Reviewed by Ray Smith, Saturday 7th March 2020.
On Day 2 of
WOMADelaide 2020, Marina Satti held Stage 2 with her all-female ensemble, Fonέs. Although Greek in origin the performers danced to heavily sequenced backing tracks often displaying Middle Eastern influences, and sang in a number of languages, including Arabic. The performance was very theatrical and tightly choreographed and, while splendidly presented, the lack of live musicians made the show look more than a little bare.
Satti praised the DJ's running the Macintosh computers for each of the very contrived pieces. There are few things duller than watching half a dozen singers and dancers shuffling their feet on an otherwise empty stage while an invisible computer operator loads the next file. The high energy dancing and close harmonies, against the relentless accuracy of a computerised soundtrack seemed to thrill the audience though, as they danced enthusiastically in front of the stage.
Company Archibald Caramantran's superb four-metre tall puppets towered above the audience as they danced alongside them. The rule for WOMADelaide 2020 is to look for these giant figures if you want to find something to dance to.
Circolombia filled the Foundation Stage with dancers, singers, and acrobats but, once again, no musicians. The inevitable process of the performers standing motionless on the stage, waiting for a technician to load the next backing track left me cold. The singers were rather good, the acrobatics entertaining, and the tracks themselves were energetic and highly rhythmic.
Cue the four-metre dancing puppets. I moved on.
On Stage 3, Ifriqiyya Electrique promised "a healing ritual of possession and trance, a centuries-old tradition taken to Europe by the former black slaves of North Africa, dissolving the line between performer and audience and encouraging everyone, just as in a nightclub, to forget oneself." What they delivered, to my ears at least, was the now widely known form of simple, rhythmic vocal riffs backed by acoustic and electronic percussion.
Cue the four-metre dancing puppets.
There were two performances scheduled for the distant venue of Stage 7 and I took a deep breath and girded my loins for the trek. WOMADelaide is basically a four-day hike with an eclectic backing track, and it was becoming increasingly obvious that I had not prepared myself for the arduous event.
Iberi's extraordinary vocal sound greeted me as I approached Stage 7, and I can say, without a shadow of a doubt, that I have never heard anything quite like it. The a Capella works were beguiling in their beauty, and baffling in their complexity, as the ensemble of uniformed men, complete with swords and riding boots, pushed the boundaries of vocal arrangements. Slow, shifting and deeply moving harmonies were peppered with fast vocal modulations, almost like yodelling, in a stunning polyrhythmic wall of voice.
The unaccompanied pieces gave way to instrumental works performed on traditional Georgian instruments, often supporting spectacular dancing by members of the ensemble, who were occasionally joined by a female dancer and singer, her brilliant red dress a visual foil to the sombre black uniforms.
The small stringed instruments, Panduri and Chonguri, were plucked and strummed. Their fragile, thin voices melded with the more sonorous mouth-blown Pilili's horn-like quality, and the urgent, shrill voice of the Tulum bagpipe. The rhythm was maintained by the traditional Doli drum. The male voices rose and fell across a massive tonal range, from a high falsetto to ground trembling bass, as suddenly, one of the ensemble bursts into a spinning, frenzied dance, as the bats wheeled and fussed in the trees above the stage.
I was left stunned and breathless by their performance. It was so intense, fresh and exciting, both aurally and visually, that I had to take a little time to absorb and reflect upon the experience. It was definitely a highlight of the Festival so far.
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