex story that travels across countries, culture and time but which is rooted in two protagonists, an American writer living on an off shore Canadian island and a Japanese school girl.

The book delves into Buddhism, life and death, quantum physics, amongst other things, but it leads the reader by the hand so that the theories/philosophies are absorbed rather than understood. The life stories of both protagonists travel in parallel and become inter-dependent.

Ultimately, the book reflects on the importance of ‘time being’; living in the present moment but it also looks at how the present moment extends itself around the world and is inter related. Ruth Ozeki  refers to the 6,400,099,980 moments in a day. Written out, that is six billion, four hundred million, ninety nine thousand, nine hundred and eighty moments in a day. One snap of the finger and thumb is 65 moments. If you snapped your finger 98,463,077 times without stopping, you would know how you spent every moment in a day. I liked this. It encapsulated the concept of time for me. But, Ruth Ozeki’s book explains it better than I can.

So the story follows a Japanese schoolgirl whose father has lost his secure job in California and so returns his family to Tokyo where his daughter is abused by her school mates and he slides into depression and becomes suicidal. The girl, Nao, writes about her experience, about  her Buddhist grandmother aged 104, her father, her kamikaze uncle and slips the book, the uncle’s journal and watch into a water proof container and sends it out into the world. It arrives at the shore of Ruth, a writer from New York, living an isolated life with her husband and cat on a rickety island off the Pacific coast of Canada.

The book weaves back and forth between Nao and Ruth, between the two islands, two cultures, different time frames, They are separate but become dependent on the other without knowing who the other is.

A Tale for the Time Being is engrossing and enlightening. The imagery is beautiful. I loved the metaphor/simile of the spirit/soul (kotodama) as a fish in the stomach which re-appears throughout the book. The book reflects on life, death, modern living, poverty, cruelty, love and ultimately the importance of self awareness.

I couldn’t read this book in one sitting. I had to put it down often. To absorb. This is a good thing. Sometimes I found it heavy handed and too dense. On occasion, I felt it stretched credibility. But overall, I was hooked. I believed in the characters and I wanted to know what happened. I liked the way the author was able to cross stitch the themes across the different cultures and time and the way she wove the practicality of everyday life with the complex themes of time, quantum physics, life and death. It’s definitely worth reading.

Uncommon Wealth at Cavan Museum.

            Uncommon Wealth is a production of hymns written by John Byrne, and the title of an event held last night (Sat 21 Sept 2013) at the county museum as part of Culture Night (or weekend, as it became in Cavan). John Byrne’s hymns celebrate the joy and presence of ‘art’ in life. Last night it was a complete joy to hear them sung by the recently established Cavan County Choir, and soloist, Ruth Kelly. Each hymn was interleafed with a readings from poets, and/or writers. Overall it was a rather perfect evening.

I have been trying to work out why the evening was rather perfect. The museum is a nice community venue, though not acoustically brilliant, but I think it was also because it was good to hear art valued as a concept through the hymns as well as in the singing voice.

I loved the choir. Standing there before me, I liked the informality of dress, the array of colour, shape, size and age; the almost higgledy piggledy formation of the singers. I enjoyed the rawness of the singing and the scale of the notes and arrangements of the songs achieved by the choir was wonderful. The high notes were extraordinary, but reached. This was ordinary people using ordinary voices and it is amazing what they achieved. The conductor, Blanaid Murphy, has a powerful presence. But it’s like her stick is a magic wand, casting magic spells across the room rather than a leading baton. Yet there was an earthy rootedness about the evening. That’s the magic of art.

The readings between the hymns were personal reflections from the authors about life on or crossing borders, and as such each held its own particular truth. I liked how the final reader, Brian Keenan, extended our border to Syria and Lebanon. For while social media allows us to cross borders with a hop, skip and a jump, I worry that it also creates virtual watch towers of isolation and powerlessness out of us all. We all have borders, wherever we are.

The event was put on by Culture Cavan, a project funded by the International Fund for Ireland to encourage participation and reconciliation through the Arts. Culture Cavan has been a huge success in Cavan. It has supported a wide range of artistic projects and pays tribute to the artistic capacity and ability of ordinary people who excel when given opportunity and encouragement. This summer has been great in Cavan and much of my enjoyment has been as a result of the work supported by Culture Cavan. Congratulations to the arts team, the steering group and the Co-ordinator

Pensive Spectator

Last night, I  was at the opening of Laura O’Connor’s exhibition, The Pensive Spectator, which is on at 61 College St, Cavan for this weekend only. It is definitely worth a visit. One exhibit, which has pride of place, is a video installation, created during Culture Night 2012 in Belfast. In this particular piece we watch 16 faces, in a grid, staring directly at the camera. It is so strange to be able to stare at these people with such candour with no fear of them coming back at you. They twitch, fidget (though I can’t describe exactly how they do that with no hand movement), and it is slightly eerie to see find oneself making judgments and ascribing personality traits to these faces after staring at them for a while. The movement and life in the 16 faces is amazing. 

It is an interesting exhibition, thought provoking. All are video installations based on watching figures sitting, or lying in stylised backgrounds or setting.

Laura is a Belfast artist from Killeshandra, Cavan.

Non Parade

Also, as one of the dancers in the Non Parade Parade, I just wanted to respond to Geoff O’Keefe’s great review of the Non Parade Parade put on in Cavan by the Trans Art Team. I am so glad he liked it. I hope everyone did. It was great to be a part of an event that was beautiful, engaging, surprising and that encouraged Cavan people to take part. We were all volunteers, and loved being a part of something so creative – dancers, artists, gophers alike. I think participation and the reflection of our daily movement and activity were the themes behind it. Well, that’s what I got from it but I was not the brains behind the project: that was Jesse Keenan, Sally O’Dowd and Siobhan Harton. Congratulations to them all.