IS GOD IS
On the joy of being surprised…
Isn’t the world (and art…) at its most wonderful and awe-inspiring when it surprises you? I spent the first half of the week in rehearsals in the Royal Opera House studios with two of the world’s greatest ballet dancers, Francesca Hayward of the Royal Ballet and Jeffrey Cirio of the Boston Ballet, under the direction of Akram Khan in preparation for the audience at last night’s Gala (including the King, if you don’t mind!). You will be unsurprised to hear the work is phenomenally beautiful and accomplished, but you might have been surprised by my nose-running-level of tearfulness and heightened, nigh hysterical emotion in response to it (just as surprised as I was… Kleenex-less on day 1, wiping my nose on my sleeve like a grubby toddler… arriving with a bagful of tissues in preparation for days 2 and 3 and using them all…).
The dance tells a story of beginnings and endings, love and grief: one dancer finds the other frozen and stiff as a statue, brings her to life through his warmth and caress to share in the wonders of one another before her eye is caught by something bigger, something grander (God, arguably… or death… or another’s love, perhaps) and he is left, abandoned, now the one who is stiff and cold. Unlike the majority of Khan’s work which taps into a more guttural, earthy sense of our collective unconscious, HUNTING A WHISPER ON THE WIND is intimate, more sexual and sensual (and hence the tears, I guess…).
The piece is scored in its first half by Vincenzo Lamagna’s deep, brooding, foreboding music (Lamagna has also composed Khan’s Giselle and Creature for the English National Ballet, if you have had the joy of seeing either/both), and in its second half it is (off-)set to the rhythm of Kae Tempest’s spoken-word poem Hold Your Own.
“…Time is an onslaught, love is a mission
We work for vocations until, in remission
We wish we'd had patience and given more time to our children
Feel each decision that you make
Make it, hold it
Hold your own
Hold your lovers
Hold their hands
Hold their breasts in your hands like your hands were their bra
Hold their face in your palms like a prayer
Hold them all night, feel them hold back
Don't hold back
Hold your own
Every pain
Every grievance
Every stab of shame
Every day spent with a demon in your brain giving chase
Hold it
Know the wolves that hunt you
In time, they will be the dogs that bring your slippers
Love them right and you will feel them kiss you when they come to bite…”
[And what an image, eh? Of the wolves that hunt you bringing your slippers? I think part of our human condition is the process of embracing our flaws, our regrets, our fears, trying to make ourselves whole in our lifetimes, warts and all. Being alive ain’t all roses and riches, sadly for us all, but sometimes we have to let the thorns draw blood in order to lick our wounds and heal.]
It doesn’t feel quite right, does it? Two of the world’s most highly regarded classical ballet dancers directed by a British-Bangladeshi choreographer trained in classical Indian dance and Khatak, set to the discordant, visceral tones of an Italian composer and the beats of a Brockley-born poet. Quite a mix, eh? But… surprise! It’s wonderful. And you’ll have to take my often entirely unreliable word for it, because as things stand the only people to see it will be the King and his cohorts at last night’s Gala, something to be urgently redressed, methinks. You, like me, deserve the surprise.
Something which does not take any film-y-type-cinephile by surprise each May is the Cannes Film Festival, being, as it is, the method by which producers and filmmakers measure out their lives: J. Alfred Prufrock may have his coffee spoons, but for us it is the much coveted Cannes Festival accreditation by which we measure the passing of time. I went to collect my pass first thing today from the Gare Maritime, shivering in the cold in a line which was already long an hour before opening, and kinda enjoyed my morning time amongst the festival’s noble Nobodies.
If there is one thing you need to know about Cannes, it is that it is a place for Somebodies and for Nobodies. If you question whether you are a Somebody or a Nobody, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you, my friend, are a Nobody. If you were so lucky as to be a Somebody, you’d be in absolutely no doubt about it: you would have suites in grand hotels, a personal chauffeur and dedicated car service, glam squads, champagne-a-flowing and minions to meet your every demand… and you would not be up at 8 am to join the line at the Gare Maritime to get your pass, that’s for damn sure.
Not everybody sidling up to the accreditation venue appreciates this strict dichotomy, however, and one of my favourite activities is to observe those who try to occupy the liminal space between the Somebody and the Nobody, refusing to join the queue of hundreds, defiantly approaching the unsmiling and humourless security personnel, flashing their festival registration e-mail and gesturing to the line with disdain and a “don’t you know who I am?” (or “…who I work for?”) expression. And I love the utter Frenchness of the French in joyfully sending the seasoned, self-important, Gucci loafers and cravat-clad producer to the end of the line. They may well be a somebody in their own company, their own country’s industry, perhaps, but in Cannes, they are surprised to learn, they are a Nobody.
Knowingly a Nobody, I am here for just a few nights and will do a fair bit of schmoozing and catching up with friends and I may well partake in a steak frites or ten and a bottle of Provence rose or twenty, but one thing I will not do (and I have not done other than once in 2014 when I was contractually obliged to do so…) is to watch a film. First, getting into industry screenings is a logistical nightmare; and second, I have absolutely no interest in getting dressed up and red-carpeting for a film premier, ffs. Fancy outfits and heels are for cocktail parties and dinners and dances, not for the cinema, right? Plus, don’t get me started on the standing ovations. I… can’t… even. I absolutely love films, but nothing could unravel the joy of 120 minutes in a dark, silent theatre engaged with the seven arts and their conversation with the human condition than the rapturous, sycophantic applause of a thousand industry-types who are looking at their watches to measure the success or otherwise of the movie in minutes of pinnipedian hand-clapping. No thank you.
I prefer normal screenings full of Nobodies, like the one of IS GOD IS on Monday night in the company of a lovely friend whose invitation gave absolutely no hint as to its provenance or subject matter, and which was therefore a huge, unmitigated and entirely enjoyable surprise. I expected nothing and, as a consequence, I received everything I was given as one does a generous gift.
And that is all I’ll say about IS GOD IS. I don’t want to ruin it for you. Just enjoy the great and grand and kinda batshit crazy surprise. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
