Hidden on a corner in the heart of the Roath area in Cardiff, a largely residential spot, lies a quirky little art gallery and cafe. On Thursday evening there was a buzz about the place – it was like walking into a yurt at Glastonbury and what we were all about to witness was an aptly heady and weird experience. This one night only event had a hipster aesthetic, both in the audience and onstage, but it moved towards something much more artistic as the night progressed.
This was an entirely laid back affair, with the ability to sit on the cushion strewn floor or take one of the random crates hanging about, or even stand. The evening was kicked off by the quirky host, Will Salter, as he gave a rendition of a ‘poem’ he had written about a beginning and an ending; I am not quite clear on its meaning but it was oddly enjoyable and set the tone for what was to come throughout the evening.
At each interval the host, Will Salter, reminded us to go up stairs to see Merran Singh Dubb’s film installation, which was a stark take on the consequences of climate change. This heavy theme was presented with equally heavy imagery juxtaposed with soothing meditative music.
The night in store for us consisted of visual performance, piano music, film, contemporary dance and monologue. None of the pieces were connected as such but there seemed to be an underlying theme that came through in all of the performances: decay and destruction. This seems very heavy all in one evening but it was made quite palatable by the aforementioned laid-back vibe.
The first piece came from musician, Simon Gore and Jack Rees – this was an AV performance where the performers played and distorted ‘cassette noise’ to the back drop of what appeared to be surveillance footage ‘authenticated’ with glitches and interruptions. This had an Orwellian theme mixed with a cacophony of rhythmic sounds which eventually led to a climax.
Next up was Marega Palser with her captivating contemporary dance piece Jane Eyre, The Dark Side…’ This was inspired by Paula Rego’s etchings of Jane Eyre and the music of PJ Harvey. Palser provided four moving compositions, which were more mechanical than expressive leaving the task of interpretation to the audience. An excellent piece.
Then Nicholas Morgan and Margot Prymierska gave two seemingly unrelated monologues intertwined with each other. While Prymierska regaled what appeared to be a personal ‘true’ story of her aunt’s funeral, Morgan gave us a description of partial plot lines of George R. R. Martin’s Games of Thrones. The line of ‘authenticity’ seemed to get blurred between the stories, which raised very interesting questions around traditional oral storytelling.
Guy Shotton then treated us to Dan-Wyn Jones’ piano composition Shining Light. This piece privileged narrative over melody striking the overall postmodern tone of the whole evening. Beginning with slow high pitched travelling to the deep and dramatic, it was lovely to listen to.
Arnaldo James presented a short film, which leaned towards the performance art in its expression. In terms of aesthetics the whole piece seemed to be very much inspired by the work of Pina Bausch and Grotowski ‘s poor theatre experiments in 1960’s Poland. James’ preamble explained that the exploration was of identity in a Trinidadian and Japanese context (where the artists are from).
The night was rounded off by a trio of cello, violin and voice performance of Arabic and Sephardic traditional songs from Angie Kirby, Bethan Frieze and Eloise Gynn. This was the perfect end to an interesting, albeit sometimes hazy, evening. There was an almost Celtic tone to this ending with the music giving off the sound of mythology.