Archive for the 'Performance & Music' Category

While not a great opera fan, I’ve always enjoyed Mozart for the jolly tunes. It never occurred to me you could combine those hummable arias with African drums and tribal dancing and end up with a toe-tapping, cross-cultural take on an old Classic. Until I saw the South African township version of The Magic Flute - Impempe Yomlingo.

The main story remains of a young knight/ warrior Tamina on the quest to rescue Pamina, the daughter of the Queen of the Night, accompanied by comic sidekick Papagena, the bird catcher. When he finds her in the control of Sarastro, he must go through three trials of initiation. It turns out that Sarastro’s not a tyrant but a wise old man and it is the Queen of the Night who is of a much meaner spirit. (Opera plots are all rather ludicrous and this one is no different so I don’t plan to go into the story in any more detail than this - for those who want to find out more, click on the embedded link for synopsis of: the Magic Flute story ) However, the costumes, language, music and instruments have all been transposed to Africa - with African tribal dress as well as modern black icons like Afro hair and kaftans; Xhosa (the clicking language) and English; African drums, wooden xylophones, whistling, voiced harmonies and hand clapping rhythms creating the sites and sounds of an African woodland.

The singing was still operatic in style, though for purists a bit raw round the edges in some cases. The Queen of the Night was spectacular - and very scary! What I enjoyed the most were the moments when the well-known tunes from 18th century Austria loosed into African harmonies and women would start ululating, the ensemble would break into tribal dancing and the drums and clapping would reverberate through the theatre.

What is impressive is that the cast are all from the township of Khayelitsha in Cape Town, with no formal operatic training.

This production is from the same team who created U-Carmen eKhayelitsha, a modern reworking of Bizet’s Carmen set in modern Khayelitsha. I was absolutely enthralled by U-Carmen, the updated setting bringing out the dangerous passions at work in the opera as well as the descent of Don Jose from upright citizen into the inferno of gangs and bar (or shebeen) fights. The Magic Flute was a great opportunity to see the team live but for me was less riveting than U-Carmen - the fault for which I place squarely at Mozart’s feet: in terms of plot, Bizet’s tale of lust and murder wins hands-down any day over Wolfie’s pantomime fable. But still, I came out of the theatre humming along and tapping my toes and that’s all I needed for a wintry Monday evening!

The opera is currently at the Duke of York’s theatre in London until 12 April 2008. If it ever tours to your part of the world, go see it!

Photo credits:
Magic Flute thanks to Official London Theatre
Khayelitsha thanks to elyob from flickr.com

This is a well-choreographed dance routine from Swedish pop group OK Go, using treadmills in a way you’ve never seen before.

The Swedes have come a long way since those ABBA music videos…

Thanks to Moyra for first sharing this on Facebook.

These poor Singaporeans have been laughed at around the world for their corporate rap…

But I have to say, I think it’s jolly game of these be-suited, square directors of the Singaporean Media Development Authority (the country’s media watchdog) to get into the rappin’ groove and poke a bit of fun at the square Singaporean image.

Further reading:

The Times - “Singapore’s corporate rap is YouTube hit”

Yes, you read that right - “beat” boxing. That’s where you make music using your voice to create the beat. Here’s a great video from Yanji, a city in China on the border with North Korea.

You’ll need your sound enabled to appreciate this video to its full extent.

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I first came across this on the blog Virtual China, which has links to other similar videos and discusses in some detail beatboxing in China, where this genre is apparently really huge.

I am pleased to announce that my social media consultancy ZenGuide and Chanda Communications are working with haute couture designer Roubi L’Roubi to create an online magazine, roubiMAGAZINE.com, to showcase the creative and cultural activities, events and personalities that are coming together as part of the Roubi network.

Our first articles for the magazine look behind the scenes at the music and talented individuals involved in the Tune Your Harps concert coming up on Monday 13 November at Claridges. We also interview the conductor Laurence Cummings and violinist Adrian Butterfield.

The concert is organised by the London Handel Society as a fundraiser for its 2008 Festival. There will be a champagne reception and dinner as well. Roubi has designed clothes for musicians and singers and is very much involved in this event on Monday. As he told my colleague Silvia Cambie for her article on the event:

He believes that working with musicians helps to elevate fashion to another level. “Fashion is just another form of art, very much like classical music,” he says. “Highly skilled musicians are the haute couture of music.”

I hope very much you’ll enjoy roubiMAGAZINE.com - and also be able to come and enjoy the music and champagne on Monday.

You’ll need the sound switched on for this video.

The magic is in the funky rhythm - made up entirely of stop-motion or freeze-frame shots.

Some people have amazing patience! But I suppose it’s still easier - and takes less time? - than actually learning the drums and piano properly…

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Apart from Film Mondays, Fusion View is winding down over August as I will be taking a break from sitting at my PC to potter about the garden and also to take a holiday trip while the sun shines. Fusion View will be back with regular posts in September.

I interviewed Preethi Nair for an article on The Writer as Entreprenuer a while back and we’ve been in touch ever since. Preethi is the author of Gypsy Masala and the story of her self-publishing that novel is an amazing story in itself - she acted as her own publisher, agent, publicist and distributor, in particular creating a fictitious publicist Pru who plugged her book so well, she was shortlisted for a publicist of the year award!

Preethi emailed me to say that she is running a Storytelling Workshop at Waterstones, Piccadilly on Saturday 16 June from 10am-4.30pm. The cost is £60 and proceeds to charity to support Multiple Sclerosis. The details are below.

It should be a good day so do check it out. If you do go and would like to write up a review of the day, do email me and I’ll post it up on Fusion View.

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My article on The Writer as Entrepreneur is due out in the July issue of Mslexia magazine. I will be posting up on Fusion View my telephone interview with Preethi as a podcast to co-incide with the publication of the article so do check back in early July to listen to that interview.

We had a ski-ing ostrich last week. A few weeks back, we had a man playing music through his nose. Today, we have a man making music with his rollerblades - using strategically placed and tuned bottles of water and something to tied to his blades. Yes, we are very high-brow here on Film Mondays.

(You’ll need your sound enabled to appreciate this one.)

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PS. It’s Mozart, in case you were wondering - Symphony No. 40 in G minor.

Yonner came to fame recently when his nose trumpet videos on YouTube brought him to the attention of Channel 4, the UK terrestial TV station. He was featured on their Homemade series on T4 in January this year.

These days I don’t watch much terrestial TV (there never seems to be much worth watching…) so I had never heard of him until I came across this. I love the way he has cut the rhythm bits and the harmonies together and the whole idea is wonderfully, hilariously creative.

He also does the UK and US national anthems on his nose trumpet but they are less interesting without the rhythm and harmony sections. From the comments on his site and his YouTube channel, it looks like he has inspired others to try out nose trumpeting. Maybe we will soon see a full swing band a la Glenn Miller with nose trumpets, nose trombones etc!

You can find out more at www.yonner.co.uk.

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Over the Xmas holidays, I was reminded of how people in the old days would sit round and listen to the wireless. In the early days of radio, that gadget became the centrepiece of many living rooms, often built in wood and some of them quite magnificent pieces of furniture in themselves. It was the medium through which everyone got their news, drama and music.

Then TV came along and families re-arranged the furniture so they could watch the TV screen. The wireless became more portable and evolved into common speech as the radio.

We found ourselves over the Xmas holidays listening to the wireless again. Sometimes, you don’t want to watch telly and you don’t fancy listening to CDs. The wireless connects you to the wider world with music interspersed with voice and news bulletins. You can go about your business around the house and still stay connected to the outside world.

Yes, we were listening to the wireless, not the radio. Life has come full circle and the wireless is back - but in a different form. With wireless broadband in my home, I can tune in to radio stations via the internet but instead of listening to a huge piece of wooden furniture in one room, I can listen to it in any room where I have a laptop or computer (and being a gadget freak, I have many of those everywhere!). But sometimes, we find ourselves in the living room, sitting on the sofa and gathered round the wireless laptop - a curious re-enaction of the old days when people would sit on the sofa gathered around a crackling wooden box!

I love internet radio - there are no adverts if you choose your station carefully and in some cases, you can listen on-demand and not whatever the station is streaming live at any given time. For speech radio, I am a great fan of the BBC World Service, BBC Radio 4 and Radio Australia. Radio Australia has fascinating documentaries on the Asia-Pacific region and its Rural Reporter series is a great for getting a taste of the Outback while it’s raining in my London suburb! For music, I singalong to 3C, a UK country and western channel, chill to Chill and sizzle to theJazz while for more rowdy moods, I’ve recently discovered Planet Rock, the Arrow and Virgin Xtreme.

I’ve tried looking for Malaysian and Singapore stations but the ones I’ve come across don’t seem to have a 24 hour internet presence or on-demand listening. If anyone can guide me to any stations in that region that I could enjoy on the wireless, do let me know.

Photo: thanks to image-ination