David Porter » Entries tagged with "Norfolk & Norwich Festival"
The Voice Project
Ideas of winged flight taking off The Voice Project at Norwich Cathedral part of Norfolk and Norwich Festival 2013 Review published in Eastern Daily Press, 13 May 2013 Swirls of ideas and flocks of birds taking flight, soaring to emotional and intellectual delights, came together sublimely in the Voice Project’s work in the great Cathedral arena. As darkness fell outside, the sense of bird above was palpable. The one hundred-strong choir, the brilliant Trio Zephyr, cool saxophonist Andy Sheppard, tenor Jeremy Aris, sopranos Rebecca Askew and Sianed Jones used ten poems about birds from all manner of poets to interpret the wings of flight. Music was variously composed by Karen Wimhurst, Orlando Gough and Barbara Thompson, from differing backgrounds and musical streams. The result was eclectic and rivetting, sometimes quirky and humorous, then sombre and dark. Jonathan … Read entire article »
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Oliver Coates
Oliver Coates at Norwich Playhouse part of the Norfolk and Norwich Festival 2013 Review published in Eastern Daily Press, 13 May 2013 Up and coming cellist Oliver Coates treated the audience in the acoustically apt Playhouse to a stunning masterclass. His virtuosity and the variety of works complemented each other perfectly. The cello fairly sang in harmony and jangled in disharmony, in turn. From Britten’s Ciaccona (Suite No.2 Op.80) to a pair of Bach Preludes (in D major, Cello Suite No.6 and in G major Cello Suite No.1), Coates was in flamboyant interpretative form. He then moved to Block’s ‘Prayer’ from ‘Jewish Life’ and three fragments from Kurtag, including a fascinating two-bow ‘Hommage of John Cage’. David Fennessy’s ‘The room is the resonator’ grew from one note to 12 to one, a dialogue of pitches in a … Read entire article »
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Le Grand C
Compagnie XY in Le Grand C at the Hippodrome, Gt Yarmouth, part of Norfolk and Norwich Festival 2012. Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 28 May 2012 The Hippodrome’s traditional arena was the perfect staging for a show that took circus art form in new directions. French ensemble Compagnie XY presented Le Grand C, a piece of theatre combining circus acrobatics with physical theatre and choreography. It was beautifully measured, slow and mysteriously dream-like at the start as the scale of performance skills were displayed. Four-person towers and pyramids were created, then carefully gave way to new controlled contortions. All 17 in the troupe relished tumbles, mid-air somersaults and flying from one cluster to another, literally. It was a fusion of observational mime and physicality, demanding and challenging. There were bundles and clever, amusing … Read entire article »
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The Imagined Village
The Imagined Village at Theatre Royal, Norwich,as part of Norfolk and Norwich Festival 2012 Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 25 May 2012. Musical collaboration project Imagined Village brought some of the freshest, most innovative intercultural fusion and evolution of traditional folk into alt-rock and morris-bhangra around. Folk legend Martin Carthy and his daughter Eliza led the 10-piece outfit who continuously push at the boundaries of folk. They work collectively, together tweaking and reinventing old songs and each others’ new material. They updated My Son John, an old war song, making it a political statement about today’s conflicts. Word-of-mouth narratives like The Captain’s Apprentice rubbed shoulders with new edgy material about ‘culture in crisis’ such as The Guvnor, Fisherman and The Sick Old Man. Their evolutionary technique was powerfully applied to Bjork’s Birthday, the ‘sinister … Read entire article »
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Duane Eddy
Duane Eddy at the Hippodrome Circus, Great Yarmouth, part of the Norfolk and Norwich Festival 2012. Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 21 May 2012. Somebody in the crowd flocking to see Duane Eddy in concert expressed surprise that he is still alive! The late 50s/early 60s rock and roll legend, the man voted more popular in the UK in 1960 than Elvis Presley, is very much alive and rocking. The rebel rouser who invented the ‘guitar twang’ and sold 100 million records gave a command performance of his classic hits, from the first Movin’ & Groovin’, which influenced the early surfing sound, to contemporary songs off his current album, Road Trip. His influences from country music to rock were evident. He’s worked with and inspired musicians in many genres over the decades; it … Read entire article »
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Mirror
Schweigman & Mosk, at Open, Norwich, part of the Norfolk and Norwich Festival 12. Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 19 May 21012. This show asks two questions – ‘how strange can reality be?’ and ‘how real is reflected reality?’ The answers are extremely strange and not particularly real. From the off, the audience of just 30 is divided into two, to sit on long benches gazing into a dark tank through a slit window along each side of a rectangle. Everyone close together in an intimacy, an exclusivity as if for comfort while sharing the weirdness. Noises, glimmers of lights and a sense of movings, births and contortions come from within the structure. It’s not unlike waking from a nightmare about having a nightmare to discover it’s a nightmare. It takes time before … Read entire article »
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The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart
National Theatre of Scotland’s Prudencia Hart NUCA Bar, Norwich Review published in Eastern Daily Press, 15 May 2012. In Prudencia Hart, the Norfolk and Norwich Festival 12 fringe got off to a brilliantly surreal start. The National Theatre of Scotland’s ambition is to transform the world in dreams and drama, ‘to make incredible things happen in unbelievable places’. The Norwich University College of the Arts bar is a gem of theatrical possibilities, up dangerous stairs, ideal for a theatre of the imagination, theatre without walls. And The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart was a piece of unspecific site performance, ideally suited to venue on and around the tables and audience. Sponsored by Benromach whisky, there was a free dram for everyone. The play was about a girl who was a collector of traditional folk music, told in … Read entire article »
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Life Cycle
Life Cycle Opera North Projects, Norwich Playhouse Norfolk and Norwich Festival 2011 Review published in Eastern Daily Press, 12 May 2011 Original music with haunting words chimes with mood; captures time, emotion and imagination. We have all been born, but only women have experienced childbirth. This was an evening of old and new music that evoked pain and loss of stillbirth with the tribulations of new live birth. John Reid (piano) and Oliver Coates (cello) opened with a prelude of three pieces on the theme of lullaby (Janacek, Mendelssohn and Messiaen). After an inexplicably long interval, Life Cycle followed. Built round a song cycle, it was an evolving work without finite narrative, but giving us glimpses of being a mother. Toby Litt’s words and Emily Hall’s music dovetailed to create a succession of song fragments that told … Read entire article »
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A Game of You
A Game of You Ontroerend Goed at The Garage, Norwich Norfolk and Norwich Festival 2011 Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 7th May 2011 The fringe festival got off to a dark, strange but fascinating start. Audience members are led in singly, through tiny curtained rooms, one mirrored. You know you’ll participate and it’s going to be disturbing; you don’t know how. It’s immersive theatre, relying on clever psychology, vanity, wariness and our self-consciousness. Like a 1960s Happening which at extremes catered for an audience of one, this is about you, quite literally. You are engaged in warm conversation with a stranger. You are shown a film clip of an audience member you may have noticed outside, but don’t know. You are persuaded to play drama director, creating an imaginary life for that person. The … Read entire article »
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The Voice Project
The Voice Project Norwich Cathedral, part of Norfolk & Norwich Festival 2010 Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 24 May 2010 The Festival curtain fell with another world premiere and a bang, the brilliant DJ sampler Jan Bang. Blending found-sounds and created, musical and unearthly, he mixed technology with sublime massed human voices of the Voice Project Choir and the musical brilliance of trumpeter, conductor, singer Arve Henriksen. In the first half, scripture, 16th century poetry and contemporary verse were given the Voice Project interpretation. After the break, Recording Angel was the new work that will sit in the canon of 21st century repertoire. To describe it is to delve deep into the lexicon of praise. Simultaneously experimental, traditional, a fusion of genres from choral chant and Biblical text, to poignant, touching-heaven emotions, it … Read entire article »
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