Scraps Of Mind

Culture in the Colonies

There’s a great scheme going on with some of our independent movie theatres over the last couple of years where they do direct live broadcasts of operas from the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

I’ve been going for the last 18 months and the experience is fantastic. Not only do you get a fabulous high definition up-close-and-personal  viewing experience of the production (and The Met productions are seriously over the top), but you also get to see what’s going on behind the curtain when the scenery is being changed between acts. And that has to be seen to be believed. And on top of that, the whole thing is presented by a leading opera star, such as Placido Domingo or Renee Fleming, who catch the lead performers as they leave the stage at the end of an act and chat with them.

A couple of theatres in Melbourne subscribe to this broadcast but my venue of choice is The Sun Theatre in Yarraville; a beautifully restored art deco theatre with intimately sized theatres and comfy armchair style seating. The last opera production was a couple of weeks ago. Bizet’s Carmen, a well known story and a truly magnificent production.  And because it’s broadcast live and has plenty of close-up camera work, you get to see all the little prop malfunctions and how the performers  deal with them in such a way that the people in the ‘real’ theatre would not actually see.

Just recently The Sun have branched out in this area and are including ballet performances from the Russian ballet as well as plays from the West End of London. These aren’t broadcast live but they’re recorded live and are presented within two weeks of the actual performance so there’s a feeling of currency about them.

I went to my first play on Saturday: Nation by Mark Ravenhill based on a book by Terry Pratchett (nothing to do with the Discworld Series of which I am a huge fan). It’s a production from the National Theatre, London.

“A parallel world, 1860. Two teenagers thrown together by a tsunami that has destroyed Mau’s village and left Daphne shipwrecked on his South Pacific island, thousands of miles from home. One wears next to nothing, the other a long white dress; neither speaks the other’s language; somehow they must learn to survive. As starving refugees gather, Daphne delivers a baby, milks a pig, brews beer and does battle with a mutineer. Mau fights cannibal Raiders, discovers the world is round and questions the reality of his tribe’s fiercely patriarchal gods. Together they come of age, overseen by a foul-mouthed parrot, as they discard old doctrine to forge a new Nation.”

I wasn’t sure how I would go watching a stage play in a movie format. And it took me about 15 minutes to get my head into the right sort of place. But once I was there I truly enjoyed the experience.

The production mixed projected film and puppetry in an unlikely combination with the ‘organic’ performance in a way that worked wonderfully. Speaking as someone who likes a story to be delivered pretty straight and not given an ‘arty’ treatment I was a little nervous of how this was all going to come across. But it worked brilliantly.

I’m always fascinated by stage productions and how so many different places, moods, times etc. can be created ‘live’ in front of your eyes without all the ‘trickery’ that’s available with cameras. The Nation production was a minimal scenery production (not usually my favourite option) and performed on a revolving stage that centred on a dome that represented the Asia Pacific region of a globe of the world, and doubled as the deck of a ship and a South Sea island.

All the performers did a wonderful job and the script explored some interesting corners of the human psyche, whilst still being a fun and entertaining story.

Because they had only received the file from London that day, the Sun team hadn’t had a chance to give it a run through to test it and sure enough, we had a couple of glitches. We lost the last couple of minutes before the Interval and, more importantly, the curtain came down two and a half minutes before the end. Things were looking ugly in the theatre when the management came to apologise for what had happened and said that if we could hang on for about 10 minutes they’d get it sorted and we’d get our ending. Then they gave us all a complementary pass to sooth ruffled feathers and all was well.

So if you’re fortunate enough to live in or around London and you’re looking for something a bit different (without being off the wall) to see, I can highly recommend Nation.

And for everyone else, why not check out your local independent cinema and see if they participate in this worldwide broadcast scheme. It’s a great way to try out something different without buying expensive tickets.

Other Related Articles:

No Longer an Opera Virgin

Turandot … or ‘Mastermind: Chinese Style’

Face to face with a Star Commenter

I have been writing Scraps of Mind for nearly five years now and I’ve had the chance to ‘virtually’ meet many wonderful people. I live in Australia and most of my readers live overseas from me so there’s not much chance to actually meet in real life.

So how exciting it was to finally get to meet up with Antoinette from Sparky’s Scratches whilst I was in Amsterdam yesterday. If you’ve been a regular reader of Scraps of Mind you’ll know that Antoinette is one of the most regular commenters here and we’ve been emailing each other a lot too.

I’ve been travelling from Budapest in Hungary to Amsterdam in The Netherlands over the past three weeks (you can see the journey in photos on my Facebook Page) and I’d arranged with Antoinette to try and meet up whilst I was here.

It almost didn’t happen as I was waiting with my travel buddy Yvonne at Central Station when Antoinette’s text message came through…”Oh no. I’m on the wrong train and it doesn’t stop in Amsterdam!”. A tragedy in the making and exactly the sort of thing I could see happening to me.

Fortunately she managed to get on another train and we were soon hugging each other in front of the station.

We headed for a café for a coffee and a good chinwag. And it was terrific. Antoinette is exactly the same personality in real life as she is on her blog and we loved talking about this that and everything until finally she had to catch the train for home.

Yvonne and I were feeling a bit end-of-holidayish as we had just wound up a fantastic two week cruise along the Danube and Rhine Rivers that day. We’d had a fabulous time (if you ever get the chance to do this, the tour is with Scenic Tours and the experience is amazing with these people) and we had no fizz left to really get into enjoying our last two days in Amsterdam.

Antoinette was just what we needed to inject the enthusiasm back into us so we could really get into doing stuff on the last two days.

So a big thank you Antoinette. Not only are you a fun person to talk with, but you managed to kick start the life back into our trip so that we could enjoy it to the very end.

A Muse on Old Friends

I love my old boots.

They’re 11 years old and I’ve ‘replaced’ them twice with newer boots. But I just can’t get rid of my old friends.

And although I wear my newer boots, whenever I know I’ll be doing a bit of walking during the day I always reach for my trusty old boots, knowing they will see me through. They’re even more comfortable than my runners (trainers, sneakers).

They’ve walked me around large chunks of France, Italy, the UK and Ireland.

They’ve been used and abused.

And they just keep giving.

Is it any wonder that I would dedicate a scrapbook layout to them.

They have been repaired so many times, I’ve lost count. And I know that one day (probably in the not too distant future) they will be beyond repair and will go to that Great Shoe Closet in the Sky.

But that day is not now.

Now I open my wardrobe and my hand hovers over my smart boots before drifting, as though drawn by a magnet, to my shabby old friends.

A quick shine up and they’ll look as good as new. Yeah, right. I know it’s to my eyes only, but I don’t care.

My boots and I will walk on together.

Old Friends walking into the sunset.

Wrapping Up the Celtic Theme

A Contest and a Video

Following on from my update last Monday on the Kilmore Celtic Festival, I came across the video below. It seems a fitting conclusion to my Celtic week.

But first a gift wrapping contest

Yes, you read that right.

Many scrapbookers extend their love for all things paper and decorative and they really go to town when wrapping up gifts. I must confess, I’m not one of these folk. Gift wrapping is a little too ephemeral for me. I like the things I create to last just a tad longer.

However I’ll be the first to admit that a beautifully wrapped present is a wonderful thing to receive.

And Scotch (the sticky tape people, not the alcoholic beverage people) have come out with a contest for all you gift wrapping enthusiasts where you can win $10,000!

To enter, describe in 100 words or less why you or someone you know has what it takes – whether it’s a vast amount of gift-wrapping experience or endless creativity – to be crowned the “Scotch Brand Most Gifted Wrapper” for 2009.  The person who nominates the grand-prize winner will also receive $1,000 for his/her winning recommendation. Be sure to also include the following:

• Your name, home address, city, state, zip code, daytime phone number, fax number and e-mail address (if available).
• Nominee’s name, home address, city, state, zip code, daytime phone number, fax number and e-mail address (if available).
• Whether the nominee is entering as a professional or amateur. Note that anyone who is currently or has previously earned income as a gift wrapper at a department store, specialty store, etc. is considered a professional.

Entries must be received no later than October 5, 2009 and can be submitted by mail, fax or e-mail to: Scotch Brand Most Gifted Wrapper Contest, c/o Hunter Public Relations, 41 Madison Avenue, 5th Floor, New York, New York 10010; fax: (212) 679-6607; e-mail: giftedwrapper@hunterpr.com.

Eight winners will receive a 3-day all-expenses paid trip to New York City where they’ll compete in the practical leg of the competition in a Grand Wrap-Off  between the final eight contestants to determine the winner of the contest and the $10,000 prize.

If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, pop an email off to them or visit http://www.scotchbrand.com/ for a complete set of contest rules.

And now to the video

Many of you will recall the popularity of  Riverdance in the 90s. They were a brilliant Irish Dancing Company who toured the World leaving us awed and amazed as they step danced, tapped and high-kicked across the stage. If anyone had a little bit of Irish in them, Riverdance woke it up and really brought it out.

The most well known dancer from the Company was Michael Flately who went on to form his own company called Lord of the Dance.

Well, (drum fanfare) Scraps of Mind is pleased and proud to bring you:

The New Lord of the Dance:

This is very funny

Kilmore Celtic Festival 2009

Someone must have pressed the fast forward button and whizzed the year through, because I can’t believe it’s been a year since we headed off down the Hume Highway on our annual pilgrimage to the Kilmore Celtic Festival.

And of course, my annual homage to the event.

I made this layout using Marcee Duggar's Music Kit with some embellishments from Amy Cheeseman's Heartsong. I'm going through a phase of blending my photos so that they form part of the background paper at the moment.

Once again I meant to buy the early-bird tickets and get the discount. Once again it slipped my mind. Once again I almost forgot which weekend it was on.

But despite all that, once again I have had a great day out at my favourite folk festival.

Kilmore lies about 40 minutes drive north of Melbourne. So from my perspective it’s one of the handiest folk festivals I can get to. And an added bonus is that my sister lives ten minutes away from Kilmore on the way home so it’s become a bit of a tradition to stop there on our way back for a bite to eat and a cosy catch up in front of their fire.

The Kilmore Celtic Festival takes place on the last weekend of June each year and kicks off with a dinner and cailaigh on Friday evening, culminating with a big lunch and concert at one of the Kilmore pubs on Sunday afternoon.

And in between there’s Saturday!

A day packed full of great bands, musicians and singers as well as markets, dancing and workshops.

Kilmore is a small festival and for me that’s part of its charm. There are always plenty of new acts to sample as well as many old favourites to revisit. And this year was no exception.

My favourite band, Ced Meledo’s Bric-a-Brac were in fine form. They represent the Breton contribution to the Celtic culture. And Ced is cute, French and wears leather pants. What more could you ask for? Oh yes, their music is great to listen to.

Another favourite act, Braemar, opened the Festival and woke us up to a set of Scottish balllads. And we enjoyed the return of Bhan Tre who are always great to watch. Each year we like to find a new act that we can add to our favourites and this year we came across two. Both are young bands from the Lake School of Celtic Music. One is called Rant and the other is Dram. Definitely two bands to watch out for on the celtic/folk scene.

And, in what has now become part of our Kilmore Festival tradition, we stopped in at Elaine and Greg’s on our way home. Topping of a terrific day with home made pizza and wine.

Aaaah! Life’s good!