Bird's Eye View

Here is my blog about the bird’s eye view film-score night. Check out my music too if you have time.

As part of the Birds Eye View Film Festival 2011, in collaboration with ‘WOW; Women of the World’- a groundbreaking new festival celebrating the formidable strength and inventiveness of women- four specially commissioned live scores by cutting-edge female musicians were premiered alongside seminal silent films by women inaugurating gothic, horror and surrealist cinema, for an evening of resounding empowerment, artistic innovation and breathtaking cinematic and musical masterpieces.
The first half opened with animation pioneer Reiniger’s starkly silhouetted ‘Hansel and Gretel’, with a score by experimental pop sensation Micachu, whose presence on stage was impressive in its humility. While the music was not necessarily aesthetically pleasing, the symbolism and representational qualities screamed austerity and repressed emotion well suited to the piece of cinema it was composed for.
Maya Deren’s beautifully poetic ‘Meshes of the Afternoon’ followed, accompanied by multi-instrumentalist and haunting vocalist Seaming. Her stage presence was the antithesis of Micachu’s, which only served to heighten Seaming’s elegance and grace, and complemented perfectly the ornate and peaceful ethereal stillness of her work. This was subsequently shattered, albeit fittingly, through a gradual build up of electronic textures, culminating in a powerful scream amid an array of contemporary vocal techniques which intensified the distressing poignancy of the piece.
Tara Busch then presented a forcefully distinctive yet otherworldly spellbinding score to accompany Lois Weber’s 1913 film ‘Suspense’. Her presence on stage was entrancing, and her combination of richly driven vocal textures and electronic trance aptly juxtaposed the antiquity of the film.
The evening’s piece de resistance, however, was Imogen Heap’s acapella score performed alongside the world-renowned Holst Singers to Dulac’s captivatingly macabre exploration of violence and erotica in ‘The Seashell and the Clergyman’. The Grammy Award winning composer’s combined use of spine-chilling harmonies, glissandi, rhythmic vocal techniques and bodily percussion created an enthralling performance which perfectly synthesized with the image on the screen. Each and every consonant, vowel, and contemporary vocal technique had been assiduously used to great effect, producing a composition that not only evoked echoes of the fantastic and surreal, but did so in a way that realized the illustrious standing of what is considered to be the first surrealist film.
The notion of amalgamating the fresh and revolutionary with the somewhat archaic and mature resonated throughout each work, creating an inspirational sensation suggestive of women’s potential and triumphant of their success.

What a fantastic night put on by Rachel Millward at the Southbank Centre on Friday. It was a brilliant and inspiring idea to have amazingly talent, eclectic women put together to create an evening of musical and film talent. My favorite artist Imogen Heap took my breath away and the other Artists have gained much appreciation by myself. It is a lovely thing to celebrate women in the arts…thumbs up from me!