The Place For My Writers Notes

Original Posting 21 October 2007

The NHK (public television) folks put some odd programs on. Right now there's a visit with a circus camp in Monaco. One bit particularly caught my imagination - they were talking to the fellow who arranges most of the "big shows" for this group, laying out the musicians, lighting, acts, and all. They asked him about the underlying stories, and he responded quite emphatically that he doesn't have any stories in his shows. No, he said, "All I do is provide spectacles - great sounds, great sights - and the audience tells themselves stories." And yet he is known for engaging the audience, exciting them - and even the little clips of his shows that we saw were quite amazing.

Tibetan instruments with people trained in the monks' style of chanting - they said the leader could go for 20 minutes with a single "ooooooooo" booming away from his stomach. This with a single horse prancing in place, the rider quiet, under a spotlight.

Or a huge moon, with a woman suddenly swirling into sight in front of it, and then the lights move to a single figure muffled in white with huge billowing wings fluttering around it as it spins and dances in the center and snow falls. Then it crumpled to the ground, a white pile, and a horse wandered into the spotlight and up to the pile, as if to pull the figure back out, then stopped. And the lights went out.

Fun stuff. And I think I need to contemplate that notion of providing spectacle and letting the audience tell themselves stories.