IN CONVERSATION WITH SOLANGE DIAS - Published The London Miscellany

Q: You’re from a slightly younger generation than Lula, growing up in Brazil at a time when Lambada had already won its struggle for acceptance under the eyes of the Catholic Church. Were you familiar at all with the name ‘The Forbidden Dance?’

A: People still called it ‘The Forbidden Dance’ although I never knew where the term came from. When I was growing up every-one loved it.

Q: Am I right in saying that you began dancing and competing when you were just fourteen?

A: My brother Berg trained me for a competition when I was fourteen, fifteen maybe. At first I didn’t want to do it. I enjoyed the dancing but I didn’t want to be tied to it. I was, you know, a teenager, a bit of a hippy, I went through my phases. But then I became addicted to the dance.

Q: How was Lambada danced back then, at the height of its popularity?

A: Lots of energy and acrobatics. Really flashy. Cheesy sometimes, but not always. That’s the kind of image people are trying to move away from now. Today the dance is concentrated more on sensuality, and it’s lighter, more subtle.

Q: What’s your opinion on the extent to which Lambada has developed since it began being danced to Zouk, as opposed to Lambada music? Do you think the change warrants dropping the name ‘Lambada’ entirely for Zouk/Lambada, or simply Zouk?

A: Both Berg and I believe there is still the dance Lambada, and it should still be called Lambada – the dance has simply developed. Zouk is another dance completely, from French and Caribbean roots. In fact they had a meeting at our last Congress, some arguing for Lambada, some for Zouk, and Zouk/Lambada was a compromise. In Brazil, there are people who hate the name Lambada – it’s not fashionable anymore, people think it’s a dance of the 80s and 90s and it puts people off learning. But if you look at the performers of what is now being called ‘Zouk’ in Brazil they’re all the old Lambada dancers!

Q: The way in which individuals like Berg and yourself approach the dance has been enormously influential on how Lambada is perceived and performed in the UK. Being as the Lambada teaching community is relatively small, is it possible to trace the influence of different teachers in the style of Lambada being developed in this country?

A: Yes, it’s amazing! People take up the individual styles of their dance teachers. You can especially notice this in London. Some people will dance with Marisa’s style, for example, or with mine, or with Lula’s. Some people are a mixture. Others will decide they’re in love with one teacher’s style and they’ll simply stick with that.

Q: Have you found it difficult teaching such a sensual, expressive dance to us British, notorious for our reserve?

A: (Laughing) It’s sometimes not easy for British people, but I give my blood and soul to teaching. I don’t care about age, weight - if people really want to dance I’m there to show my passion. And actually it’s hard for anyone, British or not. There’s a lot of technicality involved. After about three years of really hard work you can then express your sensuality through the dance. But you can’t push people too far. I’ve got a dancing couple at the moment who are really good but they’re too insecure to dance in the shows or competitions. I think they’ve been watching Berg and me and thinking ‘I’m not as good at that, they’ll laugh me off the stage.’ Of course I know that’s not true but you can’t persuade some people.
What I really want is for my advanced students to start teaching. That’s what we need to promote Lambada in the UK: teachers. Four have come out of my classes already. Gary was a student of ours, and now he and Marisa are doing wonders for promoting the dance – they’ve got so much energy. I couldn’t do without Gary and Marisa, they’re like my right arm.

Q: As family, you and Berg have been dancing together all your lives. Do you think people’s choice of partner should be a personal one? It must be tempting as a teacher to bring your best pupils together.

A: Sometimes I’ve brought my best pupils together, but not often. It’s very important to find your right partner. There has to be exactly the right chemistry. And romance can happen. Lambada is such a social thing, except better, because it’s without the drinking. Maybe a glass of wine, two, but then you just want to dance, dance, dance. You’ll see people will come to the club and hardly speak a word, they’ll just dance for three hours, no stopping. When you see the foundation of the dance, it’s beautiful. And you get addicted to it. It’s like a good addiction.

Q: Perhaps the relationship is with the dance then, as much as with your partner?

A: Definitely. It’s the connection between you and the dance. Lambada makes people transparent. I mean that you can see who people are - whether they’re shy, frustrated, insecure, or very happy. There are not many ways to express yourself in this world, and dance is one of them. I feel amazing when I dance; Lambada makes you feel amazing. It gives you free expression.

LAMBADA, THE FORBIDDEN DANCE? Published The London Miscellany

Lambada is a Latin dance whose sensual movements and celebration of vitality has been historically contentious, and which today continues to provoke accusation and misconception. Although opinion varies as to when Lambada first came into being, some place its origins as far back as the nineteen-fifties in Brazil, where it was widely condemned by the Catholic authorities and danced with blasphemous vigour in the parades of the Bahian Carnival. Today the dance is shaking off its turbulent history, and working to re-affirm itself as an artform that allows for the vivid expression of individual sensuality. In this feature we hear from Lula, one of the first teachers and performers to bring the dance to the international scene in the early nineties, as he depicts the history of the dance and the subsequent emergence of Lambada/Zouk in the last decade. While Lula turns back to the dance’s heady past, Solange Dias, one of the most prominent dancers and promoters of Lambada in this country and sister of Berg Dias, gives us her angle on the way in which Lambada is ridding itself of an unfairly sleazy reputation, invoked by the commercial hype that surrounded the dance during its hey day in the late eighties and early nineties. Solange tells us of Lambada’s return to its essence, in an effort by the Lambada community today to re-channel its focus once more on the intimate relationship between the dancer and the dance.

Lambada has its origins in the Carimba, a Brazilian dance taking influence from the neighbouring Caribbean and dating back to Brazil’s history as a Portuguese colony. The name ‘Lambada’ refers to the wave-like motion induced in a whip, and is said to allude to the flowing motion of the dancers’ bodies, a crucial feature distinguishing Lambada from other Latin two/four-beat dances such as the Salsa. As a close, sensual partner dance, often characterised by a soft fluidity of style and the use of the whole body, not just the legs, Lambada plays strongly upon the masculinity of the male partner, and of course the femininity of the woman. While all traditional partner dances are male lead, Lambada can give a greater sense of the woman abandoning control to her partner, as there is an emphasis on looseness in the body, characterised most strongly by the rolling motion of the woman’s upper body, especially her neck and head. While the dance was once performed to Lambada music, in the last decade dancers have begun using the French-Caribbean Zouk musical style. Its often been said that Lambada can induce a trance-like feeling in its dancers, due to the emphasis on spinning and rolling movements, and its telling that the dance is now making use of a musical style with its roots in the music of Haiti.

Marisa, of the Lambadmecrazy teaching team, appreciates the fertile ground from which the dance has sprung, enriched by the influences of Haitian Compas, as well as Vodou music. She believes the powerful partner dynamic in Lambada, with its demands and ultimate rewards, is crucial to the psyche of the dance.

‘At first its very difficult for the woman to give control to the man. Some women find it a bit restrictive and like to break away from their partner from time to time for a bit of freestyle apart. That’s the beauty of the dance for the women though, at moments you can be completely controlled by the man and just let yourself surrender to him and at other times you’re apart and can be free to experiment with your moves, as long as you keep contact with your partner through eye connection.’

Watching Lambada as an outsider, it’s all too easy to presume that desire must play a role in such an intimate, consuming dance. After all, this has been the historical assumption, from the dance’s inception amidst condemnations by the Catholic authorities, to the accusations by some that Lambada in the late eighties and early nineties was too racy and sensationalist (more on this from Solange). Marisa admits freely that many of the dance couples she teaches now are in relationships as a result of their love for Lambada; she herself met her co-teacher and partner Gary through their joint passion for the dance. However, it’s important not to forget the dancer’s highly individual and instinctive relationship to the dance. Claudia, who runs the Amsterdam school Brasazouk, describes Lambada as her ‘second nature’, seeing the dance above all as a vehicle for personal expression. Solange and Berg Diaz, as siblings that have grown up together as a dance couple, are a reminder of the subtly in the relationship between partners, a connection deeply misunderstood when viewed in the context of a sophisticated ‘pulling tactic’. When I mention this assumption, Solange shrugs, with a subdued smile, ‘Yes, people think Berg and I being partners is strange at first’, she pauses, ‘but then they see us dance.’

Where is Lambada heading? It seems the dance will always raise temperatures - today the debate is around the development of Zouk/Lambada, and the controversial argument that the original dance has been altered so extensively since the introduction of Zouk music that the name ‘Lambada’ itself is now redundant. Perhaps, however, the resolution of the dispute around naming is less important than the interest stirred up by the debate and new incarnations of the dance, notable forms of which are being called Zouk/Lambada, Lamba-Zouk, or simply Zouk. Dance capitals around the world are developing their own distinctive styles, prompting the question as to whether the top dancers in Madrid, New York or Tokyo need make the pilgrimage to the origins of the dance on the streets of Brazil. Claudia, of Brasazouk, believes no such journey to the ‘home-land’ is necessary: ‘There are Brazilian dancers all over (the world) carrying the spirit of the dance with them’, she says. The diversification we’re witnessing today, with different forms and styles embraced worldwide, reveals the soul and vital force behind Lambada as a dance celebrating the individual, and encouraging the vigorous expression of personal sensuality. Such an artform will necessarily prompt controversy, equally it will always draw new converts to its boldness and capacity to invigorate.

Lambada is such a beautiful and free dance, which is constantly evolving and developing with time. – Marisa of the Lambadamecrazy Team, London.

I can only think of Lambada in a wonderful and positive way, since I only see the dance grow and grow – Claudia of Brasazouk, Amsterdam.

LEMN SISSAY, TRANSONIC CHOIRS - Published The London Magazine Aug / Sept 08

On Lemn Sissay’s new collection, ‘Listener’

Before we get to know each other / And sing for tomorrow / And unearth yesterday / So that we can prepare our joint grave / You should know that I have no family, / Neither disowned nor distanced – none… /…I am the guilty secret of an innocent woman / And a dead man – tell your parents, they’ll want to know.

‘Before We Get Into This’ – Listener

Meeting Lemn Sissay for an interview on his new collection ‘Listener’ I can’t help but have this particular poem from the work ringing in my ears. The incredible story of Lemn’s childhood in a foster home and then in care, and his subsequent search for his family during his adult life, has played a crucial role in how Lemn Sissay is viewed by the public and literati. Mid-way through his career the BBC brought Lemn’s journey to find his family into our homes, with the 1995 documentary ‘Internal Flight’. In 2006 Lemn began touring with a one-man show based around the story of his life ‘Something Dark’– available in book form since last March. Sissay’s life as a poet, playwright and vocal literary figure has run parallel to his struggle to discover his family and roots. He now has, in his own words, ‘a dysfunctional family, like every-one else’. It’s been twenty years since Lemn published his first poetry collection at the age of twenty-one – ‘Listener’ is his fifth. In the intervening decades he has become a profoundly influential voice for poetry, manifesting his vision of poetry as ‘everyday’ through his work in public art. This year, Lemn was appointed South Bank’s Resident Artist and as I walk along the Thames to the Riverside Rooms, I wonder how to approach this remarkable figure and his latest body of work. In terms of dealing with ‘Listener’, do we need to know Sissay’s story ‘before we get into this?’

Lemn Sissay is the child of an Ethiopian mother and an Eritrean father. When his mother came to study in Britain, she sought to have Lemn fostered for a short time, unaware that the foster family had been told it was a permanent adoption. Lemn had no knowledge of his biological mother, or that she had made attempts to reach him, until he was eighteen years old. I meet Lemn at his desk, surrounded with mottos and proverbs scribbled in enthusiastic biro - ‘It aint where you go but where you’re at’ and ‘Nothing is written in stone unless you are one’ jostle for space with projects plans, maps, and notes from fellow writers and collaborators. It strikes me that this man, with so many visions for the future, seems happy for his past to be part of the public arena. Does he believe in upholding this connection between his art and life? Lemn pauses at the question, then fixes me with bright, impassioned eyes.

People read my work and they’re always trying to peg me down: am I about race? Do I just want to be well known? I put ‘Something Dark’ out there to say ‘This is my story’. None of that other stuff matters. What matters is this story that I’ve had to drag like a dead body through my life since I was eighteen. It’s a story I’ve been wanting to tell. People might watch or read about my life and wonder what work comes out of that. But is it a bad thing, if I’m not dependant on it? It’s already in the poetry, if people look.

Whether or not we choose to map the facts of Sissay’s life story onto ‘Listener’, it is Lemn’s lasting attitude towards poetry as performing the function of both family and friend that truly is given voice in ‘Listener’. There’s an intense longing for intimate encounter with the reader - or ‘listener’ - that resounds throughout the collection. Take the title poem, commissioned for the eightieth birthday of the World Service. The lilting lines speak to us off the page:

Radio waves like flocks of swallows or the flamingos of / Lake Tana / That seem to fly out from the reflecting solar wind / Land upon both of us with feather-wing ease / Bringing my world to yours and your world to mine…. / … Tuning in through the hissing noise / To you tuning in to me.

The poem’s introduction frames this piece as the imagined meeting of Lemn and his mother, a call across the void from Britain to Ethiopia. However, this faith in poetry’s potential to unite can, be just as keenly felt in the relationship between the author and ourselves. In ‘Receiver’ we find this same conviction in poetry’s ability to connect, ‘Emotions in transit transmigrate / Story transmutes and what transpires / Are transfinite transonic choirs.’ ‘Receiver’ at times seems constructed to trip us up, pointing to the impossibility of a story’s smooth, unadulterated passage from ear to ear, yet Sissay ends the poem with this jubilant image of transcendent creative expression.


Though ‘Listener’ is visionary in scope, its sagacity most often comes to the fore dressed in the simplest language. The image Lemn has often used to describe his work, is that of poems as ‘flag posts in the mountainside, showing the view you see at any given point in the journey’; for the poet this alludes to charting his progress. Tellingly, the image also suggests the act of guiding others. There are poems in the collection that function as signposts to life – ‘Inspiration’ and ‘Applecart Art’ evoke the repetitious form of the mantra, compelling the reader to look inwards, and in the case of ‘Applecart Art’ to reject the inflated superficiality of art ‘scenes’. One of the most striking of these pieces is ‘Moving Target’, a battle cry against society’s ‘unwritten laws’ - ‘Do not engage with them. / They will devour you. / Do not wear them or grow with them. / Do not challenge them or walk in them, / Do not counter them.’ Lemn lights up when I mention the piece. ‘Yeah!’ He lets out a joyous holler.

Don’t engage with them! Society wants you to be binary. You can’t fight the system by being a rebel. You’re just at the shore waiting for the boat to sell you down the river…’ He sits back in his chair, suddenly reflective after this outburst. ‘It’s about not losing your voice. It’s like I don’t try to reach out to my readers, though it might seem like that. I’m in contact with myself, and constantly involved in expression. Therefore it touches people. I hope. If I wasn’t concerned with being in touch with other people I would lose my own voice.

We can read in ‘Listener’ the product of a career that has remained uncompromising in the face of the anxiety of influence. In his early career Lemn was one of the only Black British poets working in Britain. Gigging with a group including Benjamin Zephaniah, Grace Nichols and Linton Kwesi Johnson, it was often taken for granted that Lemn too was a Caribbean poet. He has since been trumpeted as a Mancunian poet (his birth-place and home until he moved to London two years ago), an African poet, or simply a ‘Black’ poet, to mention a few labels from which he has struggled to keep his distance. ‘When I was just starting up, Grace Nichols signed her book to me, “Keep on keeping on”. I’ve just tried to be me and a bit more of that.’ There’s a triumphant, even a defiant streak in ‘Listener’’s complex portrayal of the interaction between identity and race. The poetry’s approach to African identity differs radically in tone. Moving from ‘The Battle of Adwa, 1896’, a piece that glorifies the spirit of brotherhood in the Ethiopian fight for independence, to the depiction in ‘Molasses and Long Shadows’’ of a post-independence Africa beleaguered by systemic betrayal, where ‘The families who sowed this rotting crop / Reap its benefits today and, no wonder, forgot.’ It’s telling, then, that the last creative piece in the collection is a call to rise above the constraints of national identity. The play ‘Queen’s Speech’, originally commissioned for the BBC, imagines a bold dialogue between Her Majesty and three immigrants, one of whom, Rabbi Hattenstone’, ends the piece with a utopian call to open our borders to all peoples.

Sissay’s work has been noted for its diverse readership and its ability to attract those coming to poetry for the first time. Lemn believes ‘Listener’ will be no exception. ‘I’m available to people who want to explore poetry as a normal thing.’ Speaking these words, Lemn’s eyes have the glint of the revolutionary. ‘Poetry is for the people. Think of all the people who believe books are exclusive and as soon as they start reading they can’t stop.’ One of the greatest joys in reading ‘Listener’ is the frequency with which we recognize ourselves in the poetry. ‘Lost Key’ is one such poem where we identify with the searcher, becoming increasingly irritated with our well-meaning companion, ‘Have you checked the back of the sofa? Underneath it? / Could it be in your pockets?’ Addressing our frustration, a voice begins to asserts itself with an astute eye that’s almost menacing in its clarity, ‘Funny how when you’re looking you find everything else / Except. Don’t start blaming people. Before you know it / You’ll accuse everyone that is nearest to you’. We can all relate to such a surge of irrational bitterness, and the banal scenario of losing a key at once becomes a site for profound self-questioning. It is the expert use of the ordinary scenario to extraordinary effect that has given much of Lemn’s public poetry landmark status. Three poems in the this new collection- ‘Rain’, ‘Catching Numbers’ and ‘Gilt of Cain’- are also works of public art, and for Lemn its crucial that people identify with the poetry. ‘I like public art because it's about people owning it. There are hundreds of statues in London, but only a few that people recognize as pieces they just want to be near to. You can’t make a landmark, people have to decide it is.’

Should a reader of ‘Listener’ be aware of the incredible life that has produced this work? Do we need to know the life of these poems as they exist outside the page? It would seem that the answer is no, on both accounts. ‘Listener’ is a deeply affecting collection, with an incisive wisdom that carries the boldness of its vision. It will remain so whether you know of the significance of the search for Lemn’s mother in the title poem, or not. Likewise one doesn't necessarily need to know that it is Lemn himself, confronting presumptions as to his sense of identity, in the role of Rabbi Hattenstone in ‘Queen’s Speech’. ‘Listener’ is the creation of a man who has spent most of his adult life searching for a familial connection, and who has found it – in part – in poetry, and its potential to connect.
What we take from it is the impression of a potent body of work which begs to be shouted in the street, whispered over the radio and scrawled on the walls. Equally, we can read Listener in a quiet room, and there establish an intimate connection with this profoundly personal and politically significant collection.

- Lemn Sissay’s ‘Listener’ is due for release on October 16th
- The public artwork ‘Gilt of Cain’ will be unveiled in the City of London on September 4th
- For more news on Lemn Sissay, including dates for his Winter tour, visit his blog www.lemnsissay.com

FILM REVIEW, PUFFBALL - Published Deathray Magazine September 08

Release Date: 18 July 2008
Cert: 18
Running time: 120 mins
Director: Nicolas Roeg
Writers: Dan Weldon (written by)
Fay Weldon (novel)
Starring: Kelly Reilly, Rita Tushingham, Miranda Richardson, Oscar Pearce, William Houston.
Rating: 4/10

Strapline: This sluggish tale of domestic witchery in a backward Ireland will confuse Roeg fans and initiates alike. (Worth it for the inside-the-cervix shot of male orgasm.)

It would have been satisfying if what must surely be Roeg’s farewell film – he hit eighty this year – had seen a return to his iconic hay-day. ‘Puffball’ seemed to promise such a re-birth, harking back to 70s masterpieces ‘Don’t Look Now’ and ‘Walkabout’ in its depiction of a couple’s strained relations in elusive, hostile territory – this time Irish cattle-rearing country. But what could have been an expressive take on the Celtic landscape, with its primordial ties to motherhood, fertility and black craft, turns out to be a kitchen-sink drama about a meddlesome family with a few black spells tucked away in the jam cupboard.

When architect Liffey (Kelly Reilly) and her partner Richard (Oscar Pearce) decide to renovate an old cottage in an Irish backwater they find something far more treacherous than dry rot in the foundations. (Thinking little red dwarf?) Coming to terms with an un-planned pregnancy, Liffey soon finds herself fighting off the prying interest of the pathologically maternal family next-door. Witchery is afoot as the Tucker family, presided over by the aged Molly (Rita Tushingham) attempt to use Liffey’s fertile womb to “re-birth” a little boy they lost when their hexed cottage went up in flames years ago. (Thinking drowned daughter?) While the supernatural powers unleashed are cursorily attributed to the Nordic God Oden, the real catalyst proves to be Molly’s witch-brew aphrodisiac, prompting the man of the house (William Houston plays the swarthy Tucker) to give Liffey a ‘bewitched’ barnyard banging.

‘Puffball’ is an adaptation of a Fay Weldon novel, and its insistence on conforming to the book’s realism is misguided - especially as the Tucker sorcery is uninspired, leaving us playing ‘spot the symbol’ with fires, phalluses and voodoo corn-dolls. The film’s saving grace is the turgid atmosphere that swells alongside Liffey’s womb. It takes a little while, but Roeg’s trademark flashbacks and disjunctive, twitchy camera-work (along with some creatively captured intra-sound) do finally manage to ratchet up the nausea. And this is disturbingly coupled with the film’s feverish horniness as Liffey, Richard and Mr. Tucker become ensnared in a potion-induced sex triangle.

Does the heady atmosphere built towards a redeeming climax? We may recall that a puffball is a mushroom that grows its spores on the inside to eventually – dramatically - burst open. Sadly there is no such explosive zenith to ‘Puffball’ the film. Roeg’s last stab at past grandeur will be remembered for its consistent mediocrity.

Quote: “Every child will say, ‘Mummy, why am I here?’ Well, God knows why we are but one thing is certain, it’s to procreate.” - Nicolas Roeg shows his advanced age hasn’t altered his sense of purpose.

FILM REVIEW, MAD DETECTIVE - Published Deathray Magazine September 08

Title: Mad Detective
UK Release Date: 18 July 2008
Cert: 15
Running time: 89 mins
Directors: Johnny To and Wai Ka-Fai
Writers: Wai Ka-Fai and Kin Yee Au
Starring: Lau Ching Wan, Andy On, Kelly Lin
Rating: 8

Strapline: A maniacal detective claims the power to see people’s “inner personalities” in this outrageous, genre-smashing crime flick from Hong Kong giants Johnnie To and Wai Ka-Fai

Inspector Bun’s first actions on screen are to do battle with a hanging pig corpse, then blithely demand a fellow police officer to zip him up in a suitcase and kick him down a flight of stairs. He emerges from the suitcase, zombie-like, brushes himself down and stares at the camera with sombre, puffy-eyed aggression. Hey presto: The Mad Detective. In the first ten minutes directors Johnny To and Wai Ka-Fai seem to have shown us their full hand. But not to be fooled. Posing as a decadent splurge of absurdist violence, ‘Mad Detective’ reveals itself as a disturbingly complex and challenging piece – as appealing to art house circles as to those of us seeking thrills and spills.

Lau Ching Wan is darkly mesmeric as Bun, whose unorthodox crime-solving technique is based on his ability to see people’s “inner selves”. Booted out of the force for giving the chief of police a freakish retirement gift – think Van Gogh and cringe - Bun is plunged into a reclusive depression. But when a missing police gun is linked to a series of heists and murders, fresh-faced Inspector Ho (Andy On) is eager to enlist the super-sensory powers of his old mentor. The focus of the case inevitably turns on Bun’s own psyche, as Ho uncovers the mystifying relationship between Bun and his wife (Taiwanese actress and model Kelly Lin) along with the detective’s penchant for burying himself alive.

Inspector Bun’s “special gift” is an open invitation for Johnnie To and Wai Ka-Fai to wreak serious havoc on the HK crime genre, as suspects and colleagues shift from their “real” self into their “inner” personalities, manifested in characters like the greasy-lipped Fatso or The Boy. Fans of To’s earlier work may mourn the loss of solid, fast-paced action in ‘Mad Detective’’s unrelenting cinematic trickery. Still, some astounding set pieces arise, not least in the stunning denouement, where Bun and Ho stalk the villain’s motley crew of seven “inner personalities” through a psychopathic smoke-and-mirrors landscape.
It is Lau Ching Wan’s Herculean performance as Bun that makes genius out of what could easily have been a flamboyant mess. With an offbeat irony swiftly becoming a trademark of To and Ka-Fai collaborations, his character brilliantly skewers the heart of the macho crime-genre protagonist. Along with sidekick Inspector Ho, we follow Bun’s crazy antics, we doubt, we hope - and are finally won over, to crack a wild-eyed grin as the credits roll…

Fact: Inspector Bun calls the paranormal phenomena "gwai", translated in the English version as “inner personalities”. The Cantonese word in fact has a meaning closer to “ghosts” and Bun later explains that he literally sees these visions as "the devil inside".

ART INTO REALITY - THE LONDON MAGAZINE TALKS TO FOUR WOMEN ARAB ARTISTS - Published The London Magazine June/July 08

ART INTO REALITY - THE LONDON MAGAZINE TALKS TO FOUR WOMEN ARAB ARTISTS - Published The London Magazine June/July 08

Sitting in her gallery, her hands crossed in front of her, Maysaloun seems excitable, even a little anxious. She belongs to a burgeoning Arab art scene in London; a group of people who are now beginning to feel the momentum of international recognition building behind them. With Faraj’s strong faith in the redemptive power of the arts, there is much at stake in the current surge of interest in the Arab art world. ‘If there is any chance for humanity, it’s in the hands of artists’ she assures me, fixing my gaze with dark, sincere eyes. Having settled in London in 1982, following the escalation of the Iran-Iraq war, Faraj has since been endeavoring to bring together, in her own words, ‘Iraq’s scattered talents in the wind’. With this goal in mind, she founded iNCiA (International Network for Contemporary Iraqi Artists) in 1995, and Aya gallery in 2002, with her husband the architect Ali Mousawi. With the opening of the Dubai branch of Christies in 2005, followed by Sotheby’s less than a year later, the Arab art market has since experienced an unprecedented boom. In this country, The British Museum’s 2006 Word into Art exhibition, featuring Faraj’s work alongside artists from the Modern Middle East including ones she championed in her earlier career, significantly raised the profile of contemporary art from the region. The exhibition later travelled to the DIFC in Dubai, in an obvious gesture of recognition of the Gulf as a new cultural hub.

Although critics have been wary of presenting the surge of interest in Arabic art as a political phenomenon, London-based artists such as Faraj see an opportunity to counteract the reductive presentation of the Islamic world. Faraj’s work Asma Allah al-Husna (The 99 Names of God) is evidence of her belief in art as a profound response to grotesque misrepresentation. This work was provoked by a comment from a gallery visitor, who asked Faraj whether the ninety-nine Names of Allah were linked to 9/11, given her fascination with conspiracy theory. The visitor had even alerted the police! ‘I was shocked,’ Faraj intones. ‘These are the Names of God, beginning with Al-Rahman, Al-Raheem (The Merciful, The Compassionate). Islam is and has always been, peace, harmony and respect for all living things.’ Faraj’s Asma Allah al-Husna makes use of cylinder seals, invented in Mesopotamia in 5000 BC as an early form of print making, in which a mirror image is engraved into a stone or clay cylinder. Faraj has completed fifty so far, and watching her handle the works, one can see the role even a small act of creative labour has to play in keeping alive a culture confronted with destruction. ‘It is not just Iraq’s galleries, museums and libraries that have been bombed to their foundations. It is also the treasures that lay beneath the ground. This is where history began, where man first recorded on clay tablets their deeds and victories. I feel a deep responsibility towards keeping the art of my people alive. Through art, I believe we can find peace.’

Laila Shawa is another powerful voice in the London-based Arabic art scene, and was also a contributor to the Word in Art exhibition. Born in Gaza, Shawa's training has been cosmopolitan – she's earned art degrees in Cairo and Italy, and has also studied under the great Austrian expressionist Oskar Kokaschka. Although October sees Shawa's latest series, Mirage, showing at the DIFC in Dubai, she is more cautious than Faraj of the sudden interest in the Arab art world. Smoking in her apartment, vividly hung with the works of her fellow artists, she leans forward with a half-smile, 'I have never considered myself to be part of a group, you know. Of course, I am Palestinian, but as a person I'm a complex mixture of cultures.' Shawa's sense of personal and artistic integrity has not always won her followers. 'I was accused initially of a lack of shared experience with the Palestinian people. Since my family never left our home in Gaza, I don't have the same memories of dispossession. The Palestinian school of art came to be influenced by the nostalgia and romanticisation that grew out of these experiences of exile, and this was not a form of expression to which I belonged.' Shawa is a member of the Palestinian elite. Christa Paula, who is currently writing a monograph on the artist, is constantly struck by the bravery of the her career, 'Laila has been criticised for her ancestry and 'class' throughout her working life, but has determinately stayed true to her self.'

Like Maysaloun Faraj, Laila Shawa is compelled to express the plight of her country. 'I came back to Gaza during the First Intifada, and felt helpless in the face of what I saw on the streets. I thought long and hard. Finally I decided: leave that reality as it is.' This period saw the development of one of Shawa's distinctive mediums, which merges documentary-style photography with the vivid expressionism of her paintings and silk screens. Given her determination to be first and foremost an artist, above any political or national allegiance, her latest series, Mirage, might be seen as a manifestation of purely aesthetic desires. The works take Shawa's palette to a new adrenalin-high, with traditional Islamic geometric patterns warped into optical illusions in pop pigments. 'In October, people will be drawn initially to the fabulous colour, but the purpose of the series is also to tease the mind…' Shawa gestures around her hallway lined wall to wall with the series that she has displayed for my benefit. Given the surroundings, the movement transforms her into a character in a Disneyland cathedral. Fantasy aside, Mirage is a serious comment on the rapid development of the Gulf. 'What is Dubai?' Shawa asks. 'It's high-tech fashions, Las Vegas, and its also the Islamic world. The city is being pulled in many different directions. Which way is it going to go?'

While Yara El-Sherbini belongs to a younger generation of British Arab artists, like Laila Shawa, El-Sherbini never stops provoking and questioning her audience. What colour is the universe? What colour is the future? What colour is Michael Jackson? These questions come from El-Sherbini’s latest project, Universality Challenge, which took place for the first time the day before our interview. ‘It went so well!’ Yara beams. ‘I had SOAS pitted against a team from the general public, and the ‘normal’ team won by a long, long way. We covered everything, the labour party, teenage pregnancy, Do they drink Um Bongo in the Congo?’ I wait for her to go on. ‘No, I’m asking you seriously. Do they?’ The answer, unfortunately, is being kept under lock and key, in case it gets leaked to new competitors. El-Sherbini has a strong sense of herself as British, and is wary of efforts to read her work by the colour of her skin, or through her faith in Islam. Despite this, she concedes that 9/11 was a major factor in compelling her to explore British popular culture. She winces, ‘I hate that every article has to include that date, but its impact on me is undeniable.’

Even before her graduation from Slade in Fine Art Media, El-Sherbini was experimenting with strategies of how to get audiences and art-goers to think for themselves. ‘We live our life, we do our thing, we read the papers, but we don’t talk about it. When people go to a gallery and look at a painting hung on the wall, they don’t necessarily engage.’ Over the last two years, El-Sherbini has hosted numerous ‘alternative’ pub quizzes, and her particular brand of live art is beginning to infiltrate the great London art institutions, with a Treasure Hunt conducted earlier this month in The Museum of London, and a date set for a ‘pub quiz’, believe it or not, at The National Portrait Gallery on the last weekend of July. These gigs may point to conventional artistic success, but El-Sherbini prefers more informal spaces for her pieces. ‘Working in unexpected formats outside of the gallery space can be more effective because it confronts people within their everyday life.’ In her capacity as a live artist, and one not directly influenced by her Arabic heritage, El-Sherbini’s practice may at first seem incomparable with Laila Shawa’s or Maysaloun Faraj’s. What they share, however, is a strong awareness of identity, and an urge to confront the ingrained assumptions of their viewers/audiences. ‘I might be naive to think I can change the world,’ says El-Sherbini, turning her ever-questioning eye in on herself, ‘but a quote I’ve always loved is: “Change the mind of someone who will change the mind of someone who will change the world.” This doesn’t necessarily mean tricking people into altering their opinions, just occasionally pulling the rug from beneath their feet.’

While Laila Shawa captures her viewer’s eye with raucous colour in order to speak the horrors of the intifida, Yara El-Sherbini lures her audience into the pub to confront them with the entirety of British pop culture. There’s a shared strategy here, of drawing the viewer in with the familiar and pleasing, only to hit them with the concealed impact of political content. And it’s a strategy that’s strikingly paralleled by a story told to me by Jananne Al-Ani, an Iraqi-born artist known for her photographic and moving image works. Actually, it’s not so much a story as a fact: In Kosovo there is a blue butterfly that feeds exclusively on the wild flower, Artemisia Vulgaris. Like the poppy, Artemisia Vulgaris thrives where the top soil has recently been disturbed. Follow this particular species of butterfly, dig, and you are likely to uncover the mass graves of the Albanian victims of Serbian genocide. This bitter-sweet relationship between politics and aesthetics comes across as especially complex in Al-Ani’s work. Although she sees her artworks as cultural products and not political statements, it’s undeniable that her interest in photography, film and video was initially provoked by the political landmark of the first Gulf War. ‘During the war I was living in England, and the story I was getting, through these mediated images, was so grotesquely skewed and extreme. It made me critical of photography and film in a way that I hadn’t been before.’

Al-Ani is currently working on The Aesthetics of Disappearance – a Land Without People, a three-year long project funded by the (AHRC) Arts and Humanities Research Council. Guide (2008) is one of a pair of films that are the project’s first finished productions. The work is a two minute looped film. It shows us a nondescript desert track, cast over by a shadow that elongates from the bottom left hand corner of the screen and introduces a man wearing a red and white keffiyeh and holding a black carrier bag. As we watch the man recede away from us down the track, an ambient soundtrack performs a peculiar silencing of the desert wind that stirs his robe and blows away his soundless footsteps. As the man approaches the distant skyline, he suddenly blips out of existence - only for the loop to kick in, returning him to the start of his journey. Jananne Al-Ani ejects the disc and quietly smiles. ‘I like the potential for ordinariness in film; out in the desert I often shot long takes where nothing much happened.’ The Aesthetics of Disappearance… will explore the desert as a fantasy space in the Western imaginary, perceived as a non-place on which to build dreams and wield power. Al-Ani has plans to continue the project from the air, filming and photographing contested sites in the Middle East - stretches of desert that may have archeological, bliblical, roman or contemporary significance. ‘Aerial photography is interesting because the shift in perspective can allow you to see what’s really happening on the ground’.

Artists may be celebrating the surge of international interest in the Arab art world, but perhaps we should take a lesson from Jananne Al-Ani and see the situation from a different perspective. There are artists and critics who view the booming market in the Gulf as a distraction from the wealth of material that has always been present in the cultural production of the Arab world. Practitioners from the Arab and Middle Eastern nations tend to be sharply in tune with their own provincial art scenes, and are also aware of the influence of so-called ‘cultural centres’ in Europe and America. Within this frame, it is London that appears as the un-informed ‘outsider’, only now waking up to the wealth of Arab contemporary art and its rich cultural heritage. ‘There are two parallel worlds,’ says Al-Ani, ‘one completely in the know and one completely in the dark.’ While it is indisputable that major artists like Maysaloun Faraj and Laila Shawa will benefit from the upsurge of Western interest in Arab art, it is possible that the West will be the real beneficiaries of this exchange. If we are to fulfil Maysaloun Faraj’s dream of a world at peace, or approach Laila Shawa and Yara El-Sherbini’s vision of a public that questions and self-criticises, we would do well to pay attention to the creative minds speaking out from a part of the world that is so routinely and grotesquely misinterpreted by the West.

PLUGS

Jananne Al-Ani’s ‘The Guide’ and ‘Flock’ are currently showing at the Whistable Biennale, running until 6th July. www.whistablebiennale.com

Laila Shawa’s ‘Mirage’ is showing on the 10th October, at the DIFC, Dubai.

Maysaloun Faraj’s Boats and Burdens, Kites and Shattered Dreams; will show at Aya gallery, 15 Fulham High Street, with provisional dates of 12 Nov – 12 Dec 2008.
Yara El-Sherbini is hosting one of her alternative pub quizzes at The National Portrait Gallery on the 24th and 25th July. See www.yaraelsherbini.com for updates.

WITNESS AND WINNER, ANNA PARKINA - Published The London Magazine April/May 08

WITNESS AND WINNER, ANNA PARKINA - Published The London Magazine April/May 08

I met Anna Parkina in the Wilkinson Gallery, preparing her collage creations, sculptures and film-art pieces for the opening of her new exhibition, Witness and Winner. Dark and fine-boned, the artist bears a disarming likeness to Audrey Hepburn. Her artwork, in fact, uses this physical similarity to perplexing effect; images of herself and the starlet pop up regularly in her oeuvre, confusing us as to which is which. If Audrey Hepburn is the ‘winner’, is Parkina the ‘witness’? This is the first of many codes I must crack to get to the bottom of this Moscow-born artist, and her will to re-interpret the Russian id.

Parkina’s work is viscous and psycho-sexual, vividly disturbing and absurdly comical in turns. Her primary mode of expression is the collage, and she feels this to be a distinctly Russian medium. Moscow, in Parkina’s eyes, is itself a canvas layered with contradictory influences. In her work, clippings from free Moscow newspapers are spliced onto iconic film images, whilst references to advertisements and free-floating text confuse and refigure expressive ink drawings and photo images of anonymous city-dwellers. Her style recalls the Russian avant-garde, the strong geometric shapes and bold colour seeming to reference Constructivists such as El Lissitzky, while the flat, dream-like landscape of entrance, elevator, stop’s button brings to mind Leopold Survage’s cubist, mazelike depictions of the city. Yet Parkina is reluctant to locate herself in the grand sweep of Russian cultural history, preferring to see her nation’s art as simply part of her blood inheritance.

‘Abroad, people say my work has its roots in the avant-garde, perhaps further back in Dadaism. I didn’t do this on purpose. There are ways in which Russians will always see subjects the same, a Russian...“attitude”. Making these works I was thinking more about the punk aesthetic, maybe even American punk, but then I realised this aesthetic is much older, going back to Dadaism and the beginnings of the avant-garde.’

Having first left Moscow in her teens to study in Paris at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Parkina’s artistic career has been cosmopolitan, dipping in and out of art scenes in Paris, Berlin and finally Hollywood. The exhibition Winner and Witness marks the twenty-eight year old’s return to Moscow as a chosen home. What she feels she has acquired is a necessary distance from Russian culture, giving her ‘clear eyes’ with which to look back at her nation.

‘In the 90s there was this black hole in Russia, and anything could happen. There was an explosion of information, reality TV shows, fashions, advertisement. There is all this information coming in, and most of it is being controlled. Suddenly there is this totalitarian state on the one hand, and economic interest on the other. I see myself as trying to make sense of these contradictions, to be a witness.’

We are back to the ‘witness’ and the ‘winner’. Who are these figures? ‘In Russia, we have this idea that you have to succeed. You scream it. Big. Kitsch. It’s like a bad parody of American success. Grotesque. That’s a Russian “winner”.’ I think of the collage Contactor (see back inside cover) – a man and woman kissing, not only in public but as the machinery of the city itself, potent with energy and hurtling towards the future. ‘Yes, yes,’ she nods, curtly. ‘Everything, even love and sex, are overpowered by this drive for show, for success in the eyes of our neighbours.’

Parkina’s vision of a Russia caught between a totalitarian ideology and the demands of the free market is brutally captured in Reality – Drama – Nonstop. The architecture of the Underground has metamorphosed the three ticket conductors, who now appear as looming, identikit judges. Following the escalators upwards to the advertised end, ‘WIN’, we are swallowed into the belly of the threefold, ever-watching monster.

‘The underground is an example of the weird contradictions in Russia. It’s a masterpiece of architecture, a symbol of Russian pride, but no-one looks at it. We listen to announcements advertising household goods, or telling us to report drug dealers or tax evaders, then the announcers will play an old Russian folk tune or read a children’s poem, about snow or animals. It’s completely strange to me! Completely contradictory! In Europe and the US my artist friends are always looking for ideas, in Moscow you never have to look. It’s everywhere. It’s the way people live, actually.’

For Anna Parkina, Moscow is an endlessly protean puzzle in flux. ‘It’s a game for me,’ she laughs, ‘disconnecting what is real from what is not real. I take great pleasure in the game!’ Watching her laugh, I am struck once more by her likeness to that great cinematic icon, Audrey Hepburn. It’s time to ask my question. Parkina smiles, a little smugly. ‘Audrey Hepburn is the winner if you sit in the front row!’, she pauses, ‘but this is what I learnt from Hollywood, which now helps me to see Russia. Never sit in the front row. People think it’s better to be close up. No, it’s not.’ As Parkina folds her hands on her lap, she is the archetypal observer – quiet, inquisitive, intense. ‘I’m always at the back of the cinema, where I can see the screen and also the audience in front of me,’ she leans forward conspiratorially, ‘I have to keep my distance from what people are trying to show me. I want to see it all.’

Witness and Winner Anna Parkina Wilkinson Gallery 5 April–18 May 2008

SAM WINSTON AND THE AWAKENED TEXT - Cover image

SAM WINSTON AND THE AWAKENED TEXT - Published The London Magazine Dec/Jan 08

Sam Winston is a striking example of how a weakness can become a strength. The artist discovered his unique and exhilarating approach to the written word through his experiences with dyslexia. In the struggle to master text, Winston’s highly visual mind was drawn to the ‘fascinating world of type, colour, paper, line and form’ behind the written word: ‘I began to use typography when I started to write. This may sound rather obvious but I found writing incredibly difficult and its format certainly restrictive. What then started was a fascination with language and a desire to use letterform to explore it.’ These early enquiries reaped an astounding reward in Winston’s particular hybrid of wordplay, fine art and graphic design.

The artist’s highly personal take on the written word has won him global acclaim – his word/art pieces have found homes in special collections at MoMA, The Getty Research Institute, the British Library and the Tate galleries. I first encountered his work by chance in the Saison Poetry Library, stumbling upon the recent exhibition Volume housed in the library foyer. Expecting to pick up a nicely bound Seamus Heaney collection or a Beat poet anthology, I was stopped in my tracks by Winston’s A Full Folded Dictionary. In this work the twenty-one books of the Oxford English Dictionary are presented with their innards on display, transformed from everyday household items into bizarre sculptural landscapes. Divorced from their familiar representation, we are unable to dismiss them as ‘reference books’. The viewer is inspired to re-think their fluid, proteate content - the fact that the sum of our language can be found on their thin, black and white pages. I never got past the library foyer that day. The prospect of leafing through Seamus Heaney seemed unbearably dry in comparison with Winston’s re-animation of the word, discovering text within its visual and sensual possibilities.

The work Silent | Listen appears as exemplary of Winston’s craft. The two antagonists – ‘Silent’ marked out in white, ‘Listen’ in red – leer at each other across the black page, drawing our attention to their paradoxical status as anagrams. Winston twins the words while opposing them, a process of mirroring and counteraction that leads the viewer to reflect on both. While enthralled by Silent | Listen it struck me that Winston’s oeuvre functions in a comparable manner. Through marrying text with visual art, his pieces allow word and form to speak to each other, pulling the audience in different directions– do we ‘view’ Winston’s art or ‘read’ it? Partaking of Winston’s work was never going to be simple. As the artist tells us, ‘My pieces are a compromise between my vision of the written word and how it is understood in the conventional sense.’

Winston’s nonconformist style enables a rare crossover from the art scene into the commercial world. He has collaborated with rock-giants Muse on their third album, worked with Japanese fashion gurus Comme des Garcons and most recently, in April 2007, embarked on a Live Draw project for outdoor gear specialists The North Face. For Winston, commercial work entails ‘applying his voice’ not bowing to the big man’s edicts. ‘You can’t hire a dog and then start barking’, he laughs. At The North Face collaboration it was certainly Winston that was making the noise. Taking the company’s strap line ‘Never Stop Exploring’ as inspiration, Winston opened the Harajuku Tokyo branch of The North Face stores to a host of revellers, with guests drinking free refreshments and working on three metre-long artworks. Elaborate and multi-hued line drawings spiralled and blossomed from Winston’s starting point, the words ‘A line that unites and divides’ worded half in English, half in Japanese. All remains is the accompanying solo piece. Winston’s idea of a ‘harmony between message and medium’ is discovered here through the painting of text as a cloud formation around Japan’s Mt Tatayama.

As Winston points out, there are different kinds of ‘literacy’. He reminds us that written communication has a richly visual history, restricted in our modern era by standardised print. In his role as lecturer at several art colleges, Winston noted the vast proportion of students diagnosed with some kind of reading or writing ‘problem’. Such artists, he believes, simply need more flexibility – a recognition of their different ways of seeing. Winston’s choice to pursue his own ‘problematic’ relationship with the written word has lead to an astoundingly varied and successful career. Who else but Winston could go from selling wind-resistant fleeces to exhibiting cut ups of Romeo and Juliet at the Saison Poetry Library? If dyslexia was ever a ‘weakness’ for Winston, it is now most certainly his strength.

Sam Winston will be exhibiting as part of You – Silently, a group show exploring the relationship between Image, Object and Text. The show is curated by Marina Warner and runs 17 January–14 February at the University Gallery, University of Essex, Colchester.

Submarine is a journey through the life of a witty, filthy, and
outrageously precocious fourteen-year-old boy. Oliver Tate’s
ambitions are to lose his virginity before it becomes legal, to discover
the cause of his Dad’s depression, and to find out why his mother is
‘getting surfing lessons—and probably more—from a hippy-looking
twonk.’ Trespass talks to Joe Dunthorne about the genesis of his
debut novel, the influence of his work as a poet on the piece, and the
challenges faced in reimagining the teenage ‘misfit’ hero.
You remarked previously that you didn’t plan Submarine as
much as have several good stabs at it, finding your voice as
you went along. It struck me that this decision not to plan is
very much in keeping with Oliver’s character, the desire to
jump into an escapade and see where it takes him.
That’s Oliver, he’s shambolic. Writing from his point of view you can
pretty much get away with anything, as long as it’s in keeping with
his personality…
Oliver is an idiosyncratic and contradictory protagonist. Was
his character fully fleshed-out in your mind before you set
pen to paper, or did he take form as the novel progressed?
Oliver pretty much came to the page fully formed. At the beginning
he may have been a little more fantastical—delusional maybe, not
just eccentric. You can see that side of his character at the beginning
of the book where he sees everyone around him as having weird
attributes or special powers. [Oliver is convinced that his neighbour,
a physiotherapist, is a ‘pansexual’ (a person who is sexually attracted
to anything) while the painter-decorator, in his paint-splattered
overalls, is obviously a ‘knacker’ (horse killer)]. I expected his
character to develop through the process of writing the novel. He
became more real.
It’s been sixty years since J. D. Salinger turned the misfit
adolescent into a fictional trope. Since Holden Caulfield, we
have encountered a motley pack of sexually anxious teens at
odds with their parents. Given that you’re covering such welltrodden
ground, how did you give Submarine its freshness
and edge?
Generally I don’t find referring back to similar works very helpful.
I’ve read Catcher in the Rye and Adrian Mole, but I didn’t go back
and read them again before I tackled Submarine. In fact, there were
works that people recommended to me as similar that I purposefully
didn’t read, like A Curious Incident [The Curious Incident of the Dog
in the Night Time, by Mark Haddon]. I just went ahead, hoping that
the novel would break new ground.
In a review in The Independent, Jonathan Gibbs expresses
jealousy that this generation of teenagers have Submarine,
while his generation had to settle for Adrian Mole, “written by
a woman as old as my mum, and no doubt as much with my
mother in mind as me.” (‘Submarine, By Joe Dunthorne’
02/03/2008). I noticed a cheeky nod to Sue Townsend in the
book: Jordana nicknames Oliver “Adrian” after reading his
diary entry “All the people I’ve ever kissed.” She’s clearly
poking fun here... Photograph by Eamonn McCabe
(laughing) Well, Adrian Mole was very uncool, and Oliver is cool. He’s not a geek, although he’s
sometimes unbearably pretentious.
Much of the humour, and many of the more poignant moments in the novel, seem to
derive from the gap between the narrator’s world and what we know, or suspect, is
actually going on. One of my favourite ‘love’ scenes is when Oliver’s girlfriend, the
down-to-earth Jordana, is hanging from the climbing frame and drools into Oliver’s
mouth. Oliver muses, “Jordana’s face is turning red…—sexual nervousness can do
that.” “I feel post-coital”. His self-delusion is frustrating, but also at times endearing.
He’s a totally unreliable narrator. A lot of the time I have him say “this means that” when the
reader is going no, it clearly means something else. I’m dropping clues throughout the book. So
you’re constantly thinking “what’s going on?” It was a lot of fun, toeing that line.
I imagine Submarine is a frightening read for parents. Your depiction of the mother and
father through Oliver’s eyes exposes the layers of miscommunication that can so easily
accumulate in a family.
I hope it has a scaring effect. One of my intentions is to make parents un-comfy. Everyone reads
partly for their own character, and my agent identifies with the mother. The idea of the level of
awareness that a fifteen year-old might have really makes her squirm.
Am I right in saying that Submarine is aimed at adults, as much as the teenage market?
I try not to think about readership too much when I write. I began Submarine on my Creative
Writing Masters at UEA, so I was writing it for myself and my group of friends. At the time I was
twenty-two. It’s broadly aimed at fourteen-year-olds up, I’d say. But Oliver is such an anomaly
anyway; it’s unlikely that someone picking up the book will be very much like him.
Submarine is about first times. First experience of a relationship, of sex, of death…everyone
can relate to these experiences. I’m not normally drawn to heavy material, I’m very wary of
being heavy-handed. Oliver’s character allowed me to approach these more serious themes,
because he takes it all so flippantly. He’s not prone to thoughtful moments, so the challenge was
to find opportunities for thoughtfulness.
The sadness in the novel is even more effecting, I found, because you’ve embedded
these moments in otherwise unassuming, even farcical scenes. I was struck by the chapter where Oliver takes his father to the fair, and puts him on “Shocker, The
Authentic Electric Chair Replica”, hoping that the ride will act as a placebo cure. It’s funny, but also a devastating scene in many ways. For me,
this was a predominant experience in reading the novel, this tension between
two very different emotions.

Oliver himself seems to inspire strong feelings and extremely polar reactions. I’ve had the full spectrum of responses to his character. Some people say he’s
cold, cruel, unfeeling, irritating, stupid…Other people think he’s a complete
hero, they love him, they think he’s funny,charming. It’s impossible to predict how
readers will react. Submarine is definably a poet’s novel,
smattered with incisive phrases and puissant, unusual descriptions. Oliver’s
showy brilliance at wordplay and etymology allows you to go even
further, really indulging yourself in the language.

Exactly. There was lots of feedback between my work as a poet and Submarine. There
are even a few lines that people in my poetry workshops have recognised. For example I use an image of twigs that spell out the word ‘help’, which I credit in the book to Lara Frankena—it’s from her poem ‘Vipassana Meditation Retreat, Ten Days’ Silence.’ Apart from anything else, I find a lot of satisfaction
in a well turned-out phrase.

Now that Submarine is in the bookstores, what’s the next step?

I’ll always be writing poetry and short stories. Shorter fiction allows me to try out
different voices, take risks. I’m also working on a new novel. As far as Submarine goes, it’s been optioned by Warp Films, to be written and directed by Richard Ayoade (Mighty Boosh,Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, The IT Crowd). He’s an excellent choice; the first draft of the script is great. There are a lot of hoops to jump through, of course - we’re in talks with the moneymen, trying to get funding...

There’s one more question that needs to be asked, in the spirit of Oliver Tate. What’s the word of the day?

Oh, yeah! My mate sent me a really good one. Pettifogger. It means “to quibble over trivia in order to misguide a debate”.

WHAT WE'RE LISTENING TO - PublishedTrespass Magazine June/July 08

You describe WE as “atmospheric indie rock
with elements of noir and surf”. Your sound is
strongly evocative. If you could provide the
soundtrack to any past event—the fall of the
Berlin Wall, the creation of Mickey Mouse, the
birth of Christ etc.—what would it be?
Yes, (always start an answer with a positive word). I
guess we will lean into playing at ends more than playing
at starts…we are more a funeral band than a wedding
orchestra. But not really a sad funeral. More like the
funeral of a decade, (some people will remember this
decade as a wonderful collection of bright events. Some
will be happy to move on to the next decade with no
looking back). We’ll be happy if we could play at the
funeral of this decade.
WE are composed of an Italian (Gabriele
Gori, bassist), a drummer from Latvia
(Mareks Kaminski), a Swedish vocalist
(Paul Rubenstein) and a guitarist from
Israel (Then Wissoky). Does this colourful
jumble of backgrounds relate to your
eclectic, experimental style? How did you
meet?
Yes the drummer has turned Latvian, (we’ve been
playing with Mareks for the past 8 months).
Otherwise the short and sweet answer is yes,
but…what made us into a collective is our individual love
of the musical adventure. It’s the pheromone that draws
us together.
In reality we romantically met through a paper ad.
Paul placed an ad, Snail answered and then we found
Gabriele, (Mareks was not born yet and only joined later
after the invention of the global computer network that is
called ‘Internet’. We found him basking in the corner of
some remote website).
You have been awarded “Best Unsigned Record of
the Year” by Playmusic and appeared on the compilation
Best of Myspace UK alongside Bloc Party
and Maximo Park. Do you see yourself with a bright
shiny label anytime soon? Do you feel you need a
label to succeed?
Shiny new label? Can we get it wrapped in flowery paper
and with a ribbon?
Otherwise you will need to define the word success.
Our success is in our ability to continue to invent (our 3rd
album is in the making). We succeed every time a new
song is born.
Label? We will obviously say yes to put the right roof
over our head (labels are nowadays more a marketing
and promotional tool with lots of money to buy internet
ads). But if we get no offers, we hope to still be able to
be the street musicians that we are, homeless with a
mission of taking over the world.

THE LION'S DEN OF SOMALI WOMEN - Published Trespass Magazine April/May 08

Somali-born Bilan has spent most of her life in the East End. Having written her dissertation on Racism and the Police, she now works as a teacher. Here Bilan speaks to Trespass about the excitement of choosing when to hide and reveal her body, how to avoid a Somalian ‘freshie’ and why her community think British Muslim women are
‘going crazy’.

The Somali community (in London) isn’t very much in the public eye, whereas the Middle East is receiving constant press attention. Do you feel it’s easy for people to look at you, as a woman in a hijab, and assume you’re from Iraq or Afghanistan?

It’s insane but I think people do. Somalians can look more Arab than African, we have Arabic heritage. But if people are set on thinking negatively, they won’t care whether the woman in front of them is African or Asian—they just think ‘They’re all Muslims’.

People have read about the Taliban regime, the bans on high-heels, on driving, what is your response to people who believe covering up in public must be a sign of female repression?

Actually, I can understand this preconception. I was born into a Muslim family and I still thought wearing the hijab was repressive before I talked to women who wore it themselves. Now I wear it, out of choice, and I can feel that it’s another form of expression.

So for you it’s empowering.

Yes, it gives me power as a woman to show myself when I choose. (a pause) And, you know, I think it’s boring to dress up all the time! (laughing) When you don’t always dress up you look forward to that moment—when you can be as provocative as you
like.

You mean, at all-woman events?

Our parties. We kick the men out of the house, turn on the music and dance. Southern Somalian is the most sexy; you really shake your bum. All the skinny girls sit in the
about Somali women becoming more educated and independent. Women are more picky in
the UK. We’ll stand up to our men. There’s a joke about a woman going into a Somali—
what’s it called? Where they sell bed stuff—and the assistant immediately shows her to the single sheets. When asked why, he says, ‘Don’t all you English girls kick out your men?’ I know men that were born and raised in the East End that have gone to Somalia to find themselves a ‘safe’ wife.

And do you want a ‘safe’ husband?

(Laughing) Women don’t want a traditional man straight from Somalia. We call them
‘freshies’. Girls think they’ll come out with all the old sayings, ‘You’re as beautiful as a female camel.’

How does the community feel about your men bringing back brides from Somalia?

There’s a real problem with married men going back and taking another wife. Men in Muslim culture can have up to four wives. One woman I know—her husband said he was going back home to build her a house. She kept sending money over to him—it turned out she was paying for his wedding to another woman! Can you imagine! If my husband Mohammed took another wife I would never have taken him back.

You seem to be saying that the Somali women’s community has a real sense of
identity and fun, yet there’s a problem with men accepting that.

Our strength is something that has come a bit too soon for the men. So they go get the typical Somali girl, but when they bring her back to London they find out she’s not so typical as they thought!


If the Somali community doesn’t spend much time in the public eye, the Somali women’s community is even more invisible. How can this be true, when you’re
such a strong and supportive group?

People shouldn’t think strength is about appearance. You were asking about parties? Of course they’re fun, but this isn’t freedom. While you (Trespass) were taking photos of my cousins and my sister, you couldn’t understand but my aunt was telling them, ‘Now every-one in the country will see these beautiful pictures of my daughters! Soon you’ll all get husbands!’ But my cousins and my sister don’t care. They are British-Somali women. It’s a different world here. We’re independent women, whether people can see this or not. As our religious leaders might say—in Britain, Somali women can ‘go crazy’!--

THE ASPHALT JUNGLE - Published Trespass Magazine April/May 08

The Asphalt Jungle - Published Trespass Magazine April/May 08

Due to the politically sensitive nature of this article 'The Asphalt Jungle', rapper Reveal (real name Mehrak Golestan) has given Trespass Magazine the rights to publish the article in print, without permission to publish online, where lack of control over readership could place him in a compromising position.

NOT A PURSUIT FOR A LADY- illustration

NOT A PURSUIT FOR A LADY - Published, Trespass Magazine Feb/March 08

A Modern Day Lady of Shalott


For ere she reach'd upon the tide
The first house by the water-side,
Singing in her song she died...

Tennyson has the Lady of Shalott pay the ultimate price for escaping her island existence of gazing in the looking glass in favour of the rush of the town. 'Revealing one-self' to the ‘city folk’, Tennyson implies, is not a pursuit for a lady. Rachel Weston would have something to say about that. Opera singer, cabaret performer, burlesque phenomenon and founder of Spoken Word night ‘Wordplay’, Rachel Weston is an addict to exposure. A fiery, curly-haired redhead, Rachel has taken her home town of Brighton by storm, throwing off barriers between artistic trends and genres to pay tribute to one diety, Performance.

Rachel doesn't see herself as a 'poet', 'singer' or 'burlesque performer'. Performance, for Rachel, should be fluid and improvisational - a two-way dialogue between audience and performer that is hampered by genre constraints. Rachel studied opera at Birkbeck College, 'I was drawn to the brazenness of opera and its total and unashamed ability to scream about emotion'. However, she soon moved away from the operatic institution, rejecting point blank the idea of her audience sitting in velvet seats at the ROH, ‘the opera house puts audiences on the passive end of the spectrum’. In Brighton, her current hometown, Rachel has plans to introduce opera singing into her burlesque shows, recreating the intimacy between audience and performer that she craves.

Rachel's belief in empowering the audience is key to the success of Wordplay, a Spoken Word night she founded in 2006. Brighton-based Wordplay creates and celebrates intimate performance, 'The venue is small and the night is different all the time, from chilled-out with ambient acoustic music and lyrical poetry to raucous slam rhymes and ska-funk.' Rachel created the night to bring musicians and writers together, allowing them to feel at ease and get lost in performance, of whatever kind and colour, 'Sometimes the whole room is silent, attentive and blissed out and sometimes everybody is stomping and sweating to a full-live band and the energy is palpable.' Crucial to Wordplay is its open invitation to new blood, staying true to Rachel’s idea of performance as free-spirited and exhilarating.

For the Lady of Shallot, performance comes with danger. Anyone who has stood with trembling hands in a spotlight knows the cold dread of exposing yourself to watchful, appraising eyes. Rachel Weston is an astounding performer because she strives to do away with this sense of danger. Whether giving voice to a liberetto in a shisha cafe or getting caught up in the moment at a burlesque evening there is a sense of unashamed passion to Rachel’s work, and this lack of reservation is infectious. It strikes me as fitting that the venue for Wordplay is named 'the sanctuary cafe'. Through her strongly personal vision of what performance can be, Rachel Weston is uniquely equipped to create the sort of safe-space in which daring artistic expression and interaction can thrive.