It's festival season at the moment. No sooner have the last lines of Wise Words finished echoing off the Cathedral walls than Sounds New starts! Sounds New is a Contemporary Music Festival that takes place from the 2nd-9th May around a plethora of venues in the heart of Canterbury. It's been going for donkeys years, but was recently given a bit of a spit and a polish in 2011 and is now huge. 37 events in 7 days huge. That's a lot to take in.
My Festival kicked off with me sprinting down the hill as fast as possible (all right, driving responsibly within the speed limit. It just isn't the same) after work on the Friday to get to the Sidney Cooper Gallery for the launch event and a pre-view of the Cloud / Cuckooland exhibition.
Cloud / Cuckooland looks into the 'Canterbury Sound', in particular the creativity of Robert Wyatt and his Cuckooland album. Robert Wyatt was a founding member of The Soft Machine, who, along with Pink Floyd helped to transform the late 60's Psychedelic scene in the UK into something more lasting. His influence on the exhibit can be seen on the side wall with a full history of him and his connection to Canterbury, and also the 12 cuckoo boxes that instead of cuckoos, have headphones living in them.
However, this festival is all about New Sounds, and so the Cloud / Cuckooland exhibit also includes Radio Daze, a new sound installation created specifically for the exhibition by Janek Schaefer, one of the UK's most distinctive sound artists.
Around the walls in the gallery there is also artwork from Sam Bailey's Piano in the Woods residency. In May 2013 a piano was put in some private woodland near Canterbury. Each month for a year Sam Bailey has played the piano, improvising in response to the instrument's changing state. These performances have also included musicians, dancers, poets and filmmakers and the entire project has been documented by photographer Neil Sloman. It is his works that dominate the clinical white walls of the gallery, with headphones dangling enticingly next to them. Around the room there are 12 photographs and 12 audio recordings, one for each month of the year. You can listen to the audio from the piano, which, with the bleed from the Radio Daze sound trickling through your consciousness at the same time, is a truly eerie experience. You are effectively listening to the sound a piano makes as it dies (which, as a pianist, although admittedly an extremely ad-hoc one, was more upsetting for me that I had thought it would be).
On the rear wall the entire exhibition is dominated by a flickering projection of the piano in its dilapidated state. Shadows move alongside it like forest sprites, an impression emphasized by the performance art that sporadically takes place. These are the same performers that danced alongside the Piano at its past open-air concerts.
There is also work by Sound Art students from Canterbury Christ Church University, including 2 short films by Ben Rowley which shows the piano being moved into position in the woods and the piano again in 2014. The improvised music reflected on the 100-year history of the piano, which was built in 1913. The films are all shot on a hand processed 16mm film taken with a clockwork Bolex camera which gives a vintage, disjointed element to the film, similar to that you would have seen in films of the era in which the piano was built. There is also an audio documentary by sound artist Ben Horner which features interviews with people involved with the project.
This launch was an introduction to the spirit of the Sounds New Festival. Festival Coordinator, Matt, said that he wanted people to treat the festival as they would treat a food fayre, to explore and taste and sample new sounds and new concepts that they have never tried before.
Sounds New features a vibrant mix of musical concerts, electronic music events, sound installations, poetry slams, gallery exhibitions and education projects. It is aimed at a broad range of audiences, from those who have an interest in contemporary music to those who have never listened, from those who like chamber music to those who have a passion for experimental electronic jazz. There is contemporary dance and sonic art installations. The spirit of the Sounds New Festival is a willingness to open your ears and your mind to new sounds, to discuss and discover and engage with others in a shared spirit of enquiry.
Sounds New music is also linked with Sounds New Poetry and Free Range poetry, the award winning experimental concert series featuring a variety of late night events.
Sounds New wishes to portray Canterbury as a cultural hub – a City of musical
and poetic pilgrimage surrounded by four European capitals drawing on the rich history of “The
Canterbury Scene”. There is Indian classical tradition and African groove in various venues, from the ultra modern Beaney Library and Colyer-Fergusson Concert Hall to the ancient Eastbridge Hospital and concerts out in the woodlands and in local restaurants and cafe's. This is an extremely diverse festival and with such a huge variety of events, there is something there for everyone.
I can't wait to see what else this Festival has in store for me.
The festival is running until the 9th May - you can check out the programme of events here, see them on Facebook here and also follow them on twitter here. Don't forget to use the #SoundsNew2014 to join in the online chat!
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This is the third in my series of blog posts about the Wise Words Festival. I was debating rolling this into the Dizraeli Poetry Slam post as it featured some of the same poets, but the entire experience was so different that it deserves a post of its own.
The morning after the Poetry Slam, I headed into town, via a tiny little coffee shop called Willows Secret Kitchen (post coming soon) and into the Greyfriars Garden. The gardens are kinda hidden. Right opposite the entrance to the Old Brewery Tavern there is an innocuous looking gate with a rickety, uneven pebble path leading past some quintessential English cottages, over the picture perfect river and into the gardens by the old Chapel. Honestly, if you had lifted the scene from a biscuit box it could not have been more perfect.
You follow the breadcrumb trail of little cards that lie scattered in unexpected places around the gardens and grounds to make you ponder and think and enter into a wide open space, secluded from the rest of Canterbury with the glass structure of the Marlowe Theatre pointing towards the heavens in the distance. Wooden benches line the grass which is sprouting with spring daisies and small rock lights litter the path, illuminating the borders at night.
The yurt is a brilliant structure that has been constructed purely for the Festival. It has an opening in the ceiling to allow the sunlight to stream in and bathe the people who lie reclining on cushions that would not have been out of place in the desert, a feeling magnified by the fact that the Sahara was raining red sand on the vehicles of Canterbury. Small and intimate, you can interact and banter with the poets, performers, writers and philosophers who all take their turn at the stage over the course of the weekend. The atmosphere is relaxed and informal - creativity is encouraged, tea, coffee and croissants provided for nourishment and you can bring your knitting or needlepoint into the yurt if you so please.
On the Saturday morning I was at the Yurt for Spoke N' Word, listening to poetry from some of the same poets as the night before. I took my place reclining on one of the cushions on the floor, iPad balanced precariously on one knee, camera and phone ready at my side. Wind rattled the canvas above our heads as we listened to Michael's poems of Glastonbury, a festival for a poem about a festival. Comfortable laughter rained out as each poet drew us into his or hers lovingly created world.
Dan takes the stage, unceremoniously pushing Michael off and back into his seat. You know that these poets are friends, they share looks and laughs that speak of a familiarity with each other. He pulls out the smallest of small notebooks; a small book for a small poem. These are short fire little poems, with short applause to match, a single, solitary clap following each poesy, the volume of the clap demonstrating the level of our appreciation. We move from astute observations on life to twists on folk lore and nursery rhymes right back to existential and contemplative musings. It is clear that the darker and more twisted the observation, the greater the appreciation from the audience.
Emrys sings his ditties and the atmosphere is comfortable, warm and friendly. It feels like being in an old friends living room with people you have known your entire life. The tent grows warmer, we sink into a relaxed reverie as the poetry hums like a bedside nursery rhyme in our ears. Eyes close around the tent as people regress into the depths of their own psyche's, giving themselves permission to react emotionally to the words drifting in the air.
Sven comes to the stage and the atmosphere shift as he starts off with a poem about how ineffective careers advisers are in schools. He is slightly taken aback when a man in the audience announces that he was one. The audience are full of encouragement and he perseveres regardless, creating much mirth. The man takes it all with good humour and the yurt rings out with cascading peals of laughter.
The previous evening Lucy had allowed us to choose between superheroes, zombies or love. We had chosen zombies then so this morning we got superhero's and her feeling of being a superhero in her alter-ego of standup comic, away from the classrooms that she teaches in by day. So many of us have lives outside of work, aspects of our personality and characters that are hidden in the 9-5 grind and it made her poetry incredibly easy to relate to.
The final poet was one I had not heard before. Joelle is a previous Slam Poetry winner from London and she spoke of her work with disadvantaged kids, of the girls in gangs, Rapunzel's locked away in their grey tower blocks and her plea to them to cut off their hair and free themselves. She entreats them to not wait for Prince Charming to come and rescue them, as the Prince Charming who arrives is a viper who poisons and turns and twists them into shadows of their former selves. She also speaks of the boys in gangs, trapped and dead eyed, twin poems that are sonnets to the lost youth of the inner city. There were people openly weeping in the sun dappled yurt, a world away from the world she describes when she finished.
The poetry was easily one of my favorite aspects of the Festival and one that I would be keen to track down more of. I've not listened to much poetry before, having always assumed that it would be dry, stale and all too similar to the poetry I was forcefed as part of my English Literature A-Level. I could not be more wrong, and this group of vibrant, talented and humourous poets have opened my eyes to an entirely new world of creativity, and for that I thank them.
The next day I would be lucky enough to go and listen to Julian Baggini, a philosopher discussing the virtues of the table, and also listen to a very different style of poetry recital, something far more traditional and rural in the Franciscan Chapel. I'll tell you more about that next week....
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I was lucky enough to be invited to be one of the official bloggers for the Wise Words Festival. (Well, I say invited - I applied and they said yes, but it's basically the same thing so let's not split hairs eh?).
You may remember the Wise Words Festival from last autumn on the blog - well, it's back and it is bigger and better and wiser than before. I've got a number of posts coming up showcasing and reviewing different festival events that took place over the course of the weekend.
My festival kicked off for me on the Friday night. I legged it home from work, showered, changed, gulped down some dinner and got to the Gulbenkian Theatre on campus for 8pm. One press ticket later (you have no idea how excited I got about this. I may frame it) and I was settled in a corner with my camera, iPad and phone, ready for a night of poetry.
Slam poetry to be exact.
Oh, you don't know what a poetry slam is? I must admit I wasn't sure although I had made a few guesses! Slam poetry is basically a quick fire poetry competition. Here's the Sladmin. There are 10 competitors who each have 3 minutes to impress the judges. They are given 30 seconds grace and then for every 10 seconds that they go over their time limit they lose a point.
The judges are unbiased members of the audience, 5 in total and they score each poet out of 10. The top and bottom score for each poet is removed and the score is averaged out.
This was competitive poetry, poetry with bite, poets going up against each other for admiration and adulation.
First up was Emrys Plant, last years winner. He was sent in as a sacrificial lamb, to get the audience and the judges warmed up as he paints a fairly hopeless picture of Margate, his new home town. Yet despite the severe and bleak outlook, this is a love poem, a nesting poem for his wife. He stands, eyes half closed, hand clasped to his breast and you can feel the overwhelming love for his family come flowing through his words. He remembers his dead friend, Ben and the women at work he doesn't get on with. His description of smoking is so powerful that they should use it on the back of packets to encourage people to quit. You can see him lose himself in his own words and rhythm. The audience are rapturous with their applause, he scores 21.
The poets are selected in a random number order. Helen Seymore is next. Her poetry is both a tribute and an accusation to her disability, Chromosome 17B. She talks about it as an old friend that both pushes her to be more than her physicality and holds her back. You can feel her anger, frustration and confusion in every gesture she makes, every word that she utters yet she ends on a high, celebrating what makes her different, embracing the diversity that the world offers and acknowledging that without it, she would be a different person. She gets 24 points
Rikosaurus is next. He has a different vibe and style from the previous poets, and his chants lulls the audience into a stupor as they sway to his hypnotic rhythm. He talks of the child in the war zone, the boy in the road traffic accident, the sex worker on the streets and the factory worker in a 3rd world country and begs the audience to stop watching and start changing their stars by opening doors. His social commentary scores him a respectable 21.
Neelam Saredia takes the stage and addresses a subject that a lot of the women in the room respond strongly to, the idea that you are more than your dress size. Cardboard packages can't contain me she cries and demands that she will no longer conform. She scores 19.
Michael James Parker is called to the microphone. His poetry is fast paced and with a slightly manic edge. He mocks the Slam itself with a poem about the award winning poem that we would have heard. It is a lighter, funnier and more dynamic style to the other poets and leaves the audience breathless.
Tariq Moore, one of the youngest poets, a self declared sad teenager is up next. His poetry is raw and bares his soul to the world as he chronicles a descent into alcoholism as a youngster and his struggle to claw back. It is a apology for a life out of control and one of the bravest things I have seen, a 19 year old holding his heart open to a room full of strangers. He scores 24.
Jordan Friend delivers a poem called Grow A Pair that criticises the expectations on boys to 'Man Up'. He quotes statistics of male suicide and the topic is a powerful one. He is clearly nervous, his hands shake as they clasp the paper between them but the audience is on his side and supportive. It takes courage to put yourself on that stage. He scores 19.
Lucy Fennell allowed the audience to choose between three topics, zombies, superheroes or love. Zombies was the clear winner and she launched into a highly amusing, if rather revolting poem about her survival, or lack thereof, in the event of a zombie apocalypse. Her references to pus erupting custard scores her 21, a score that would have been higher were it not for the fact she ran over time and dropped 3 points. A Slam can be brutal.
Sven Stears begs for audience participation, encouraging them in the
chorus to switch their brain off and turn their body on, eventually
demanding that people observe and engage in the world around them,
finishing with a request to turn the telly off and switch their brains
on. He gets 24 points.
Becky Furnley's poem is a tribute to her future daughter, Matilda, a
child who defies societies constraints and conventions and lives a life
more than her mother's, more than her children's, a life full of
explosion and wonder, fire and brimstone, chaos and love.
The audience adore it and she scores 25 points, winning the Slam.
Our host, Dan Simpson, points out that points aren't the point, the point is the poetry and Slams were created to stop dry and self involved poetry readings. This is fast paced, electric, energetic, participative and raw and showcases what modern poetry is. There is also humour, as Dan shows in his tribute to love through the medium of mathematics.
After a short break it's time for the headliner. Dizraeli is a rapper, hip hop artist and poet, self styled half-daft missionary who forced folk to marry hip hop. He views poetry as a platform for honesty, and his mixture of rap, hip hop and haunting guitar melodies drift though the air of the Gulbenkian theatre, punctured with astute observations about life and beaten with the rhythm of the worn red Nike's that look like they have never seen an athletics track.
He sings of a garden made of sand, mixing humour and poignancy to perfection and pushes language to its limits. The audience are enraptured, enthralled. He is a magician and has cast a spell over their minds and ears. He speaks of his trip to Jordan, the juxtaposition of the normalcy of everyday life in a highly sensitised military environment. He honours his grandmother, his ex girlfriend and his brother as he sips elderflower cordial and vimto.
The layers strip off as he gets more comfortable, more relaxed and viciously honest. The audience are lapping it up and respond voraciously when he asks if he can run over his allocated time.
After all, when it comes to living, there are always more trains
If you like (or hate!) what you have read, please do let me know in the comments below or slap me with a cheeky follow, or say Hi to me on my facebook group or twitter!
