Image: Evan Sherman Big Band With Special Guests Daniel Susnjar Afro-Peruvian Jazz Group. Image via Perth International Arts Festival (PIAF).
Every year, from mid-January to mid-March, Perth becomes a camping ground for a veritable swarm of busy bees, frantically making honey in their respective arty hives. Perth International Arts Festival rubs shoulders with the Fringe Festival and Perth Writers Festival, and lovers of all three are obliged to spend up big on tickets and transport. Then it all goes away again until next year. Oh, how I – and, I suspect, most reviewers – wish the three events were separate! It simply isn’t possible to see everything! So in this report I am going to comment on a few items from PIAF and the Fringe. The Writers Festival will be dealt with separately within the next few days.
Rú (//) Cercle
My first outing was to see Rú (//) Cercle. This cryptic monika, I suspect, might have put off more visitors than it attracted. Ru? A misspelling of rue? That in itself is cryptic; are we talking about plants or emotions here? I had no idea what to expect. Music? Drama? Dance?
It turned out to be music, and good music at that. Almost all the items were composed by Ru himself, and sung by him with excellent backing from Wayan Biliondana on bass and added vocals from Anikka Moses and Laura Strobech.
It was the inevitable autobiographical piece that all young artists need to get off their chests, be they writers, composers, choreographers or visual artists. That is not to decry the value of such pieces, because usually – and this one is a good case in point – such works give us glimpses of the talent that is unfolding from within. Not only is Ru a gifted composer, but a fine singer. He has a tale to tell, but this is where he falls down – he does not appear to have trained in speech and drama, and it shows. Once he has learnt to speak more clearly and expressively, he will be a truly well-rounded performer. I was especially taken by the backing ensemble: the two ladies are lovely singers, and Wayan Dana’s skill on the bass – which he often played pizzicato and two handed, like a harp – is clever and original.
Rating: 3 1/2 stars out of 5
Rú (//) Cercle
Presenter: Ru
Genre: Music and Musicals
Origin: WA
Fringe World Festival 2017 Perth
Trygve Wakenshaw and Barnie Duncan: Different Party
My next outing was to see Trygve Wakenshaw and Barnie in the hall of St George’s Cathedral. It was an ideal venue, one that should be used more often for intimate performances, as the acoustics are excellent. These two very physical comedians had the audience in stitches within a minute, and pretty much kept us laughing for over an hour. Their take on business life was very funny, laced as it was with incomprehensible quasi-business lingo, and their clever moves, falls and almost-falls and game of blind man’s bluff. Their sequence on breaking cups was not only hilarious, but a commentary on life as well – and their piece on origami, which had them turning into mating pigeons, was a scream. Their depiction of a Tibetan four-armed deity was also very funny without being at all offensive. I was deeply touched by their start and finish, a tribute to the master of mime, Marcel Marceau, and his ‘Walking against the Wind’.
Rating: 5 stars out of 5
Trygve Wakenshaw and Barnie Duncan: Different Party
Presenter: DON’T BE LONELY
Genre: Theatre
Origin: New Zealand
Fringe World Festival 2017 Perth
Evan Sherman Big Band With Special Guests Daniel Susnjar Afro-Peruvian Jazz Group
Finally, another musical evening, this time to hear a jazz septet. Jazz is not my forte, but I have long made it my motto that there are only two kinds of music – or of any art form, for that matter: the kind that works and the kind that does not. This was one that worked.
Daniel Susnjar and his Afro-Peruvian Jazz Group were part of the entertainment in the Elizabeth Quay Gardens (Chevron Festival Gardens) during PIAF. Classmates in their WAAPA days, the septet has the kind of polish that only comes from long hours of practice and from knowing your fellow performers inside out. They have built up some stamina in the process – two one-hour sets would daunt many players, but this ensemble romped through the program with ease – or at least, they made it look easy, which is surely one of the marks of professionalism. The players are Daniel Susnjar – drums/compositions, Ricki Malet – trumpet, Luke Minness – saxophone, Harry Mitchell – piano, Jeremy Thomson – guitar, Zac Grafton – bass and Iain Robbie – percussion.
I especially enjoyed the opening numbers of the second set; Vitamins and Minerals, Used to be a Festejo and La Flor de la Canela. The first of the three was basically program music, speaking of business and boredom, a sense of hopelessness and mournful acceptance in the cantabile section, gradually winding up to an energetic, complex close. One especially interesting feature in this set was a unison duo for sax and trumpet. There was a lot of syncopation, and several passages featured counter-rhymths, assisted by stick clapping and a syncopated rhumba rhythm. Anything with a Latin beat will set toes tapping, and this set – in fact, the entire program – achieved that very nicely, thank you!
The gardens, by the way, make an excellent venue, much nicer than the waterfront lawns of last year. It was possible to create the intimacy of a theatre as well offering the freshness of the open air. What better way to spend one of Perth’s lovely, balmy, summer evenings?
Rating: 4 1/2 out of 5 stars
Evan Sherman Big Band With Special Guests Daniel Susnjar Afro-Peruvian Jazz Group
USA
Sat 25–Sun 26 Feb 2017
PIAF 2017
