At first glance, this
year's Edinburgh's Hogmanay festival which kicks off this weekend is
as civic-mindedly populist as it comes. Or at least that's the case
as presented in its brochure with a big number '13' emblazoned on the
cover in neon-styled lettering with the words 'BE LUCKY' beneath. The
annual torchlight procession is in there, as is the candle-lit
concert at St Giles and the Concert in the Gardens this year
headlined by the stadium pomp of Simple Minds. The Loony Dook is a
must, and even the sled dog races have made a return this year.
Look beyond all this,
however, and there is a very subtle subversion in the programme that
takes the avant-garde out of the art-house and unleashes it on the
streets and in some of Edinburgh's most august institutions. Most of
this is to be found in Your Lucky Day, a New Year's Day construction
which invites revellers to throw a dice which, depending on how they
land, will take them to one of twelve unknown destinations in
Edinburgh city centre. Once there, they will be regaled by some form
of performance before being invited to roll the dice once more to
define their next destination, and so on.
These will include
music from the likes of Unthanks singer Becky Unthank, some
thought-provoking words from pop psychologist Professor Richard
Wiseman, a performance of ancient mummers play, Galoshins and spoken
word and performance poetry from the team behind Glasgow's Words Per
Minute night among others. Once participants have been around as much
of the circuit as they choose, the day climaxes with Big Bang, an
epic street theatre spectacle by French auteurs, Plasticiens Volants.
Before any of this
happens, those in search of guidance will have the chance to seek
their fortune via Lady Luck – The Cult of Fortuna, a participatory
installation created by live art duo, Walker and Bromwich. This will
involve a seven and a half metre high gold-coloured inflatable
'statue' of the ancient Roman goddess, Fortuna, who was the
personification of how the hand of chance worked in terms of
bestowing her followers with both good and bad luck.
“We like to bring
people into an idea using something that's both fun and visually
seductive,” Zoe Walker explains. “That way people become part of
the experience and the idea and can maybe feel something so they go
away uplifted.”
“We hope to be
creating a space where people can reflect and have time to think,”
Neil Bromwich continues. “People come and make a pledge to as god,
then promise to repay them once their wish has been granted. People
are thinking like that anyway at this time of year, except here
they're making a deal with a god.”
Walker and Bromwich
have consistently redefined ancient rituals with playfully polit6ical
intent. At this year's Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art,
art Lending Library allowed members of the public to borrow donated
artworks, while the pair unleashed their Love Parade – a pink
inflatable cannon firing balloons as it is led through the city
streets by a parade of dancers and drummers – on this year's Hull
Festival. At time of writing, Walker and Bromwich are immersed in
Gateshead's Baltic Centre undertaking The Encampment of Eternal Hope,
a similarly utopian sculptural installation working towards the Mayan
calendar's so-called end of the world.
“It's about trying to
build a new society in a post-apocalyptic work,” says Walker.
Presuming the pair
survive the experience, Lady Luck – The Cult of Fortuna will open
for business for two days prior to Your Lucky Day.
Also on show as one of
the twelve events around town as part of Your Lucky Day will be
Galoshins, a seventeenth century Scottish folk play presented by
Glasgow-based musician Shane Connolly's Sokobauno Puppet and Object
Theatre. The piece is performed by Connolly, who is also a
percussionist with Tattie Toes, and internationally acclaimed singer
Alasdair Roberts, who's excavation of the folk song tradition makes
his canon sound dangerously contemporary in a manner that recalls
Nick Cave's savage reinvention of blues music. The pair originally
presented Galoshins as part of Archive Trails, which saw contemporary
artists tap into the cultural goldmine to be found in the University
of Edinburgh's School of Scottish Studies, an institution co-founded
by poet Hamish Henderson.
In terms of scale,
however, Your Lucky Day's undoubted highlight is Big Bang. As the
name suggests, this latest extravaganza by Plasticiens Volants
travels backwards in time to the explosion that created the universe
as we know it. The fact that the company does this via a gigantic set
of ever morphing inflatables lends an appealingly user-friendly
texture to a set of highly complex ideas to create a theatre in the
sky.
“In the beginning we
wanted to try to find a new form of show,” explains Plasticiens
Volants director Marc Mirales in an appropriately year zero fashion.
“Before, we have created shows using fairy-tales and myth, but with
Big Bang we wanted to make a show out of something that was more
scientific. We met with an astro-physician, who described himself as
a detective who was looking for clues to solve the mystery of the
universe. That is why we begin at the end, and go back to the
beginning, to try and recreate that mystery.”
Such artistic entryism
isn't new to Edinburgh's Hogmanay. Plasticiens Volants have brought
several shows here over the years, while other major street theatre
conceptualists have attempted to adapt what is more often seen at
European summer festivals to Scotland's more intemperate winter
climate. Many of these companies were born of a post-rave club
culture that inherited the 1960s counter-culture's sense of playful
mischief. This could be said too of some of the contributors to
Edinburgh's Hogmanay 2011. Last year, the National Museum of Scotland
played host to a giant game of chess initiated by live artist Spotov
as part of a game-themed day of events around the city which also
involved the likes of art-pop band, FOUND.
This continuing sense
of subversion was most evident two years earlier, when giant puppet
installation Big Man Walking paraded the royal mile to a techno
soundtrack, while in St Giles Cathedral, Fragile Pitches was an sound
installation by electronic experimental stalwarts Michael Begg and
Colin Potter that distorted natural sounds recorded locally for a
thrillingly atmospheric experience. The performance was later
released on CD.
The beginning of the
universe, then, is as good a way to start the year as any.
“It's the story of a
scientific adventure,” says Mirales, “but it's told like a poem,
and, like any poem, everyone will find something different.”
Take a chance on any of
these shows, and it might well be your lucky day.
Your Lucky Day, January
1st 2013, begin at the National Museum of Scotland,
Edinburgh, noon-5pm. Big Bang starts at 5pm, 13 Buccleuch Place,
Edinburgh.
Take a Chance – Three
of the Best at Your Lucky Day
The Luck Factor – An
Audience With Richard Wiseman, who gives a talk on why some people
appear to be lucky, always in the right place at the right time,
while others appear blighted by constant misfortune.
Chancin' It – Glasgow
literary salon Words Per Minute presents performance poetry and more,
headlined by jenny Lindsay replacing an indisposed Alan Bissett.
Crow's Bones – Becky
Unthank of Geordie folk band The Unthanks presents a set of midwinter
songs alongside fellow singer Inge Thomson, Lau accordionist Martin
Green and nykelharpist Niklas Roswall in a presentation from Opera
North.
The Herald, December 24th 2012
ends
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