Rowley Gallery Blog
if you haven’t taken a stroll down main street,
my exhibition at yorkshire sculpture park,
there’s still time.
and you might want to kill two birds with a single stone
& come along to the first (& possibly last)
Darktown valentine’s cabaret. Continue reading “Darktown Valentine’s Cabaret”
A selection of pictures from the exhibition Quentin Blake: The Hospital Drawings at the Nightingale Project until 31 March 2016, to celebrate ten years of Sir Quentin Blake creating art for hospitals. Continue reading “Our Friends In The Circus”
A short trailer for Smashed by Gandini Juggling.
A mesmerising mix of circus and theatre, inspired by the work of Pina Bausch, “Smashed” is a series of nostalgic filmic scenes exploring conflict, lost love and quaint afternoon tea.
Another version, filmed outdoors, was featured here in an earlier Frames Of Reference blog post. Continue reading “Smashed”
The Christmas full moon got me thinking lunatic thoughts and I remembered this wonderful piece by Pina Bausch for Tanztheater Wuppertal.
Vollmond, meaning full moon or high tide, is among Pina’s most revered works and has been making waves, literally, since its creation in 2006… The full moon highlights our humanity and how we get thrown into emotional highs and lows. Pina’s dancer-actors ride this roller coaster throughout Vollmond, showing vulnerability and strength, detachment and desire, collapse and vitality. It’s visceral. It’s deeply relatable. There is no one story to this show, it’s a glimpse into the lives of a handful of intertwined individuals. Vollmond is a work you can return to and always come out of with a new perspective. Continue reading “Vollmond”
I first heard this song on the radio a dozen years ago and I was captivated by it. It’s been echoing in my head ever since. It sounded extraordinary and more beautiful than anything I’d ever heard before. I was sure they said it was by Tomás Méndez but I couldn’t find him on iTunes or anywhere. Then by chance I found this video a few days ago and I can’t stop playing it. I’ve now got the album too so I can sing along when I’m alone in the car, and I sound just like Caetano Veloso! Continue reading “Cucurrucucú Paloma”
I was looking for more Bobby McFerrin and I found this. He was performing in Burghausen in 2002 at a concert where he duetted with surprise partners, some more successfully than others. This was the highlight. I’d not heard from Maria João since 2000 but I was glad to be reminded. She’s lovely and maybe a little bit crazy with a wonderful elastic voice. Continue reading “Dois Duetos”
Bobby McFerrin demonstrates the power of the pentatonic scale, using audience participation, at the event “Notes & Neurons: In Search of the Common Chorus”. Continue reading “Pentatonic Scale”
I found this video at Open Culture and couldn’t resist sharing it here.
Since 1999, the French juggling group Les Objets Volants (The Flying Objects) have been entertaining audiences worldwide. Beyond juggling, their shows incorporate elements of theater, visual arts and even mathematics. And the group takes special pride in exploring new ways of handling and manipulating everyday objects. Which brings us to the performance above. There you can see Les Objets Volants perform Bach’s Prélude N°1. (which more typically sounds something like this) on “boomwhackers,” those hollow, color-coded, plastic percussion tubes, which are tuned to different musical pitches. Recorded last March, the clip is an outtake from a Les Objets Volants show called “Liaison Carbone,” which explores concepts in physics. Enjoy.
This year I had the honour to design the Christmas Card for Rowley Gallery. I chose to use some of the characters of a traditional Mexican pastorela, a play that recreates the biblical passage in which the shepherds are guided to Bethlehem and there are always angels, devils, sheep and funny situations. If you are in west London go and visit Rowley Gallery, it’s full of choices for your Christmas presents. The clock is ticking! Continue reading “Feliz Navidad”
We’d read about a giant oak tree, Quercione (big oak), north of Montecarlo in the province of Lucca, in a village called San Martino in Colle. It sounded magical and intriguing but also a little confusing.
Where the hill of Monte Carlo declines in the north slope below the village of San Martino in Colle, there is the “Quercione of Carrara.” This is a monumental oak (Quercus pubescens), whose age exceeds 500 years, the height of 14 meters, the circumference of the shaft 4 meters and the opening of branches more than 30 meters. The surrounding lawn is charming place and meeting place for romantic encounters. On this tree are passed down legends of witches in her hair would keep, in the nights of full moon, their Sabbath. It is said, also, that this is the oak tree where the cat and the fox hanged puppet Pinocchio: Collodi, in fact, is a stone’s throw away. The place is always accessible and is definitely worth a photo. Continue reading “Quercione”