I thought perhaps we would stop the blog altogether when we ended our year off...but have since realized that we have ongoing entertaining random adventures on a regular basis. So, I am starting to write some of them down, for my own amusement (and posterity, of course).
Well...in the interest of becoming more
proficient and knowledgeable about my new job in arts and culture (focusing on dance), I bought John and I
tickets to a dance event that one of our clients puts on. I
thought we started out nicely with the Flamenco show a few weeks ago,
and that a little music and dance show from Bali (called a Gamelan) would be
another interesting, multicultural event. John was not as convinced, but
was a good sport and said he would come with me.
The theatre was quite nice - it's
underground at the SFU/Woodward's building in the downtown eastside, but has all sorts of cool
design features and apparently good acoustics. We arrived to an almost
packed-house of a whole range of people, from students to the older
CBC-types, and even a few Indonesians. We took the elevator with a hippie-hipster sort of couple who
asked us if we were stoked about "Gamelan-ing", and did a little happy
dance. This seemed like it would be a fun, interactive show!
So after some introductions, pleas for money, and an address by the Consular General from Indonesia, the show started.
Picture twenty university students and one
aging ashram-dwelling professor, 95% of them white, dressed up in red
skirts and small turbans with fans on them, coming on stage and sitting
on the floor in front of a variety of metal instruments (gongs, drums,
cymbals, xylophones, and what look to be the metal lids off of cooking
pots). Sort of multicultural. Sort of entertaining. Until they started
to play.
In all seriousness, I have never heard
anything that dissonant, confusing, or downright aggravating, and I've
listened to some bad music. It was like a parking lot full of car alarms
all set to different tones. Except way higher pitched.
So that went on for 35 minutes. No
breaks, no change in songs, just the one long metallic hell. The crowd
went crazy! Pretty much everyone there LOVED it. I looked around for
evidence of earplugs, some sort of personal auto-tuning machines, or
acid blotters, but nope, they heard the same thing we did. Part of the
mystery of the music was solved by the composer (who was Balinese), when
he got up and explained how they created the music...apparently they
make it out of tune on purpose, and there is actually no regular time
signature. That didn't make it any more pleasant.
We were then treated to another 30
minutes of the same music, accompanied by 4 women dancers who were
supposed to be imitating various tropical bird gestures. John called it a
diabolical coucou clock from Asia.
We left at the intermission. And have been a little traumatised since.
Sadly, I'm not sure that I'll be able
to convince John to accompany me to the naked Japanese tragic dance
shows I have planned next.
