After a long day, organising yet more stuff at Spencer House, we are relaxing with some Sancerre Rose and Sigur Ros. Lovely, swimmy music which is truly relaxing me.
In My Day
Was it about 2002? We were in London and decided to catch a ballet performance by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Becky joined us for this (it was only much later that I discovered what an aversion she has to Avant-garde ballet.)
For the second piece, Merce Cunningham came on stage with his lighting, costume and set directors and his choreographer. He announced that they would draw from a hat to determine which combination of two lighting and stage sets, costumes, choreography and music would form the performance, giving quite a random result. Music would either be by Radiohead or Sigur Ros, an Icelandic band. I knew of Radiohead but had never heard of Sigur Ros so had no idea of what kind of sound world would be involved.
The result, which was fabulously beautiful to my and Paul's eyes (altho' not to Becky who was rather bored) included the Sigur Ros music. The dancers managed to be silent on their bare feet and the images of their beautiful shapes against the swirling backdrop and mysterious Sigur Ros music set the bar for fabulous modern dance, as far as I was concerned.
Merce Cunningham died in 2009, a real loss to the art world; but he changed my heart forever.
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