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Brave
Devised and directed by - Gerry Mulgrew
Music Composer and Director - Gordon Dougall
Artist - Jacqueline Gunn
Lighting Designer - Paul Sorley
Video - Rosie Gibson
Company - Co-production between Communicado and Sounds of Progress
Venue - The Old Fruit Market 0141 429 0022
Albion St G1 between George and Ingram St on east side of the Ramshorn
Theatre beside City Halls. There is a bar in the venue and a installation
to see.
Dates - 28 March - 11 April at 8pm Except Suns Mats Sat
at 2pm, Weds at 1pm
Promenade performance wear comfortable shoes
Run time - 1hr 30mins no interval
Reviewer - Thelma Good
Striking visual images, sensual music
Communicado and Sounds of Progress fill the arched resonating space of
the Old Fruitmarket with the ghosts of the Red Indians of our childhood
stories and the unstated link of our own Scottish history of dispersal
from our lands, culture and languages. The performance draws us in at
the start taking us into the heart of the market, using the space most
as traverse stage. The action skilful causes us to move so that we almost
become part of a tribe ourselves. Above our heads hang a myriad of abandoned
shoes, like a long winding trail of lost souls.
Throughout the Sounds of Progress Band play Gordon Dougall's score which
alters and colours the production, The music is extremely sensual whether
loud and insistent or soft and haunting - it's always superbly played.
Brilliantly blended in are Elizabeth McGettigan's and Claire Cunningham's
pure tone singing making my hair stand on end with its mystical strength,
contrasting with the warping innocence of sung Sunday hymns.
There are some striking visual images and sections in this production
including the river baptisms, the religious power of the Deer dance, the
turbulent raft ride on the Mississippi and the long, long trek west, The
Trail of Tears. Two of the cast use their skills as aerialists, and fire
and water also are used to create sensations, whilst Paul Sorley provides
well judged lighting reeling us around, making the space's shadows at
times alive with Red Indians moving silently in the darkness.
Brave concentrates on one particular tribe's history the Cherokee who
had become settled farmers in the Appalachian Mountains of America, they
took up many of the White Man's ways including Christianity, and European
dress, some owning slaves on their plantations. None of this stopped them
all, including one part Scottish Chief, from being dispossessed and sent
1000 miles to west of the Mississippi.
The production is not without flaws - sometimes we are lectured to, given
verbal facts where enacting would have been more powerful and more trusting
of the audience. These are the sections which drag. But when director
Gerry Mulgrew and his cast go for physical, theatrical depictions the
production really has eagle's wings as we respond to it, soaring with
resonances .
© Thelma Good 29 March 2002
Note - It's worth arriving early enough to see the art installation
which movingly evokes the destroying of cultures and the impossibility
of fully understanding them once they have gone. In mute display broken
artefacts remind that once those beads were worn, once those European
cups were held and sipped from by people who held them dear.
Review of A Wee Bit Of
How do You Do by Sounds of Progress
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