StoryTelling Corner: 27th February. Temperance Cafe. Leamington.
'Don't Lose Your Head Over Love'
The stage at Temperance was a perfect venue for this evening of love, found and lost along with a head or two. The evening began with old and new friends meeting for coffee and cakes in the cafe before descending the steps to the basement theatre where the 'entertainment' was to begin. Where would these tales of love and gruesome loss take us?
Helen Liebling began with our Charity of Choice, talking about her work in Social Enterprises with South Sudanese refugees in Uganda. https://ischp.net/2019/05/01/research-informed-social-enterprises-with-south-sudanese-refugees-in-uganda-a-partnership-project/>
We were able to donate £30 to the charity from our door money and £10 from the sale of necklaces.
Our first performer, Tom Goss was a new face to the community and reading his work for the first time. Tom's two stories covered both sides of the theme with his first offering from his works about 'love' within a remote community. One joyous, one very evil, a darker tale of people trying to make sense of their feelings against very different odds.
Tom was followed by author and performer Justin Tai Sen Choy with a reading of his, yet to be released novel about a 'Teddy bear'. But, in keeping with the atmosphere and the theme, this was to be no simple kiddy's comforter. Justin has performed for many live audiences and knows how to project to the whole room. I'm looking forward to the next chapter in this tale.
Our 'dark' theme was lit up by the performance of Eduardo Jara, a friend and welcome visitor to StoryTelling Corner with his music, his mask performances and tales of his father's birthplace up to and including the horrific stories of dictatorship in his native Peru. Eduardo entertained us with two songs, one of a father to his new born child; a young working woman who had 5 minutes to meet her lover during work breaks and, finally, this time in French, one of his mother's favourite songs. Real entertainment.
Our evening ended with performances from the, brilliant, duo of Taresh Solanki and Emma Sian Cooper. Whenever I see them work together I sit back and enjoy the mastery of their art. It's impossible to tie them down because I have seen them both morph into characters from history brought to life in adapted stories.
This evening they treated us to a performance of a Scottish folktale King, nearing his death with the dilemma of which of his three daughter's to leave his kingdom to. Titled 'Love Is More Than Salt' it is a play with rejection, banishment and redemption as its theme to go with our call for love.
Their second act took us into the realms of Ganesh and Shiva, where Ganesh, the God of New Beginnings, success and wisdom, loses his head to be replaced by that of an elephant. The rich quality of Emma's voice married to the dramatic (sometimes zany) comedy of Taresh's act makes this couple the highlight of any evening and they will always be welcome at STC. *I believe their next performance will be at the Ventnor Fringe, on the Isle of Wight. F<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganesha>
https://vfringe.co.uk/
If you have the chance...buy a ticket to see them. Our next StoryTelling Corner is on Thursday March 26th at Temperance. So, if you are a storyteller or a story lover we'd love for you to join our community.
No comments:
Post a Comment