Image from carriageworks.com.au
Lucky to catch this deliciously crazy performance at Carriageworks by François Chaignaud. Not knowing quite what to expect was excellent. A small group of people lead into an intimate space to sit on clear blow up cushions or cubes. The dancer appears in a crazy headdress with not only feathers as I’d heard described but birds! He shuffles around the small performance space with tribal beats playing and voices in the background and then: oh, it’s him. He’s singing.
The two costumes were so extravagant and the music so unfamiliar and strange (drawing from Sephardic, Spanish, Umbrian, Filipino and Ukranian songs), it felt a little like being on a holiday (perhaps a cruise ship one hundred years ago), stopping at an exotic port, and entering into a small circus tent for a cultural show.
And really, from the start, I didn’t really care how successful it was; I was already applauding the artistic spirit, creativity and weirdness of it all. But I loved it, and so did the rest of the audience. Bravo, Monsieur Chaignaud for your fearless artistry. There was a silly and spiteful review in the Sydney Morning Herald, that mostly seemed about Jill Sykes, the reviewer, being unhappy not to be able to drink more at the bar. Chaignaud, people like this are nothing. Rien de rien!