Surrealist Ball

Today I went to a free concert very close to home, near Old Street station.

Part of the London Symphony Orchestra's "Discovery Fridays" series, the concerts not only feature top-calibre musicians (today's concert was performed by the LSO principal flautist and pianist), they also seek to educate the public about what is a great technical unknown for many, myself included: "classical" music. I appreciated the informative introduction, which used excerpts from each movement to illustrate principles from the piece before the performers played the sonata. The question-and-answer period after the performance was also entertaining--not overly technical in nature, just enjoyable in a gossipy way, as the performers talked about how they loathed practising, and couldn't get their kids to practise. The flautist talked about how his son doesn't want to practise because he doesn't want to play in an orchestra, and he thinks that everyone who practises has to grow up to play in an orchestra! On the whole, the format of "Discovery Fridays" allows performers to display their personalities, which has the added bonus of making the music more enjoyable. Since today was the last Friday of the month, the V&A hosted their monthly late-opening; this month's theme coincided with their current Surrealism exhibit and the evening was called a "Surrealist Ball." As usual, there were many activities throughout the crowded rooms of the V&A, and I didn't make it to all of them. Films and DJ sets were the most common events, but I did catch two of the performances on offer. The first was "Dead Booth," by a group called "The Society of Wonders." Performed on a staircase landing, the saw and keyboard lament was made even more eerie by the staring, morose woman who oversaw the performance.
Beside the musicians was this box, with feet sticking out of one end, in that typical saw-someone-in-half visual,
but someone unexpected peeked out of the other end of the box.
The puppet head moved back and forth during the performance, almost as if it were dancing to the decidedly undanceable music. Very odd--surreal, one might say. Next up was "The Interpretation of Everyday Life" by Marcia Farquhar.
Sort of like a surrealist session of psychoanalysis in reverse, Ms. Farquhar asked for a volunteer from the audience to share anything new in her life, her worries and her hopes,and then used this information to craft a living dream on stage, with the help of props and four people she picked out of the audience, including this "man with the deformed foot"
and these three woman, whom Ms. Farquhar called "the bride, the thoughtful woman with the log, and the blue fairy." (The log lady was straight out of Twin Peaks, which is as good a place as any to start a discussion of Surrealism.) In case you can't tell by now, I should mention that some people dressed up in their Surrealist best for the ball . . .

We missed last month's Friday Late at the V&A since we were in Vancouver, and the most notable difference between tonight's event and March's evening is that tonight didn't feel like evening at all, since it stayed light in the wonderful garden throughout the event! The dark days of winter are finally behind us.