Last night I went to A Quotidian Secret curated by Mica Levi for Spitalfields Festival. All we knew was this:
“It’s a secret, but we will say that this evening is based in an everyday setting with the aim of being anything but an everyday experience. Tonight’s intimate programme explores the work of a UK composer whose music is described as minimal, absurd, selfmocking and typically British! In the most (and least) unusual of settings, there will be performances from cellist Oliver Coates and inter-disciplinary artist Mikhail Karikis. Everything else remains undisclosed until the night. This event takes place in a secret location which will only be disclosed after a series of clues have been revealed.”
I didn’t receive any clues, but a few days in advance we were given our rendezvous of “Whitechapel Idea Store” (Idea Store is East London speak for Public Library) where we were left bewildered, clutching an A4 envelope containing a hybrid between programme note and spreadsheet, and wearing a name badge. With due respect to the ushers, this style of piece probably isn’t in their job description! All the same, I couldn’t help fighting involuntary feelings of scepticism as they led us to the Citizens UK head office.
On arrival my concerns quickly dissipated and I was amused to watch the majority of the audience oblivious they were being served coffee by Mica Levi, and contemplate as to whether the marker penned comments on the bottom of our mugs (team player, incentive, chief exec) were part of the performance or part of the furniture?
Oliver Coates, didn’t disappoint. I was eager to hear him perform Laurence Crane’s Three Pieces for Solo Cello having heard him perform it a few weeks earlier in the Old Vic Tunnels. His grey suited office attire reinforced the quiet vulnerability of his performance as we gazed from our padded wheeled chairs. This was exactly as described on the tin “the extraordinary in the everyday” It couldn’t have been more different from his Tunnels performance, where 500 people were wandering around noisily, beer in hand in the echoing abandoned railway tunnel. I had been impressed at Coates’ stoic performance under these circumstances, and watched in wonder again last night as he seemed unphased that we were just centimetres from his bow.
For me the highlight was Crane’s Raimondas Rumsas, reminiscent of a British version of Arvo Part, this was five minutes of calm requiring a BACH.borgen bow, which enables the performer to sustain all 4 strings of the instrument at once. Beautiful.
Having been ushered back into the office meeting room we were then treated to an engaging site-specific piece, Highflyer by Karikis. Whether or not my enjoyment of his caricature creation was influenced in part by my having watched this week’s The Apprentice before I left home, it was wonderful to witness an artist so close to the audience in this intimate setting. As he pulled out his shirtsleeves to create wings, jumped onto the conference table and tried to convince himself he could fly in the spectacular finale, I was delighted to enjoy one of those typically unpredictable moments in site-specific performance: where our mugs started flying off the table and into our laps (all thankfully avoided spillages and injury!)
The dichotomy between Coates’ restrained everyman and Karikis ‘ conceited careerist was a brilliant statement on the breadth of characters in the office environment. This is the kind of evening I want to see more of! But next time, please just cut the drama and give us the postcode. We’ll find the venue ourselves…
urbancanyons 