Why is it that narrative is so pleasurable when it has such a small resemblance to life experience? In life there is character development, setting, and agents of conflict established relatively early: love affairs and broken hearts, road trips and flat tires, Christmas dinners and racist uncles. There is rarely a clear sense of dramatic tension, climax or resolution. In fact the basic tumultuous elements tend to be serially relived throughout a lifetime. Children with abusive parents become abusive or seek out the abusers. In this way life seems more like a mystery where the murder is poorly remembered, yet the attempt to solve the crime limps along via re-enactment. So… I wonder what it is that we want from our art and why. Do folks need documentation and resonance in art to make their relentless passion plays seem more romantic or are we interested strictly in diversion to make our repetition less noticeable?
Here at the goat we were treated to a wonderful night of song and sound thanks to the toy boats, Paundy Featuring a few tunes with none other than Pete the sweet Hasson, Lonely Coast late night, and sound artist Steve Barsotti.
Steve’s work was a welcome break in the standard notion of song as a journey with requisite characters and destinations. His improvised set of sounds were performed on a series of built up instruments composed of cigar boxes, dowels and springs with contact pickups directing the sound through a laptop. The results were diverse: from breaching whales to thumper on an electrified log the work thwarted a viewer’s anticipation. Both, percussive and arrhythmic - tonal and non-melodic, I found myself compelled to consider my own breath and shuffling about, as implied in the work onstage. So much art is immersive. One of the great divides I notice in the arts is the dichotomy between work that is escapist and work that promotes self-awareness. Once I relaxed into the work I found myself wanting to make sound myself while feeling like the potential saboteur. Some folks pulled back and tried to whisper-he-said-she-said-tales amongst and against the thumps and twangs. Not sure when work like this will come up again but I sure hope it isn’t too long.
Toyboats was really stellar and their collective sound was really great. Tiflin brought a “Pocket piano” which consists of C3P0’s spleen and pancreas. It was a new bit of whizz.
Some great new faces there too. It was cool to have Greg and Elyse out for the first time: Joyful folks that fit right in.
Richie and Maire will be here soon from Dublin so be on your toes for impromptu goatings. x, t
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