nd his problem family @ Poetry takes on Broadway
Sophie (Rebecea
the closing duet. Anne Evans
haa clearly chosen to retire
atthe peak of her powers,
Since her voice, with its cool,
silvery tone, sounds much as
| itdia 30 years ago. When it
| was over, Mackerras, whose
conducting captured
something of the resigned
sadness of the occasion, led
| her baek to the platform
fora standing ovation.
Before the interval,
Mackerras gave us the
Symphonic Fragment from
Siratse's Die Liebe der Danae
exquisitely shaped, though
the BBCSO’ dry-ish sound
| il suits this music— before
aking way fora performance
fn den Baum Daphne,
tonduicted by Stephen
Cleabry. One of Strauss’
tars aray’s ints accom:
Jyitten in4943 a5 a pendant
to Daphne and reworks
thematie material from the
operas closing pages.
vocal writing, covering
| extremes of range, is
murderou
Tdeally, it also needs a
larger choir than the com
bined forces of the BBC
Singers and the Choristers of
| Kings College Cambridge
| who sang it with aplomb
| rather than ease, while
much of the detail was
blurred by the unflattering
Jacqui
Dankworth
Guiting Power festival
FAKE
Singer Jacqui Dankworth has
just made the best album of
her career (As the Sun Shines
Down on Me, for jazz label
Candid), and surrounded
herself with premier-league
iazz improvisers in her
brother Alec on bass, Mike
Outram on guitar and Roy
Dodds on drums.
The album's tracks domin.
ated the last night of this fes-
tival in the village of Guiting
Power, near Cheltenham.
But Dankworth also stepped
outside its predominantly
fragile and occasional
playful Latin party musi.
Her range often echoes that
of her mother Cleo Laine in
its stretch from airy high
sounds to a reverberating
low purr. But ifthe singer
found her strength in the
upper atmosphere to be
‘occasionally faltering in
the first half, her rich tonal
palette, some very distinctive
new angles on familiar jazz
songs and the buoyancy of
the players' variations gave
the show a momentum that
swept the tremors aside.
Alec, one of the best jazz-bass
exponents, fired off a sueces-
sion of urgent solos that were
all resoundingly different.
‘Outram is a young jazz
guitarist with world-class
credentials, and his sympa.
support for the band
ler was a centrepiece of
the performance
‘Outram indicated the
chapter-like development of
his improvisations on a
softly padding September in
‘the Rain, The guitarist and
reworked Blue
Moon as g, with
Dankworth spinning
spookily up from a distant
low thunder to a fading
falsetto. Soul-phrasing lent
poignancy to a heartfelt Not
Like This, and a similarly
low-key duet with Outram on
the second half’s Ina Senti
pod was exquisite.
guitar-vocals duet that
caught the song's ecstatic
essence, anda Ben Okri
poem furnished some of the
best lyri of the night.
Drummer Dodds uncoiled
a quirkily soft-sounding
Latin-drums break on
This Can't Be Love, and an
encore on Bob Dylan's I
Threw It All Away stirred
some of the singer's most
subtly dramatic manipula:
tions ofa lyric, and the most
elegantly melodic of solos
from Outram.
John Fordham
|Escapade _
South Bank Centre, London_
eke
‘Anear kiss: the eyes look, but
the lips don't touch. This
exact moment of aching
suspense, astaple of many
Bollywood films, drives the
drama of Escapade, an open-
air extravaganza. Produced
by south Asian dance organi:
sation Akademi, conceived
| by its director Mira Kaushik
| and directed by Keith Khan,
Escapade involves 10 choreo-
graphers and more than 100
performers from a diverse
range of professional,
‘community and education
‘groups. It deliriously
captures the spark of a
London-based, Asian-
influenced cultural vibrancy.
Escapade opens not
with an archetypal pair of
romantic leads, but with 12
couples, of both genders,
each enacting their own
scenario of desire, rebuttal
or coneiliation. But, as in the
Dest musical films, the
narrative is simply a pretext
for the numbers, and the
drama blossoms into
spectacle. Dressed in neon
colours, wigged, jewelled,
booted and slippered,
performers take over the
concrete walkways as loud.
speakers blare a heady mix of
Hindi film songs, R&B, rock
and club beats above the
throng of spectators. Line-
dancing Bollywood babes
flash seductive glances from
a balcony, while a posse of
punk women get down to an
urban vibe in the underpass
below. Leggy ballet types flail
their extendible limbs, school
kids act out film-star fantasies,
skateboarders surf the
| ramps, and an open-topped
red bus laden with “Indian
tourists” chugs into the fray.
The action culminates at
the back of the building, the
wall becominga giant screen
showing two lovers about to
kiss. They are censored by’
jump-cut to an Indian family,
whose lightly comic struggles
for control ofthe video
remote send the projection.
into dizzying rewinds, play-
backs and channel-hops.
Meanwhile, the live
performers spill out onto
balconies and podiums:
Indian Chau dancers are
kitted in bandanas and low-
slung shorts and the aston
ishing Anand Kumar rolls up
fora rivetting mix of film
Kathak
tips is: do the lovers finally
get to kiss? After countless
near-misses, they do, igniting
exuberant bopping as
fireworks explode
triumphantly from the roof,
‘Sanjoy Roy