EIDOLON
Basement Theatre, Lower Greys Ave, Auckland
11/03/2012 - 11/03/2012
Production Details
A musical journey into a kaleidoscopic dream world; a beautiful and haunting story told through the cello.
Melbourne-based cellist Francesca Mountfort comes toAucklandwith U.K projectionist Tom Hume to perform one show only at the Basement Theatre.
Eidolon is an intimate and intriguing musical installation performance.
With the use of multiple projections onto different objects, shapes and surfaces, they summon a timeless and bewitching musical dreamscape.
This is a theatrical collaboration of music and projection that plays with illusion, the poetry of rhythm and cycles of life. It is a play on fantasy and reality, dream state and present; a wordless and amorphous experience.
“The interplay between music and projection is hypnotic…..driven not by narrative but rather by music and emotion.” Hannah Smith, Theatre View
As a classically trained cellist, Francesca uses her skills with electronics and history of classical music to fuse experimental, ambient and classical into an emotional and heartfelt sound scape. At times minimal, at other times extremely dense, Francesca uses the depth, range and subtlety of the cello to create an immersive, spacial audio experience that is quite indescribable. At times light, other times dark and haunting, Francesca conveys a new experience of an instrument that is rarely known outside of a classical context.
Beginning with the NZ Fringe Festival, Nervous Doll Dancing is touring aroundNew Zealand,Australia, Europe andCanada.
“Some of the most beautiful cello playing I’ve heard in some time.” The BrokenFace,Sweden.
The Basement, Sun 11th of March, 8pm,
$18 full, $15 concession
Bookings www.basementtheatre.co.nz
Adventurous eloquence and eeriness
Review by Aidan-B. Howard 12th Mar 2012
It is difficult to consider a piece which is fifty minutes of cello playing with visuals projected on three areas around the cellist to be ‘theatre’ in its traditional sense. However, when we consider that an instrument well played has character and personality and music well organised has a storyline, we do find many of the elements of theatre.
It may be true that the playing was not of the highest calibre in that professional-aficionado sense, but the average audience member will not mind. They will be impressed by a style and a flavour which is uncommon with a classical instrument, occasionally reminiscent of Lutoslawski or Penderecki. They will be impressed by the adventuresome nature of the larger instrument in a genre in which soloists are most commonly violinists.
They will be impressed by the sometimes eloquent, sometimes eerie sounds and storyline. Indeed, there were times in which I thought that this is what Tool might sound like if they had chosen classical instruments of the tradition rock instruments.
And the visuals back it up, sometimes like an excerpt from the same Tool video, sometimes like a snippet from The Ring. A story of the progression of time and of metamorphosis is often made as spooky as it is enlightening.
This was a one-off performance, so there is no season. However, Mountfort and Hume are touring as part of a performing arts festival, and if you have the opportunity to see them near your town, Eidolon, the ‘spectre’ or ‘phantom’, will help you to see the classical instrument in a new light.
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