Acrobats from Africa
On Wednesday, I had the pleasure of attending the Kalabanté
Productions: Afrique En Cirque performance at the Aviva
Studios, Factory International venue bordering Manchester to the northwest,
courtesy of tickets from George House Trust.
This troupe from Guinea in West Africa brought to
life the typical everyday life in West Africa, even though they represented
themselves more as ambassadors of Africa than from a specific region.
The performance was full of African percussion and the
versatility of the kora,
a 21-stringed instrument common to West Africa, beyond which were dances and
lots of acrobatics. Amongst the performers were two contortionists with
freakish abilities that just astounded us with awe.
For me, it was a lovely, entertaining night; the innate
African in me could not sit still as the percussion beats resonated, so you
just had to move or rock in rhythm in your seat.
Arriving on African time
With everything African, certain African traits were presented with a surprising coincidence of our row of 16 seats in a section
being populated by people seemingly of African origin.
However, my pique was with certain on my row who
arrived over 30 minutes after the performance started, meaning we had to get up
for them to get to their seats. The seat beside me was vacant for about
an hour before the lady arrived, and the performance had hardly ended before she
was the first to literally push her way through to leave. She probably should
have just stayed home.
I do have my concerns about concert etiquette, though.
I would attend a performance for the experience, in the moment. I might at times
take notes, but I rarely do, except when I am attending for the second time, if
the opportunity comes up.
The disruption of mobile phones
It has become the bane of live attendance to see many
holding up their phones and recording the performance, obviously to relay to
others that they were there, but I feel the quality of the experience is
diminished by the distraction or concentration on their phones to ensure they get
the somewhat essential elements of the performance.
The amateur recording of a performance would never
meet the professional standards of a licensed recording of a performance with
cameras at strategic locations and all the elements of zooming in on certain
sections of the stage to highlight critical must-see actions.
Besides, in a dark theatre, the light or glare of the
mobile phone recording events is both a distraction and an irritation to other members
of the audience. Some concerts literally look like candlelight vigils, all
phones aglow and in the line of sight of those behind trying to catch what is
going on.
Come for the experience
In my view, this should be banned, you either have
come for a live performance or you want to watch it on television at home. If
indeed you need to encourage others to see the show, your word of mouth about
the experience should suffice. If snippets of the show are necessary, the
production company would probably have a professionally curated trailer of
their performance to highlight what to expect; it is unlikely you can do better
than them.
It might serve a purpose for you, and the best is to
seek a photo opportunity with the performers after the show; that would be
more unique and special than a bootlegged sneaky recording of a performance, whilst being an irritation to others. Thank you.
