Organic Dance, Recycled Sound: Pick a Piper at Fluxbao

The room was smoky, and filling up. There was condensation on the window that looked out to Warschauer Strasse, enveloped in the fog that had descended upon Berlin. Inside the club - that magical place we hear about in the charts, where anything can happen and we put our hands in the air - the crowd wait for Pick a Piper.

This club was Fluxbao, near Schlesisches Tor in Berlin. It was the beginning of December and no-one was sure at what time the ban were to start. It didn’t appear to say anywhere. But at some point after 9 o’clock the three-piece from Canada appeared from the shadows and onto the stage to whoops and claps and a slight ripple of bodies forward. They begin with a loud clash and in moments the beat of the drums and synth chords had taken possession of the club.

But they were called to an abrupt stop only a few moments later, as with a scratching hiss one of the speakers blew and the last remnants of the introductory song trailed off ...



To read the complete article please visit ADS Records

            Pick a Piper - https://soundcloud.com/pickapiper

'White Rabbit Red Rabbit' at the English Theatre Berlin

White Rabbit Red Rabbit, by Iranian writer Nassim Soleimanpou, challenges us to evaluate the extent of our autonomy and examine the role we play in the world. Soleimnanpou achieves this by turning the mechanisms of theatre in upon themselves:  there is never a director, there are no rehearsals, and a different actor takes the lone role every night. The stage is the same each time: a chair, a ladder, two glasses of water, a vial, and, in a sealed envelope, the script.

In the case of the English Theatre Berlin, where White Rabbit Red Rabbit played for four nights in November, the script was brought on stage by the artistic director, and handed with quivering fingers to that night’s actor, both smiling gleefully. The artistic director introduced the actor and says, ‘I will leave you in his hands …’ and shuffles backwards into the wings.  

The theatre is still with excitement. The forth wall is broken as the actor cheerily introduces himself to us in his own, improvised words, diffusing any awkwardness as he fiddles with the envelope, attempting to extract the script. He tells us he is nervous. He finally manages to open the envelope, takes out the script, and begins.

Of course we are not really in our actor’s hands at all. We are all in the hands of Soleimanpou. There is an empty seat in the front row reserved for him. It is he who is to guide us blindly through the evening, and it is he that addresses us directly when our actor beings to speak.   

As a conscientious objector Soleimanpou is unable to leave Iran and is currently writing this play in his garden, so he tells us, which is fucking hard. Where are you? This play is his way of travelling out of Iran. The idea of the play came from a dream he had of committing suicide on stage, and tonight, he tells us, it is the onstage suicide of our actor, that we may bear witness to. Dear actor, you didn’t know what you were letting yourself in for …

Our actor makes comical aghast expression and the audience laugh and he continues to read.

He paces up and down the stage as Soleimnapou tell us more about himself and his motives for writing this play, our actor dropping each white, double-spaced page to the floor as he goes. Soleimanpou tells our actor to give each member of the audience a number, and then call No. 9 up on to the stage.  No. 9, a blonde girl of about that many years, happens to be our actor’s daughter.  We are told that the vial on the table contains poison, and are all, save for father and daughter, under Soleimanpou’s direction, requested to close our eyes while the latter pours the contents of that vial into one of the glasses of water.

At the end of the night the actor will have to choose one of those glasses to drink from. They are left to stand on the table behind him.

Amongst chuckles and cooing his daughter returns to her seat and the evening continues. More audience members are invited up on stage, white rabbits who must hide their ears, and bears that ensure that they do. No. 23 is a wonderfully meek white rabbit, and No. 41 a suitable stern bear and under our actor’s direction we follow them into Soleimanpou’s circus where there are leopards pretending to be ostriches and ostriches pretending to be leopards, and bears who have fallen on to the stage and so pretend to be leopards pretending to be ostriches, so not to upset the play.

And then the ladder is brought to centre stage and more numbers are called out, and more members of the audience called up. They are all white rabbits, and when our actor fires the starting gun four of them shuffle and smile sheepishly around the ladder, while one leaps up to the top to grab the prize, and there is both supportive laughter and distrustful applause at such boldness.

Soleimanpou is telling us about his uncle. And he continue this process until all the rabbits in the cage were new. They continue to attack each rabbit that ascended the ladder, even though not one of them knew the reason why they did it, other than ‘that is what is done here’.

An iPhone is summoned and a picture is taken of our four white rabbits and one red rabbit standing next to our actor and Soleimanpou asks that it be sent to him. I would love to see you all.

The members of the audience return to their seats but the ladder remains on stage and under it the table with the two glasses of water. Soleimanpou regularly brings out attention back to the ominous pair, but our actor is no methodist and so rolls his eyes whenever suicide is spoken of. It’s only a play after all. Suicide? Ha!  

It’s only a play after all.

Just a play? Soleimanpou challenges us.  But what if, what if … People don’t really die in plays, we know this. Yet each time our actor is addresses as ‘Dear actor’ and we are addressed as ‘Dear audience’, and we see another page of script fall to the ground, this becomes less of a play. Each time the suspension of disbelief is broken, the possibility of ‘what if’ blooms in front of us once more. For if this isn’t a play, what exactly is it? And what exactly are we doing here? What if there is poison in the vial? What if the daughter does hold a grudge? What if there was a great conspiracy? What if this isn’t just a play?

Ah! but come now, it is just a play! And the actor must diligently play his role, read his lines, until we leave the theatre at the end of the evening. That is how this works. What is left of our actor if he is not to act?

And yet, likewise, if we too play out part and deign to believe, we are to witness a suicide tonight. And if we decide not to believe, we decide not to care, and we leave our actor and the empty glass, and the shadow of the theatre hangs over us.

Night is closing in, and the excitement we can hear in Soleimanpou’s voice tells us that the moment when the actor must choose which glass to drink is approaching. He tells our actor to put the pages of the script down. Who will take them up? Who will finish the play? Who is our red rabbit? There is silence in the auditorium, and it is still once more. Our actor has no more lines to read and so cannot dispel the tension. The script lies on the floor and we wait for someone to pick it up.

Why would anyone dare put their neck out? Why, when so much comfort is gained by settling into the crowd? Why when we simply want to fit, and to belong? To rest in peace with hearthside contentment? I will sit still. I will not make a fuss. I will excuse, and qualify, and maybe, if there is no hope, say, ‘Well then, next time …’  

So the two glasses are placed in front of us as well. We have two options. Firstly, though ignoble, and selfish, and cowardly, we are offered a way out, if things were ever to get too bad. A way to pull the curtain cord, announce the end, drop our script and end the treadmill of suffering.  Secondly, we could try and save the actor? We could storm the stage. We could tear the script, and break the vial, knock over the glasses and with rabid eyes and bared teeth destroy the theatre. We could smash up the empty, reserved seat, while the frantic artistic director hops about in the wings: ‘Naturalism! Next season, only naturalism!’

But this will never happen. The artistic director will return in comfort to the lobby, and take a drink with the actor, two glasses in front of them, and his daughters and partner. We will leave the stage, and return to the world. But White Rabbit Red Rabbit will not leave us. For if the world truly is a stage, and we merely players, then all the world’s a cage.

And the script sits on the floor of the theatre and we wait for someone to pick it up.

Bertie Digby Alexander

Berlin 2013

Lights of Christmas Present

Christmas was coming. But there was still no snow.

Oh it will come! the girls has said to her. You wait and see! And they badgered her into buying a great, bright winter coat.

She wore it now, and despite the cold outside was sweating as she turned up and down the aisles in search of Thai salad, looking like a fat, synthetic goose. She was despairing, and considering hanging it all - and fuck them all too – when the music began again. It had felt like an instant of Christmas each time it had played in November though she wasn't sure it was supposed to be festive. All jingles jingle, after all … It certainly wasn’t the song she had thought it was at first and her stomach twisted in new surprise each time this became apparent. The jingle was jaunty, and whistled and sounded just like a Christmas ought to sound. But she didn’t know it. It didn’t feel like Christmas at all.

She stood in front of a shelf of bottles and grabbed one calling itself 'cherry likor’. Was that the same as liquor? It also had the word syrup, lower down on the label, in big letters. On the shelf below there was a darker, more expensive bottle called 'Sour Cherry'. She didn’t think that would go down well. Her phone was almost out of battery. She didn't dare another call. She had already made a fool of herself with the frozen vegetables.

Her eyes drifted, hoping for a sign, and rested on a bottled of Baileys. She remembered one night the Christmas before, when they had all drunk mulled wine heavily dosed with amaretto, long into the evening. When everyone had left, Roger fell asleep at her feet and she put on carols, and sat drinking and smoking until she was sure that if she stood up she would wobble, her legs deliciously weak. It hadn't been snowing then but the moon had been bright, and the air that occasionally whipped in through the window was harsh, and exhilarating. Wrapped in a blanket she had cracked walnuts with her hands, letting the pieces of shell drop to the floor, skipping the boring carols, and played her favourites over and over again. Later she had clambered up to pick at the turkey, pulling of the strings of tinsel that stuck to it, and then returned to the sofa and played the carols again.

The next day she had taken a train home and listened to more carols on her ipod and waited for the snow to fall. She felt a reluctant shiver of excitement. She had left it as late as possible, and she would be back soon enough, after all.

On the platform where she had to change trains, a portly and ruddy cheeked, poorly-dressed, but sweetly-decorated troupe had begun singing carols. She had paused the music on her ipod and watched them. She laughed to herself as she imagined her mother in the crowd. When they ended to splattering applause, she called Roger.

She read the message again, to check she hadn’t forgotten anything and heaved the basket up towards the counter.

Her first step out of the shop fell into an icy puddle and she froze as she felt the cold creep around her ankle; through two pairs of socks and a sandwich bag. She walked on, slowly, swearing as her toes accustomed themselves to the cold.

Robert had rung the day before. How long are you staying? She had been taken aback by the question. Indefinitely, it had always been, he knew that. But there was no sign of a plea in his voice, and she surprised herself when she answered, We’ll see what happens in the summer. Because she never lied to Robert.

Are you looking forward to Christmas? He always was; the advent calendar, the lights, the songs. But not this year, he said. Only a few of them would be there.

Dispirited after speaking to him she called Mick. He was excited and told her that he had managed to miss the carol service this year. Izzie had to go though, alone with Dad.

She had once gone alone with Dad. He had sat stiff, and staring straight ahead, but would look down at her when she looked up at him, wanting for the thousandth time to tug on one of the curly hairs that sprung loose from his beard. He would nod and give her a small smile, and then resume looking straight ahead.

A child wailed intermittently through the carols. The choir were singing at the front, two groups of them across a gangway perpendicular to most of the congregation. Some however, those closest, were sitting facing the same way as the choir, and in this group she had seen a woman crying to herself. She still wore her coat, and scarf but her black hat and gloves sat in her lap. She dabbed at her eyes, as the choir sang. Looking up at her father she saw that he was still stiff, and again looked down at her and smiled, though a briefer smile this time, and he appeared more stern when he looked back up. Her impression of churches were confirmed and she felt like she was in a film, or a book.

And she remembered another Christmas, when she had been working in a café, her first full-time job, and one evening Roger met her excitedly as she was closing up, and dragged her to their favourite bar; and on their favourite table he had told her that he had got an audition on Christmas Eve in the capital.

‘We can see the lights! And the tree!’

‘The trains will be expensive …’

‘Not if we stay for a few nights.’

‘And make our own Christmas lunch?’

‘We can find a funny old pub to have it in. Just have a bit of meat and sprouts and something.

And get a few bottles of wine. And make friend with the other people there.’

‘Your family won’t mind?’

‘Not if I say it’s for work.’

But they did mind. And so she was at home for Christmas. And it was as lovely and as tiresome as always.

Her left foot was now growing cold in empathy with the other. The shopping was heavy, and she damned the whole night, and the whole month. The Christmas lights ringing the heads of the tower blocks ahead of her were a throbbing, nauseous green. They pieced through the fog, above the other twinkling multi-coloured and dancing decorations that shone on the windows.

She was coming up to a stall that had been erected the previous week. It was steaming and she could smell chocolate and nuts. A woman, tall and tightly wrapped up, was standing at the counter speaking to the man inside who tied something up for them in parcels. Around her legs wobbled two little children, the same size and in identical ivy green snow suits, making them look like little aliens, or giant gherkins that had sprouted limbs. One toppled over, unnoticed, as she approached them.

She was only a few feet away when a little dog rushed out from behind the legs of the woman, and hopping around the struggling child on the floor began growling and snapping at her. It was on a lead which was a neon-red, like its collar and shining in the night. The woman turned to her with a blank, questioning expression, and from her hands the red lead seemed to extend indefinitely as the dog came closer to her, snarling from its scrawny throat. She stumbled back guiltily from the family, and the shed, and the smell of chocolate and nuts, and hurried on towards the green lights, fearful that they would

engage her in conversation.

*

Up in one of the building, out of one of the high windows, a small face peeped out, watching the figure in the bright coat hurrying away along the damp path.

No snow, still, he thought.

The steam billowed out of the mulled wine and crepe stand. He and his mother had been there that morning and she had bought little stocking-fillers and glazed apples; decorated almond biscuits and chestnuts in bow-tied, paper bags.

He watched the tall woman walk away from the stall in the opposite direction to the figure with the shopping bags. The two little girls stumbled and tripped along next to her, and the dog trotted amongst them all, playfully snapping at their green boots and turning its pointy nose into the fog, its tail erect. And further on, others bundled into and out of the supermarket, and the lights of the city were accompanied by whirling rides in the squares, shining baubles in the trees, and lit hut upon hut amongst the crowds who thronged into the Christmas markets.

He heard the girls cry out in the flat below him. He couldn’t make out the words, but they were bright and cheery and welcoming and would annoy his father. He yawned, pulled the duvet higher up around his shoulders, and resting his chin on the window sill, prayed for snow, like there had been last year.

Bertie Digby Alexander

Berlin 2013