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

Laurie Anderson Live in San Remo 2001

"Cantiamo hey, hey, nonny hey"

In 2001, Laurie Anderson was awarded by the Tenco Prize (Premio Tenco) for songwriting in San Remo. She also performed a set of songs at the ceremony. By clicking to the picture above, you can enjoy the concert in its entirety :)

Setlist:

1. Strange Angels
2. Wildebeests (in Italian)
3. One Beautiful Evening (in mixed Italo-English) *
4. Poison
5. Broken
6. Progress (a. k. a. The Dream Before)
7. Beginning French (in Italian)
8. O Superman
9. Slip Away
10. White Lily
11. Puppet Motel
12. Love Among the Sailors

* caution: suggestive performance!

Rome Coverage

Click to the picture above for Mauro Fagiani's concert photos of Laurie Anderson's 'Delusion' in Rome, Italy, December 2010.


Plus Italian tv's reportage about Laurie Anderson's and Nina Hagen's recent performances in Rome:

Concert Photography from Italia

Laurie Anderson in Firenze, Nov 2010

photo by Carlo Valentini

Laurie Anderson in Italy, 1988

Photo by Carlo Valentini

Hint: click to any of the photos for more Laurie Anderson concert portraits from Italy by photographer Carlo Valentini.

'Transitory Life' in Bilbao

'Transitory Life' in Bilbao, Spain, last night:

(FYI: this video is available in HD, too - if you click to it more than once, it will direct you to the Youtube page)

"Like Fine Wine"

Read Cheryl Martlage's review of 'Delusion' in Florence, Italy (in English), along with a neat description of Laurie Anderson's art,  the specifically Italian atmosphere of the event, plus a stage photo and video.

"Anatomical Study of the Soul of Laurie Anderson"

A review of 'Delusion' in Firenze in the Italian Rolling Stone Magazine - thanks to Google, we can read the English translation of it. Also worth checking out the photo gallery along the article.

'Delusion' in Firenze

'Delusion' in Firenze, November 2010

photo by giagir / Flickr

For more photos of 'Delusion' in Firenze, click to giagir's album.

'Transitory Life' in Bucharest

Read here the English translation of Catavencu's blogger's Perfect Night with Laurie Anderson and 'Transitory Life' which left him near to...

'Belfast' and Laurie Anderson in Bucharest, Romania, Nov 2010

... speechless.

'Transitory Life' in Chorzów

Laurie Anderson's 'Transitory Life', Chorzów, Nov 2010

Photo by Adam Jędrysik / muzyka.onet.pl

Click here for more concert photos from Chorzów, Poland.

Laurie Anderson in Bucharest

The frantic instrumental beginning of 'Transitory Life' in Bucharest last night (yes, the sound is that overwhelming):

"The Real, the Unreal, and the Surreal"

Two fresh reviews of 'Delusion' at the Clarice Smith Performance Center in College Park, Maryland:

• Meditating on a Mother's Limited Love by Anne Midgette (originally in the Washington Post) focuses on the mother aspect of the piece

• Woe Man, Woah Man's recent review compares the experience to "watching the unconscious open up and put on a play"

More 'Delusion' Concert Photos

Laurie Anderson's 'Delusion' in Los Angeles, October 2010

Photo by Sung

... just found even more recent concert photos of 'Delusion', this time from UCLA, Royce Hall in Los Angeles, CA.

More Questions Than Answers

Jeff Moehlis gives quite a detailed description of Laurie Anderson’s Grand ‘Delusion’ in his review of the recent Santa Barbara performance, along with an extensive photo gallery of the event.

Laurie Anderson's 'Delusion' in Santa Barbara, October 2010
Photo by L. Paul Mann

A Bunch of Recent Conversations

Eat. Sleep. Read. Enjoy.

• Dreams and 'Delusions' - Bob Goepfert's interview with "one of the most successful artists most people don’t know" on TroyRecord

• Laurie Anderson Returns to UCSB - the physic psychic (!!) side of 'Delusion'

• The Sunday Conversation: Laurie Anderson - Irene Lacher's conversation with the "irrepressible globetrotter" in the LA Times; on 'Delusion', I in U / Eu em Tu, Bob Dylan, pushing buttons, playing music for dogs and more.

Laurie Anderson and Lolabelle
Photo by Carolyn Cole / L. A. Times

Smells Like Some Gaps in the Map...

• Nov 5-14 2010: Estoril Film Festival (Portugal) - member of the jury along with Lou Reed
• Nov 6 2010: East Sussex (UK) - Transitory Life
• Nov 9 2010: Chorzow (Poland) - Transitory Life
• Nov 11 2010: Bucharest (Romania) - Transitory Life
• Nov 13 2010: Florence / Firence (Italy) - Delusion
• Nov 25 2010: Bilbao (Spain) - Transitory Life
• Dec 2 2010: Rome (Italy) - Delusion

... but hey! Laurie is coming to Europe this fall!!! Go and check out the dates and venues and ticket infos on Angelika's recently updated Spreken website and take a look at the Strange Angel on the Brooklyn Bridge! :)