New on theatre notes -
MIAF: Alladeen and Failing Kansas
Melbourne International Arts Festival: Alladeen , The Builders Association
and moti roti. Directed by Marianne Weems, conceived by Kaith Khan,
Marianne Weems and Ali Zaidi; performed by Rizwan Mirza, Heaven Phillips,
Tanya Selvaratnam, Jamine Simhalan, Jeff Webster. Failing Kansas ,
conceived, performed and directed by Mikel Rouse, film footage by Cliff
Baldwin.
These days most of us move between real and virtual spaces without thinking
about it much. We have become used to the intimate spectacle of atrocities
which are beamed instantly into our living rooms, the multiple identities we
assign ourselves in phonespeak and cyberspace, the hyper-saturation of media
images and the seductions of celebrity culture. Consciously or not, we swim
through a flux of unsatisfied desire that lives in the eye rather than the
tangibility of smell and touch; a desire which, if it is not precisely
disembodied, is fragmented and displaced, and so becomes both more potent
and more dangerous.
Such ways of being can create a desolating dislocation, and Alladeen , a
spectacular multimedia work which explores the decentralised world of call
centres, leaves a disturbing aftertaste. While it forthrightly explores the
technological mechanisms of contemporary colonialism, it is by no means a
technophobic show; Alladeen is at once celebratory and admonitory of our
brave new wired-up world. But one of its its most telling images is a woman
dancing alone in a karaoke nightclub, talking to her absent lover on her
mobile phone.
Read more at http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
All the best
A
Alison Croggon
Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
Editor, Masthead: http://masthead.net.au
Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com
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