February Photo review:
WATER WATER EVERYWHERE..
featuring Simon Kindt & Planet Clare.
Planet Clare & Violet Skye
And so the rain poured down and the Tide turned once more in the great Ebb & Flow of Life, and the Water Rats returned, to their ancestoral home, riding the crest of a wave of Creativity, that carried them all the way through Time & Space from 2017 to land once more on the friendly shores of Musgrave Park, on Sunday 25th February 2018.
Not unlike Ulysses, ey what?
Taking refuge in a crude shelter (Croquet Club) they once again engaged in their colourful customs, sharing poetry, food & wine whilst jolly minstrels played the ancient tunes and travellers told their tales…
sheltering from the storm
True the poets arrived dripping with Perspiration as well as Inspiration, but the winning combination of ceiling fans, air-con and the cool tones of Mystery Musician PLANET CLARE soon revived their wilting spirits.
The Mysterious Planet Clare was accompanied on this occasion by the rich pallet of tones and timbres emanating from the instrument of virtuoso Violinist VIOLET SKYE, whom we’ve seen before gracing the stage with a number of different outfits. Ms Skye seems somewhat shy offstage, but put a violin in her hands and a sonic demon is released, screeching & beguiling, threatening & soothing, scary-seductive and electrifying, as PLANET CLARE herself demonstrated her own mastery of many a musical style. One countrified original song of hers was so evocative I was sure I could smell hay and hear the chickens scratching in the straw!
PC’s soars through her songs with ease, but she also has the knack of throwing a break into her voice, that emotive crack in the back of the throat, an evocative twang half-yodel,
half-yelp.
Thank you Ladies for a great performance.
From the celestial Bodies orbiting high in the sky to the bottom most depths of the Sea we plunged, submerged in the mise-en-scene of Master and Commander
Simon Kindt‘s ambitious new Performance Piece, POSEIDON/the sharks. I say ambitious because once you start dragging technology and props and theatre and so forth into your Poetry act things can become unnecessarily complex and you can lose sight of the poetry itself, which becomes just another special effect, instead of it’s core.
Simon, however, was wise enough to keep it all fairly minimalist and low key. To a backing track of sea shore sounds some soothing strings were mixe, immersing the listener in a gentle wash of sound throughout the performance. A rectangle of watery light like the view-screen at Sea World was projected onto the walls, whilst Simon sat cross-legged in the shadows, a disembodied voice delivering verse.
An effectively low key set, though I would have liked to see Simon actually sitting in the light and thus becoming part of the screen thereby, his shadow swimming in the water behind him. But the anonymous/ambiguous style he adopted worked just as well.
Simon’s poetry itself was a subtle exploration of the mind’s watery realms. Hypnotic and dreamlike, edging on nightmare, invisible currents in the tranquil sea of watery words, swirled dangerously close to the rocks of Reality..
Thanks Simon for bringing your thoughtful production to Kurilpa.
A fine selection of old Kurilpa friends returned for the first show of 2018. Coming up to the Open Mic this month were
Reverend Hellfire delivering a sermon on the dangers of sly and sneaky Water, Old Salt Geoffrey Evans went effervescing & bubbling a spray of words, Michael Vaughan‘s poetry like a tranquil lake,
the words like ripples across the mirror surface,
Thomas Nelson delivered a steady flow of imagery,
Theresa Tracey-Creed‘s verse, as always, had hidden depths, whilst Calaha shot a comic stream of words into the unsuspecting Face of Authority, serious as slapstick,
and Planet Clare poured a bucket of verse upon the Earthlings below, as SAVANU was all at Sea till he got his Land-legs back (haha)and Arts Director Shane K just swam with the tide until Cam Logan returned bearing an olive branch in his beak. Yes, after forty minutes and forty seconds of free-flowing verse, the Flood of Words was over.
Time for Afternoon Tea then, whilst Planet Clare and Co., spun yet more super surround-sound songs.
Shane K subsequently delivered a fine discourse on the work of scary American surrealist, George Tooker and his truly disturbing Art that really captures something of the “Ugly Spirit” of the American Century.
The Second Open Mic delivered more unsuspecting Word Pearls coaxed from bedrock anchored Poets.. Michael gave us some Persian reflections on Alexander the Vandal, Tom lamented lost love;”Your hot tears dry on my lips“, Cam shared his wisdom; “You can’t get honey from stirring a hornets nest.” Tounge firmly in cheek Clare told us how; “I miss living with a philosopher”..and Sav delivered an ode to that great man, Vincent Lingiari and Shane read a selection from “The People’s Poet” (No, not Ric).
And then it was “Time please” and survivors dragged themselves to the nearest shanty for grog. The Rumpus Room by the Lizard, so I believe. The scurvy knaves!
The Pictures will tell the rest of the story.
Aaargh!
*
PS A quick reminder that Theresa Tracey-Creed will be performing at the “Moving Words” Event being held at the South Bank Art Gallery in April.Check their website for details.
WORDS; Unckle Rat
IMAGES; Shane K.
***
The Water-Rat Gazette 