Enso Watt performed Sanka’s 5th Season Ritual at Urbanguild on Sunday night and as always it was a fantastic show. If you are not familiar with what they do, it is a choreographed multi-media extravaganza, of experimental music, pre-recorded soundscapes, live video, art, poetry, heaps of talent, color, and a whole lot of enthusiasm. All of it conducted by classical composer/conductor Yannick Paget, and inspired by the poetry of Chris Mosdell. Sometimes when they are all playing and the lyrics are bubbling from Chris Mosdell’s mouth, I feel like they are just happily playing, that I don’t need to take it so seriously, just go along for the ride. But by the time we got to the 3rd act on Sunday night, I was thoroughly sucked in by the poet’s words, swept up by the music, and Yannick’s pounding drums… enthralled, enthused, moved and inspired.
“We are elementary,” said the poet, “awakening from a phantasmagorical sleep… We have lived everywhere…”
Words and music, light and sound were bringing us back to our first beginnings, and to our essential unity: “We have learnt to dissolve in all directions, to transfer identities.”
“We are an ancient race with an essential innocence, with virginity in our veins–”
Imagine that; a creed underlying culture that celebrated our essential innocence, rather than the dead weight of original sin.
I was intoxicated by the energy of this performance. My mind was taking the poet’s lyrics and spinning new mythologies, new litanies of healing, multiplying through “dimensions, strata, levels, layers…” I imagined the Sanka Rites poured into the common consciousness, overwhelming terror and trauma, washing away tired philosophies of division and denial! How splendid to be “charged with renegade magic”, to celebrate and build rather than fight and destroy!
Thoughts like these went through my mind at Sanka’s 5th Ritual.
Many thanks to all the participants in Sunday night’s show. There really is nothing else like the raw mix of talent and adventurous spirit that makes up the Enso Watt collective.
But will they play again, I wonder? After Eternity, what next?
ensō watt are
{soundscape, spatialization}
Samuel André (aka ieva)
{composer, conductor, percussionist}
Yannick Paget
{poetry}
Chris Mosdell
{piano }
江南泰佐 Taisuke Enami
{accordeon synth}
ryotaro
{contrabass}
岡田康孝 Okada Yasutaka
{guest : trumpet}
Christopher Fryman
{live video mapping}
Andy Couzens & Masato Tokumaru
{drawing}
Hirisha Metha
{translation}
吉村哲幸
noriyuki yoshimura
See also: Images from Sanka’s Winter Ritual
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