New musical for women only. Literally.

Jaweed Kaleema writes about a musical, Light for Greytowers, a film by an Orthodox Jewish group that is to be screened in Miami. Nothing outrageous so far, only that the so-called soul-stirring musical drama made by women and girls, for women and girls is really meant to be seen by women only.

The movie, which has an all-female, mostly Orthodox cast, was kicked out of the Jewish Film Festival in Jerusalem last fall when its producers asked that men be barred from screenings.

An Orthodox Jewish law called Kol Isha forbids men from listening to a woman sing. Rabbis disagree on whether it applies only to live performances, but Kol Nashama Performing Arts Conservatory, the Los Angeles group that produced the film, isn't taking chances. Gary Lund, Colony Theatre director, said he will comply with the group's request.

As you can see in their flyer for Miami, it is only for women. Robin Garbose, the director, needed rabbinical approval and a grant from the Jewish Community Foundation to make the movie. She thinks it will be well received by conservative Christian and Muslim mothers and daughters, who also "value modesty".

Compared to "The Color Purple," with its cast of strong black Southern women determined to live by their own rules, this musical sounds for me like another twisted patriarchal exclusion of women that celebrate their exclusion. The director explains:

"The power of the woman's voice is incredible," Garbose said. "Only when the Messiah comes will the men get to hear the women sing. I would like that to happen today, so I can get a good distribution deal."

I can hear the men singing in this movie also, without even seeing it.

My favs for 2008

I was thinking a lot lately for the highlights of last year, what happened and what changed. A lot of stuff but here are just some personal favorite items:

Favorite movie: Mein liebster Feind - Klaus Kinski by Werner Herzog - even if it was made in 1999, I watched it so many times in 2008 that i've learned most of the lines and had favourite parts for special moments. I anticipate that it will be a well-watched movie this year also.








Favorite performance: The Funeral by Péter Nádas, directed by László Bocsárdi, Comedy Theatre Bucharest, I've already wrote about this show here









Favorite album: Beirut – Gulag Orkestar from 2006 - happy to discover Beirut in 2008, it can change my mood in a second (maybe that's why I've listened it so many times) and then you cannot stop listening to it, you have to go for the whole album on and on.



Favorite art exhibit: Love, Erotica, Passion Exhibition in Prague - erotic themes in 15th to 19th century at the Clam Gallas Pallace in Husova Street. I hope they still have this exhibition. Well organized, wonderful possible explorations. The art pieces were taken from Prague City Archives, National Gallery and the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague. Amazing expressions of sexuality in so many twisted ways.

Favorite book: Mad Men and Medusas: Reclaiming Hysteria by Juliet Mitchell, from 2001 - this book made my life easier and gave me a lot of exciting ideas for my work and being-in-the-world (not only the academic one)









Favorite live show: CocoRosie at Trafo - a complete show: music, performing, costumes, images, interaction and Sierra and Bianca, I had it in my mind for so long.





Favorite moment of 2008: open rehearsal of Jehanne Complex, the idea that we actually did it, and there were people there to close the performing circle. A great experience all in all, it gave me a great feeling concerning theatre, my projects and what you can do with amazing people that you can meet in so many contexts but never like in a performing situation.

Balanescu Quartet at Urania – Budapest

This concert was taking place in relation to a Hungarian movie premiere, that I won’t talk about. Balanescu made the soundtrack and tours now with the movie. This was the firs gig ever with this new composition. Brand new songs, full of intensity and passion as Balanescu presented it in English before. He was so shy and modest on the mike. But him talking was a complete opposition to him playing. First of all, the outfit: a colorful long coat that looked too big and his typical hat. Already a character, his outfit comes as a necessary tool to hide an introverted self I guess, a hysterical identification to hide an absent body. But just for a moment. When he had his violin, everything exploded. He was not playing, he was dancing. He was changing faces, now sad, now laughing with a big mouth, now a small baby, now a huge monster, now growing, now getting small. Balanescu playing the violin is a Misha Katz conducting. And the music for all this process... a true project of corporeal transformation through sound. Balanescu’s spastic body puts up with his quartet a visual attack where sound is becoming the most real mark of his corporeality. It was explicitly materialized for audience in his struggle with his violin. For the spectator it was a tough experience of the entire nervous system. This is what I would call one of the last experiments to actively end the process of representation through sound. A la Merleau Ponty, Balanescu claims through his music “not the possible body which we may legitimately think of as an information machine but that actual body I call mine.” His body on stage expresses through sound first of all exactly this lively concreteness.

The Tiger Lillies at Trafo - Budapest

First impact, the audience. Kind of scary. I definitely had different expectations when I entered the big Trafo studio. The chairs were put in nice rows and old women with their husbands were waiting for the musical performance. No freaks, no Goths, no clowns, nothing that I expected. The Budapest crowd was formed of old ladies, corporate middle-agers and a bunch of nice Western lost tourists. This should be interesting, I said to myself, knowing the songs and Tiger Lillies reputation. And indeed it was. But straight to the show: cabaret to the bone, cheap clown makeup, slap-stick comedy show outfits, typical gags with poor acting, falsetto voice a la castrato opera, playing with toy music instruments and so on. All the Tiger Lillies arsenal that I could dream of. And everything functioned brilliantly. I had a 10 times stronger feeling than watching a John Waters movie: everything is so bad and theatrical that strikes you and makes you stay there into the illusion, in their sad and hysterical world, with their pimps and whores and freaks and killers and circus kids. By keeping an eye on the beautiful theatricality you are not getting out of the illusion but in a Brechtian way, you follow what’s beneath, you get straight into its reality. That you know it’s illusionary. This was my first musical experience of this type: through music, I even got into their characters’ stories, their little gags and their melancholic parts. The public was incredibly receptive: they laughed and cried and applauded. They knew their songs and asked for more. But one thing I still missed: a good old cabaret atmosphere, loud and smoky, drinking alcohol and joking during the show. Coming from the other side of the performance, we, the audience, were not doing the right thing, we were out of the picture. And that was most impressive in their show: a certain type of performance asks for a certain type of spectators that they should slowly become, and that has power and trangressive force. What I thought I would never like in a show I liked it here: their great mannerism, the fact that they played the same songs and gags that they played over and over again for thousand times and you could see that. Their apparent boredom only made them more intense and the atmosphere more potent. All the time during the show I had one friend in mind: Olli (this is his website, just in case), an old clown from Switzerland who told me one amazing thing: a good clown doesn’t have to bring anything new, you need only one good gag that you can do it all your life, till it becomes perfect, a clown is not an actor, we function different. Tiger Lillies are not clowns for sure but they function in a similar way to Olli.

taking music offstage

Trying to think about my favorite songs for last couple of months, I realized with great surprise that most of them were used in one show or another. In directing school, we always made fun of people that are using their playlist to illustrate the performance with no real connection to the show itself. Just a good way to promote the music that they like. I was surprised to see my final list: most of the songs were part of performances because they fit well with particular moment not because I liked them in a particular way outside the show. Afterwards I started listening them more intensively and got addicted. In a way, I plagiaristically identified with my shows and I started to live in the frameworks that I set on stage. What else did I take from stage to everyday life? Have to think more about it, because my shows are about me but on the other hand I am about my shows and other stuff that I create.

This is my short playlist:

1. Bauhaus – Antonin Artaud
2. Graham Reynolds – your move, peterbilt
3. Jay-Jay Johanson – Alone Again
4. Jelly Roll Morton – Tia Juana
5. Julie London – Come on-a My House
6. Beirut – Scenic World
7. Diamanda Galás – 25 Minutes to Go
8. Ian Dury – Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick
9. B.B. King – B.B. Boogie
10. Billie Holiday – Don't Explain

Delia's gone

another lovely and tough Johnny Cash song. it explains a lot just by its own lyrics. the video shows actually more. a type of reading that can be performed: at the first level we have this antiwoman song of a guy that kills his exlover. simple and ugly. at the second level, actually, the narrator is dead and Delia has buried him. Inside the grave her memory hunts him. is it because she runs from him? is the narrator in the grave of his world because she took the whole world with her? who is killing who? is it a sort of revearsed killing? is it a disssapeareance of a sort of being -in-the-world? quite possible.


Delia's gone


Delia, oh, Delia Delia all my life
If I hadn't have shot poor
Delia I'd have had her for my wife
Delia's gone, one more round Delia's gone

I went up to Memphis And I met Delia there
Found her in her parlor
And I tied to her chair
Delia's gone, one more round Delia's gone

She was low down and trifling
And she was cold and mean
Kind of evil make me want to Grab my sub machine
Delia's gone, one more round Delia's gone

First time I shot her I shot her in the side
Hard to watch her suffer
But with the second shot she died
Delia's gone, one more round Delia's gone

But jailer, oh, jailer Jailer,
I can't sleep 'Cause all around my bedside
I hear the patter of Delia's feet
Delia's gone, one more round Delia's gone

So if you woman's devilish
You can let her run
Or you can bring her down and do her
Like Delia got done
Delia's gone, one more round Delia's gone

video is here

Magnetic Ladies

Diamanda's performance was one of the most powerful ones that i saw in a long time. The flows of energy were almost unbearable, a need for muscle relaxants was so intense. Breathless for two hours. and her last encore was the obsessing "Gloomy Sunday". Her diamond mask belt is one of the fetishist objects that are marking the culture of a becoming goddess.

Diamanda Galas' concert in an Austrian 13th century Gothic church follows the line of Misha Katz conducting Fantastic Symphony, Roberta Carrera acting Judith, Robert Smith playing his third encore, Silviu Purcarete's Lucky giving the speech, disappearing of an old clown in Fellini's "Clowns".

On a different note, Alexis O'Hara was a glitchy-noisy surprise, all those weird sounds were made on stage by her body and were mixed only by her hands. My crystal clear image of PoMo Feminsim. As she told me after the show: Don't worry! It's quite simple: just use two microphones.