What happens next …

And we return … week two of the four choreographers piece.

We left the action looking at timecode for the offstage quartet.

In the end, the timecode wasn’t much of an issue – the bigger issue was that the choreographer for that piece hadn’t realised that the quartet were in the wings. I’ve no idea why.

I do know that the several hours I spent setting up the quartet and grand piano in the wings on the saturday were pulled apart in minutes the Sunday morning to move the quartet into the orchestra pit.

“Don’t we have an orchestra in the pit?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Yes we did have to work out how a 65 strong orchestra was going to manage with a Steinway and four strings in it’s midst – a lucky bit of programming meant that the quartet started the evening, with an interval to set up the orchestra.

[shop talk]

The composer was one Olafur Arnalds, a young Icelandic composer who has some very atmospheric pieces, similar (in my minds at least) to William Orbit. He was at the piano with his own copy of Qlab along with a effects pedal and sample pad. The string quartet with him had DPA4061 clip mics, though an absence of proper clips meant we go a little creative with tie wraps – finally have a use for those things.

The Steinway was miked with a pair of C414 clamped to the framework as it was a minimumly raised lid.

Olafur had two Tannoy V12 as monitors and the quartet shared two more Tannoy V8. To deal with the timecode from the AV position all five ended up on in-ears (and Behringer headphone amps absolutely suck! I really don’t recommend them.)

We were able to minimise the impact onto the orchestra and could swop from one to the other in around ten minutes – labelling everything to death.

The orchestra had five SE300 with CK91 heads positioned fairly evenly about the pit with additional C3000 at the conductors rostrum.

And all the above was specially in for us as it’s all playback on the tour …

[/shop talk]

This show seems to have really caught poeple’s attentions. Reviews have been mixed; from zero stars to four stars and have even been mixed for the different pieces in the show.

The temple of cock has been the main talking piece – some absolutely vilifying it and some saying that it’s exactly in the Diaghilev mindset. Some have questioned having this piece to close it, some have wondered why it’s not earlier.

The answer – practicalities. It’s easier to have the piece with screens onstage first, switch to the blackbox/scanachrome pieces in the middle then spend the second interval setting up the temple and come in earlier the next day to reset back to the screens.

Personally, I’m prefering the central pieces (a solo and a duet) – the first piece doesn’t seem as vibrant – though it is based on Shackletons trip to the Antartic so vibrancy may not be the point.

And the final piece just seems to be as shocking for the sake of it. The first night had walkouts and actual boos doing the curtain calls (who sits through an entire piece they didn’t like?) but was causing laughter in the stalls on night three.

The choreographer on this seems to be going to extremes to live to the ’surprise me’ concept – I’d have been more surprised if the piece had been more involving than in it’s current form. Some dance in it would have been nice also for a piece that celebrates dance.

Still.

One reviewer was of the opinion that the boos shows that we are still stretching the comfort zones, pushing the boundaries.

That’s all very well – I’m just thinking that we’ve had several pieces recently that haven’t reviewed well, haven’t sold well and the only pieces selling are the ones that have the support of public opinion. It’s very well to be pushing the boundaries but I wonder sometimes if our boundaries are set further than that of the audience …

And whether or not that’s a good thing …