St Magnus needs to consign this sort of ageing crowd-pleaser to the bin; and strike out boldly into the newly-emerging borderlands between classical music and a dozen other art-forms less stuffy than mainstream poetry, and far less concerned about the old social hierarchy of art – from posh to popular – that the 21st century is scattering to the four winds, in Orkney as elsewhere
I can certainly agree with that last statement. Next festival as an ARG anyone...?
There are also a couple of reviews from Hi-Arts: a nice piece about Trio Medieval in the Cathedral which echoes the opinion of other people I've spoken to; and the Stromness Parish Church with Andrew Motion. Both reviews are well-written and manage to convey a more accurate sense of what Orkney is like, at least in my experience*: respectful of the place they live in, placing great value on local knowledge, but without all that mystical stuff about communing with nature and history.
* My experience: born and raised here. Went away for 20 years then came back.
There have been lots of theatre-plus projects in Orkney over the years - I cannot recall one more focussed, engaging, and impressive than Mixter Maxter - certainly not any achieving such cohesiveness and commitment across such a wide range of media, nor any that have managed so effectively to transform observers into participants. I don't think it's just me and Joyce o' the Scotsman (!) - talking to St Magnus Festival regulars from Orkney and elsewhere, the reaction is overwhelmingly positive.
ReplyDeleteIt is great that Joyce shares my high opinion of Mixter Maxter, and she is right to highlight the risk that the edginess and unusualness of the Festival programme might drift. I'm a bit surprised at her outburst about "mainstream poetry" (whatever that is): she might not particularly like the work of one poet or another, we probably all want the Festival (and the arts in Scotland as a whole) to strive even more to achieve that slightly unstable balance between innovation and involvement of all, noone would deny that occasionally one event or another is poor (or just less fabulous) than most of the others, but I think the superficiality which she rightly points out as being avoided by the National Theatre of Scotland may have crept into her own analysis. While there are orchestras visiting the Festival for the first time (video blogging their progress, "RSNO's Orkney (Working) Holiday"!), events such as the Tango Quintet Piazzolla concert, excursions to (and events in) the islands and parishes of Orkney, screenings of award-winning Orkney-produced animated shorts, continuing innovation in the venues used (including importing speigeltents, theatre ships, open-air circus events and so on), and projects like Mixter Maxter I really do not think that the programme is challengable in the terms Joyce uses.
I hope she heard the announcements on Wednesday night about the plans for SMF 2010. Doubtless there will be an event or two which for some reason doesn't quite meet expectations, but even on first hearing the ambition as we go into the 2010s, to present a programme as excellent as it is innovative and (to use Max's word) democratic, is as strong as it was in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s!
You know, I really think I *must* have an early night tonight!