Festival Previews Video Blog

Here’s a part of Amanda Palmer’s fantastic “Guitar Hero” performed live at Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh with the Danger Ensemble.

There is  flash photography and strobe lighting in parts of the clip including the begining.

Enjoy!

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

I was extremely privileged to be able to video Amanda Palmer and the Danger Ensemble live at Cabaret Voltaire in Edinburgh.  A fantastic show of music and dance.  Accompanying her on the tour are Cellist Zoe Keating, violinist Lyndon Chester and singer Jason Webley.  Pure magic!

Even more of an accolade is due as Amanda was actually knocked down by a car in Belfast a few days ago resulting in a “squished” foot.  Despite having her foot and leg in plaster and undoubtedly being in pain, she’s continuing with her tour in the true spirit of The Show Must Go On!

All I can say is: Go to one of their concerts and Buy their CDs!

Here’s one of the clips hot off the reel…

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

During economic down turns world festivals and other outdoor gatherings tend to suffer.  However an upside to this is that people may choose to explore festivals in their own backyard rather than take the mass transit route abroad.  With five banks crashing today (the Belgian-Dutch Bank, Fortis;  Iceland’s Glitnir Bank; the UK’s Bradford & Bingley; America’s Wachovia and  Germany’s Mortgage Bank, Hypo Real Estate) and the US currently debating the mother of all bail outs, what does this say for the future of the festival industry throughout the world in the coming year.

This year fifteen festivals were canceled in the UK as a result of the freakish weather and the economic downturn.  Even Norway’s Quart Festival was canceled due to poor ticket sales and filed for bankruptcy.  The Florida Citrus Festival founded in 1924 was hurt by bad weather and poor ticket sales and this picture looks set to continue.

No matter how may articles you read about the economic downturn, there is still a perplexing conundrum as to why it was allowed to happen.  It’s clear that banks don’t like to be regulated and yet the tried and trusted risk averse model does not make enough money for the banks or its investors.  Creative minds thus set about instituting a period of  wholesale banking and securitisation which began to sweep the world.

In the 196o’s banks began trading in foreign currencies and found this to be a lucrative income stream.  Mass consumerism gathered momentum in the early 1970’s and the world’s resources were increasingly being drawn upon.  Some smart cookie then realised that you could produce Futures in things like interest rates and began trading or betting in these going up and down.  Then along comes another bright cookie and creates Hedges, an investment made to limit loss against the two proceeding products designed for the rich investor.

In June 1974 the privately owned German Herstatt Bank went into liquidation speculating in currencies.  In 1995 Nick Leeson brought about the collapse of the oldest merchant bank speculating on Futures.

It makes you wonder what was to come next… and yet it did… another brilliant idea was the bundling up of mortgages and selling them on to other banks with incorrectly or perhaps fraudulently applied Tripple A Credit Ratings.  The fact that the original banks did not fully vet their mortgage loan applicants reveals the inherent distrust currently experienced between banks.  The banks made mind boggling profits and paid equally mind boggling bonuses to traders on the volume selling of these bundled up mortgage packages.   After offering a free for all on mortgages, some borrowers were not able to meet their loan requirements.  The bank owners of these bundled up mortgages don’t know what was good and what was bad and it all became toxic debt!

Yet financial bailouts are more common than we think.  Now the mother of all bailouts is set to nationalise the banking system in the States - what a humiliating turn around for the home of the free market economy. Professor Patrick Honohan’s excellent article in the Irish Times on Friday shows that there is a long history of government bailouts and none of this is that new!

But let’s all look on the bright side, attending festivals is a form of escapism and right now that sounds like a very good idea!

Today we interview Rachel Rath who is performing in Arnold T. Fanning’s play, Those Powerful Machines.    This is a dark twisted tale about sex, power and semtex.  Showing at The New Theatre in Dublin their show runs from the 8th to the 20th September at 7.30 pm nightly.   Rachel plays the fragile Tracy, an English night-club hostess in the midst of the Irish terrorist underworld of London in the 1990’s.  Rachel kindly agreed to be interviewed in between her busy acting schedule….

1.    What inspired you to become a performer, writer, director?

I have always entertained from when I was a child. I wrote and performed my first play when I was 8. I didn’t recognise it as a profession until I was 20 and I’ve been acting, performing comedy, writing and directing ever since… I also fight with swords.

2.    What is your show about and what should the public expect from your show at the 2008 Dublin Fringe Festival?

‘Those Powerful Machines’ is one of the most dangerous plays I have ever read. It is Sex, Power and Semtex all rolled into one. It’s a world premiere of an Arnold T Fanning play. I read it years ago and knew Trace was a character that would be extremely exciting and challenging to play. There is a really strong team both on and off the boards which means a lot.

‘War of the Roses’ is a spectacle show. This year I got hung, last year I was set on fire. We fight train together and so Paul Burke our Swordmaster knows how to utilise us in the right way. It’s a one night only event. The best thing is the audience reaction to the craziness!

3.    What are your funniest and worst experiences performing in front of an audience?

I love the freedom given to us by an audience to do what we want when performing. I will happily slap/kiss people in the audience if my character allows me too.

4.    What was the last Fringe or Festival you performed at and what was it like?

Dublin Fringe is the most intimate of festivals with a real community feel. There is a lot of quality shows to see and be part of. It pushes the boat out on new work, new wave and new talent.

5.    What’s your best advice for aspiring performers in your theatrical medium?

Practice by performing then do work you think you would be proud of. Choose carefully and try everything.

6.    Are there any dreams or goals that you have yet to fulfill?

I have so many ideas for theatre shows. I haven’t performed in one of my own writings as of yet and so that might be the next step for me. They are ideas though so I need to work out how the concept will become reality and if it will be entertaining to an audience.

7.    What is the best advice you have ever been given? And did you follow it?

Best advice I ever received was that performance is always about the other person in the scene. It gives me tremendous freedom not to focus on what I am doing but to concentrate on what I am doing to them.

8.    What is the best book you have read and why do you like it?

Best book I read was ‘Actors Working’ by Clair Sinnet it has kept me working.

9.    Who is the person you most admire and why?

Bruce Lee – He persevered through so much and never lost his integrity.

10.    If you could change one thing about the world what would it be?

Make art inclusive.

_______________________________________________________________

You can check out more about Rachel the Irish Community of Actors, Directors, Writers and Producers at the The Attic Studio.

Is the world we live in the ultimate software game managed by the ultimate Software Engineer?   Evolution and Creationism are the ultimate universal big questions out there.

Even at the recent UK Festival of Science, now in it’s 175th year, Professor Michal Reiss, Director of Education at the Royal Society, said that he wanted the biblical readings of creationism to be taught alongside Evolution and biology in schools.  In a broader sense the nomination of Sarah Palin and her sympathetic leanings to Creationism brings cosmic ancestry to the forefront with the timely spawning of Spore!

The Creator of SimCity and The Sims game series, Will Wright has turned his attention to Panspermia, the theory “that microbes transmit life to habitable bodies in space”.  Think of the famous Johnny Appleseed story and you have it!  Spore  shows a comet crashing to earth bringing organic material from space.  The evolution of this hypothesis into a gaming genre presents a new medium to engage the enlightened generation.  Challenging established theories without upsetting religious and evolutionary dogma is going to be fun.

The genius of Wright as a writer of software is his ability to put creative narrative in the hands of his players.  Since the makers of Spore released their Creature Creator programme to generate hype before the game’s scheduled release at the beginning of September 2008, geeky gamers have created a new art form already, Spornography or Sporn which is sweeping the internet.

What it shows, good or bad, is that the creative arts have yet to deliver more…