The Queen of Performance in Norway

Towards the end of June 2011, Laurie Anderson took a slight right on her way home from the Middle East and headed for the North. She stopped by the tiny little town of Harstad in Norway, walked right into the Kulturhus and told some adventure stories by herself on stage, accompanied by accidental fiddling and random toying around on some keyboards in-between - just another day in the life of the Queen of Performance.

She also shared some words of wisdom regarding, among others, the reason why she does not use Facebook:

Luckily, some pro photographer happened to be around and shot a couple of pictures - like this one:

"No more friends." Laurie Anderson performing 'Transitory Life'

June 23rd 2011, Harstad, Norway
photo by hennum.foto.com

On the Return of the Cultural Ambassador

In June 2011 Laurie took 'Delusion' to Israel where she seems to be a welcome returning guest.

(FYI, here's "Laurie Anderson" written in Hebrew characters - took some time for me to find them in the texts but then it made my research process for reviews and all kinds of media coverage a lot easier:

לורי אנדרסון

- yeah, you should read this from right to left.)



For starters, let's see a review with photos and videos of a public conversation with artists Yali Sobol and Sigalit Landau (relax - the URL I included is the English translation of the original text):

If somebody asked her to design a religion,
she would make it all about snow.

Laurie Anderson in Tel-Aviv, Israel, June 2011
photo by Assaf Alboher

Here's an interview from an Israeli tv channel (probably named NANA10). The show is called 'London & Kirschenbaum', and the conversation took place on June 16, 2011. The interviewers were Yaron London and Assaf Amdursky. Laurie also gave the microphone over to Fenway Bergamot for a while during the interview, and gave a short demonstration of the sound of her filtered violin:

The concert in Mann Auditorium left its mark on the Israeli audience. Here's a vast bunch of reviews, translated into English via Google Translator:

• Bedtime Stories - text by Guy Hajaj, photos by Dudu Azulaj
• Hallucinatory Mushroom - text by Yuval Kfsoto, photos by Dana Shimoni
• A Mesmerizing Storyteller - text by Idan Hguel, photo by Meir Luger
• Bored to Death - text by Zahi Yeshurun
• More Theatrical Than Musical - text, big photos and a video
• Less Tight and Perfect Than Others, But Much Human - text by Elliot, photo by Orit Pearls (?)
• Not for Music Fans - a review and a photo in Haaretz

... well, maybe they missed the stage bombs or so.


Anyway, there was at least one enthusiastic audience member who didn't mind to share some videos taken in a tender night:

The very last things you say in life...

Notes from a dream diary:

Thinking of you under the dandelions:

A story on the Moon and Fenway's section:

A story from Iceland:

The finale:

The encore:

From A'dam with Luv

Laurie Anderson's Delusion was part of this year's Holland Festival in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Reviews of the show were mixed - some would have fancied more music, and some were just bored and wished for a little less Laurie Anderson clones in the audience. Some of the lucky ones took a walk with Laurie in the streets of Amsterdam:

Jeroen Visser and Laurie Anderson

Amsterdam, Netherlands, June 2011

Some of the other lucky ones had a close encounter of the third kind with Fenway Bergamot himself sitting in a shopping window of de Bijenkorf (big warehouse in Amsterdam's Dam Square):

Fenway Bergamot, wearing a Chaplin hat and a HollandFestival jacket,
chatted with Lieven Bertels (artistic coordinator of HollandFestival)

Fenway Bergamot happily announced his intention of 

being candidate for the next President of the United States

Throwing an approving glance

at his enthusiastically cheering audience outside the shopwindow.

All photos by Mnemosyne

And, finally, a video to break your heart, too: an excerpt of the Dandelion scene from Delusion in Amsterdam:

"Alguma vez amas-me verdadeiramente?"

PSA: For the sake of accuracy, I'm trying to cover all the (more-or-less) European venues which got graced by Laurie Anderson's 'Delusion' during the summer of 2011.


If you read Portuguese, here is a review of 'Delusion' in Porto from June 2011. Text by Marta Ribeiro, along with some photos by Victor Fernandes. Like this one:

"That's a really good dog. I like that dog."
'Delusion' by Laurie Anderson, June 5, 2011
Casa da Música, Porto, Portugal 

Retrospect 1.0: The Updated Posts

First of all, I decided to update some of the previous posts. I'm doing it this way since I wouldn't want to break up the one-post-one-topic consistency which, more or less, characterized the posts of Files on a String in the past. It's not handy, it's not convenient but it's for the sake of logic (and, um, proportion, whatevs). So, here is the list:

• 'Delusion' in the UK: Read - a review of 'Transitory Life' and the public conversation in Brighton (UK) added

• 'Delusion' in Germany: Read. Look. (Part Two) - one review from Dresden, two more from Kassel / Hofgeismar, plus a video with interview excerpts recorded in Kassel added

• El sistema de l'ase i la pastanaga - a photo gallery from Girona (Spain) added

• Λόρι Αντερσον - a photo gallery from Athens (Greece) added

Λόρι Αντερσον (UPDATED)

That bunch of characters in the title is the Greek translation of "Laurie Anderson" - just my sad attempt to be in style since Laurie performs 'Delusion' in Athens tonight ("one of my favourite places in the whole world", she says). In a recent interview made by ESC TV (Greek tv show) she recalls her memories of working on the 2004 Olympics ceremony in Athens, and talks about 'Delusion' and her alter-ego Fenway Bergamot:

UPDATE: a bunch of photos of 'Delusion' in Athens where Fenway Bergamot's section had an extra reference to the then-current protests on Athens' Syntagma square as a special one-time update (thanks for the vigilance, timeiswide!).

'Delusion' in Athens, Greece
Badminton Theater, June 8, 2011
photo by Alexandra Katsarou 

More Talk Radio from Spain

Today's edition of Fluido rosa ( = "pink fluid"), Radio 3 Espagna's magazine about music and contemporary art features a different cut of the interview aired couple of days earlier on Radio 3, only this time with no Spanish overdubbing (and with additional parts not heard in the previous programme).

For starters Laurie performed two viola solos, then talked about 'Delusion' and about the making of 'Nothing in My Pockets', her audio diary created for French radio in 2003 (there's also an excerpt of it in the programme). Towards the end of the interview she also touched upon something that sounds, hm, quite electrifying to Mnemosyne's (and probably to some of this blog's readers') ears, namely:

"I think probably I'll put my archive on the web at some point. I'm just trying to figure out now how to do that - both the visual and the audio stuff."

(Laurie Anderson, June 2011)

Laurie's part is between 42:00 and 1:05:00 into the programme:

El sistema de l'ase i la pastanaga (UPDATED)

Click to the picture below for a short video coverage of Laurie Anderson's 'Delusion' in Girona, Spain:

the donkey-and-the-carrot system in Laurie Anderson's 'Delusion'

Girona, Spain, June 2011

UPDATE: bel bosCk Studio!'s surrealistically stylized photo set from Girona (click to the photo):

It's always raining in her dreams

Ilusión o engaño?

"It's in-between."

(Laurie Anderson's answer to the question in the title, which is "illusion or deception?"

in English translation and refers to the meaning of 'Delusion')

Listen to this morning's interview with Laurie Anderson on Radio 3 Espagna (it's partly mostly :( overdubbed in Spanish):

'Delusion' in Germany: Read. Look. (Part Two) (UPDATED)

Again: the titles in bold take you to the original articles (written in German), the English titles after the = signs link to their translation into English by Google. All links open in new windows.


Dresden:

• Traum ohne Deutung und mit Transformationen
  = Dream Without Meaning and with Transformations
  (Matthias Zwarg / Freie Presse)

• UPDATE: Begegnung mit der Performance-Künstlerin Laurie Anderson vor ihrem Auftritt im Festspielhaus Hellerau
  = Encounter with Performance Artist Laurie Anderson before Her Appearance at Festspielhaus Hellerau
  (Dresdner Neuesten Nachrichten)

Kassel / documenta Archiv:

• Laurie Anderson zeigt "delusion"
  = Laurie Anderson Presents 'Delusion'
  (Hessischer Rundfunk online)

• Visionen und Erinnerungen - Laurie Andersons "Delusion"
  = Visions and Memories - Laurie Anderson's 'Delusion
  (Kurt U. Heldmann / 24pr.de - with photos under the title 'Fotostrecke')

• documenta-Archiv feiert Laurie Anderson - Pionierin der Träume
  = Documenta Archive Celebrates Laurie Anderson - Pioneer of Dreams
  (Gaby Sohl / die tageszeitung)

• Auftritt Laurie Anderson
  = Laurie Anderson's Performance
  (Dirk Schwarze - with photos of the public conversation of May 29th)
  

Laurie Anderson in Hofgeismar / Kassel, Germany, May 2011

(photo by Dirk Schwarze)

• Wo die Sterne funkelten
  = Where the Stars Twinkled
  (Mark-Christian von Busse / Hessische/Niedersächsische Allgemeine Zeitung)

• Große Themen, kleine Episoden, kluge Gedanken
  = Big Issues, Small Episodes, Intelligent Thoughts
  (Göttinger Tageblatt)

• UPDATE: Auf der dunklen Seite des Mondes
  = On the Dark Side of the Moon
  (Gaby Sohl / die Tageszeitung)

• UPDATE: Laurie Anderson und wir in Kassel
  = Laurie Anderson and Us in Kassel
  (framboise / Katzenblog - another review and more photos from the public conversation of May 29)

• UPDATE: Mediaartbase – Das erste digitale Kunst-Archiv
  = Mediaartbase - The First Digital Art Archive
  arte tv's reportage, featuring interview excerpts with Laurie Anderson, saved for posterity on my YouTube channel:

'Delusion' in the UK: Read (UPDATED)

Reviews of 'Delusion' from Brighton, UK:

• Reviews: Brighton Festival – Laurie Anderson – Delusion
  (Andrew Kay, Latest7 Magazine)

• Laurie Anderson Mused on Memory & Then Broke New Ground in Sound @ Brighton Festival
  (Howard Young / The Brighton Magazine - this article is a blend of a review of the performance and the public conversation with Laurie Anderson the night before the concert)

• Laurie Anderson, Brighton Dome Concert Hall, May 26
  (Simon Lancaster / The Argus)

• Minimalist Magic: Laurie Anderson at the Brighton Dome, May 2011
  (Ian Hodgson)

• What do John Cale & Laurie Anderson have in common?
  (Louise Halvardsson)

• UPDATE: Laurie Anderson: Delusion and In Conversation (Gig-going Adventures Contd.)
  (Gavin Burrows)

What Laurie Anderson Sees in the Mirror...

In her own words of wizdom: Laurie Anderson reflects on her appearance in last Saturday's edition of Guardian*.



* Along with a ten-year-old portrait? Really??

When the Musician Meets the Explorer

"For me, art is about being able to see something or hear something in a really concentrated, focused way. It's not the stuff you put into museums. [...] To me, art is about being able to pay attention to the ocean sound that we live in, to start with, and the incredible things that we're seeing. And artists draw your attention to those things."

(Laurie Anderson at the Explorers Club in NYC, April 2011)

The Explorers Club uploaded their video of 'Music & Exploration – The Avant-garde Meets Exploration', a conversation between Laurie Anderson and David Rothenberg, recorded on April 25th, 2011:

The topics of the discussion were (amongst others): why animals sing, Laurie's concert for dogs in Sydney, researching dolphins' "talk", Lolabelle's illness and music therapy (alas, she has recently passed away :( ), the Estuarium ("it's great taking a dog to a fish museum" - L. A.), Laurie's rage against mp3 ("a horrible solution [for compressing audio data], crushing music to nothing"), a moving story about parrots' musical memory in a Vietnamese village; regret, image interpretation and self-expression - and many more.

'Delusion' in Germany: Look (Updated)

Laurie Anderson performing 'Delusion'

Berlin, Germany, May 2011

photo by Barbara Muerdter / Popkontext

More photos from Berlin:

• by Barbara Muerdter at Popkontext
• by Charlotte Jäckel at [030] Magazin Berlin
• by Michael Huebner at Flickr
• by Frank Hoensch at Gettyimages
• NEW: by Christian Behring

'Delusion' in Germany: Read (Part One)

Reactions to Laurie Anderson's 'Delusion' in Germany so far: the titles in bold take you to the original articles (written in German), the English titles after the = signs link to their translation into English by Google. All links open in new windows.


Berlin:

• Still und klar: Laurie Anderson in der Volksbühne
  = Calm and Clear: Laurie Anderson at Volksbühne
  (Volker Lüke / Der Tagesspiegel; roll down to the Pop section in the article)

• Historischer Applaus – Laurie Anderson in Berlin
  = Historical Applause - Laurie Anderson in Berlin
  (Julia Zange / SoundsLikeMe; for the time it's available only in Google's webcache)

• Laurie Anderson fragt: Habt ihr mich jemals geliebt? (Für diesen Multimediamurks jedenfalls nicht)
  = Laurie Anderson Asks: Did You Ever Really Love Me? (Well, for This Multimedia Hodge Podge, Not a Lot)
  (Markus Schneider / Berliner Zeitung)

• So war's: Laurie Anderson
  = That's How It Was: Laurie Anderson
  (Charlotte Jäckel / [030] Magazin Berlin)

Hamburg:

• Träumerei zu Geigenklängen
  = Rêverie for Violin
  (Dagmar Leischow / Schleswig-Holsteinischer Zeitungsverlag)

• Welt aus Wörtern
  = World Made of Words
  (Robert Matthies / die tageszeitung)

• Mit Laurie Anderson in eine Klang-Bild-Welt schweben
  = Floating with Laurie Anderson into a World of Sounds and Images
  (Heinrich Oehmsen / Hamburger Abendblatt)

• Eine Pauschalreise ins Bewusstsein
  = All-Inclusive Travel into Awareness
  (Heinrich Oehmsen / Hamburger Abendblatt)
  

• Geschichten
  = Stories
  (mr.boredom / mr.boredom's blog)

• Adieu Verblendung
  = Adieu to Delusion
  (Stefan Hentz / Die Welt)

• Laurie Anderson und ihre Welt aus rätselhaften Bildern und Klängen
  = Laurie Anderson and Her World of Enigmatic Images and Sounds
  (Hamburger Abendblatt)

• Andächtiges Staunen und Lauschen - Laurie Anderson auf Kampnagel/Hamburg
  = Reverently Marveling at and Listening to Laurie Anderson at Kampnagel/Hamburg
  (Holger Kistenmacher / Unser Lübeck)
  

Beruf: _ *

"Ich kann machen was ich will." **

(Laurie Anderson on the benefits of her career choice to be a multimedia artist)

Zdf.kulturpalast's coverage of Laurie Anderson's 'Delusion' in Germany - after Berlin / before Hamburg:

* Beruf = occupation
** "[I] can do whatever [I] feel like."

HHugs.

Poster for Laurie Anderson's 'Delusion'

Hamburg, Germany, May 2011

photo by Mnemosyne

Eine Kulturikone in Krems

A short reportage about / interview with Laurie Anderson in Krems an der Donau, Austria (attention: it's overdubbed in German):

Studiogast bei radioeins

Yesterday Laurie Anderson was the guest of radio eins' studio in Potsdam / Berlin, Germany:

• German-English interview with Laurie Anderson, radio eins (audio length: 15 mins 23 secs)

"Deals with the Spiritual Issues..." - the Transcript

Here's the transcript of 'Refiguring the Spiritual', a conversation between Laurie Anderson and the public on the 10th of February, 2011 at Columbia University. (I have already linked the audio recording of the conversation on this blog.)