Quote Of The Day

"Victory goes to the player who makes the next-to-last mistake - Chessmaster Savielly Grigorievitch Tartakower (1887-1956)"

Friday, April 16, 2010

Laurie Anderson - Delusion...

Laurie Anderson is in London this week for a four-night residency at the Barbican Theatre, where she is performing her latest piece, Delusion.

The show is an intimate, constantly evolving live show using multimedia to tell stories. The idea for the show started out as twenty linked stories but then developed into a play for two people which then iself turned into a picture show and then on to being a performance.

It's a performance. Art. Performance art.

Delusion is a hybrid.

Delusion is sad.

The lights come up on two white screens, one like an open book, the other resembling an upturned bed; on both, flashlit video images of rumpled sheets are being shown.

A bright, pulsing jewel, part heart, part diamond.

Leaves spiraling. Autumnal oak leaves buffeted by a storm.

On a purely sensual level, Delusion ranks with Anderson’s best.

It's a dream-like world.

Stories, poetic anecdotes, observations and meditations.

A camera mounted on Anderson’s microphone transmits two-storey-high head shots of the artist’s craggy visage while slanting strokes of light become an effective rainstorm.

Politicans debate.

John Kerry was asked "Do you love your wife?" He paused and then said, "I married 'up'". Ouch. Then he said "My mother said... On her death bed.... 'Integrity, integrity, integrity'". Needless to say, he lost the election.

Iceland.

Ash.

Part Swedish / Part Irish.

Haunting shrieks, folk-like drones.

Sensational visuals racing across the screens.

The idiot and the odyssey.

A dream sequence in which Anderson gives birth to her beloved dog, Lolabelle, are weird and hilarious and indeed weirdly hilarious.

Text-flecked animated chalkboard drawings of faces and dogs and little houses flow into surreal celluloid dream sequences that in turn become spooky faux graveside tableaux.

Women's second names... They don't have their own; given one by their father, given one by their husbands. Their mothers' name is lost. Yet secret. A secret name. What's is your mother's maiden name? The key to unlock your identity.

Think about your mother. Buddhists think about their mothers. They think about that time when your mother loves you completely. Unreservedly. Now expand that feeling to fill your time. Your mother loves unreservedly all the time.

Dead mother.

Did you ever love me?

Leaves spiraling round a grave.

I cried.

Delusion is smart, funny, emotionally engaging, and flat-out beautiful. In short, everything you’d expect from an artist of Anderson’s stature and reputation.

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