(© Phile Deprez)
When Needcompany’s Grace Ellen Barkey goes to work on a bunch of mushrooms with the visual artist Lot Lemm and the legendary US anonymous avant-garde group the Residents, it just has to lead to the acceptance of all fungi.
For her latest show, Mush-Room, not only is Grace Ellen Barkey backed up by a little army of really handsome hanging, dancing, and talking mushrooms, but she has at her disposal a score specially written for her by the Residents – who, as it happens, are in Leuven this week as part of their Wonders of Weird birthday tour. How did that unlikely alliance come about? Grace Ellen Barkey: “I have been following them for a very long time. When I am putting together a show, there are a few records that I play a lot. Zappa, for example – but the Residents are always there too. When I am preparing a show, I want to get into a sort of trip, and the hysteria of the Residents is just right for that.”
Grace Ellen Barkey & the magic mushroom party
So you know who the musicians behind the Residents are?
Grace Ellen Barkey: I prefer not to tell our joint story. And I don’t speak on their behalf either. At some stage we will hold a sort of press moment, with representatives who will speak on behalf of the Residents. Our relationship goes back a long way and two years ago I asked whether I could use one of their records for a show. Then they suggested writing new music. It has only rarely happened that I constantly put my ideas into words straight away for someone else. They always reacted straight away with music. We were in ongoing contact for two years. When all the music was ready, I started to listen very intensely to it and I also felt a responsibility to make really good use of it.
What was the first idea you had for this show?
Barkey: It is autumn. We are in a forest of mushrooms and the mushrooms are hanging upside down. That idea had something melancholy about it, but it is impossible to do something melancholy with the Residents. Their music is so hysterical and full of life that at a given moment I had to beg them to give me something slow for once. That was difficult, but in the end they did come up with a slow number, which is called “Song for Grace”.
Did you need mushrooms to come up with a mushroom idea like that?
Barkey: No, it was just there in my head. How or why is, in any case, of no interest now. There is some psychedelia in the show alright. The mushrooms are a happy bunch. They have set up a group – a party, in fact. They intend to start a revolution. And for mushrooming mushrooms it is not difficult to conquer the world. Mush-Room is like Don Quixote. We fight against the wind and we find that really important. We are all Sisyphus and keep on rolling our stone back up the hill with a smile.
Can you give a name to the battle they are waging?
Barkey: No. We are fighting against everything. Against narrow-mindedness, against weariness in this fucking world, and for art. What are we going to do if art is abolished? Then the world will be just one big ruin and the people who are left over will wonder at whom they can still throw the stone they are sitting on. For they have already stoned the women, the children, the artists, and the foreigners to death.
The show is about nothing at all. I try to be as illogical as possible and this time I was really stubborn about that. But I want to show that we can look at things differently and think differently. I find looking very important. Theatre is a puppet show in which you can create a whole world that you don’t know yet. That is the emotion of this show and that is Needcompany too. You do feel what the show is about.
The mushrooms that you and Lot Lemm made look lovely. Can you tell us something more about the form of the show?
Barkey: The form of the mushrooms is, of course, very important. The whole installation on the stage is of vital importance. But it is not just a set: it is alive too. The material is used by the seven actors, who are at once dancers and performers. They are mushrooms too. They too are on a trip and are looking for the freedom to make a different gesture every time.
(Photo in text © Phile Deprez)
THE RESIDENTS: AN ODE TO THE IMAGINATION
It was the album The Third Reich ’n Roll (1976) that Needcompany had in mind when work began on Mush-Room. For Grace Ellen Barkey, it is a superb record that “because of its hysterical transformation of pop music” goes to the heart of what the Residents are all about.
Grace Ellen Barkey: I prefer not to tell our joint story. And I don’t speak on their behalf either. At some stage we will hold a sort of press moment, with representatives who will speak on behalf of the Residents. Our relationship goes back a long way and two years ago I asked whether I could use one of their records for a show. Then they suggested writing new music. It has only rarely happened that I constantly put my ideas into words straight away for someone else. They always reacted straight away with music. We were in ongoing contact for two years. When all the music was ready, I started to listen very intensely to it and I also felt a responsibility to make really good use of it.
What was the first idea you had for this show?
Barkey: It is autumn. We are in a forest of mushrooms and the mushrooms are hanging upside down. That idea had something melancholy about it, but it is impossible to do something melancholy with the Residents. Their music is so hysterical and full of life that at a given moment I had to beg them to give me something slow for once. That was difficult, but in the end they did come up with a slow number, which is called “Song for Grace”.
Did you need mushrooms to come up with a mushroom idea like that?
Barkey: No, it was just there in my head. How or why is, in any case, of no interest now. There is some psychedelia in the show alright. The mushrooms are a happy bunch. They have set up a group – a party, in fact. They intend to start a revolution. And for mushrooming mushrooms it is not difficult to conquer the world. Mush-Room is like Don Quixote. We fight against the wind and we find that really important. We are all Sisyphus and keep on rolling our stone back up the hill with a smile.
Can you give a name to the battle they are waging?
Barkey: No. We are fighting against everything. Against narrow-mindedness, against weariness in this fucking world, and for art. What are we going to do if art is abolished? Then the world will be just one big ruin and the people who are left over will wonder at whom they can still throw the stone they are sitting on. For they have already stoned the women, the children, the artists, and the foreigners to death.
The show is about nothing at all. I try to be as illogical as possible and this time I was really stubborn about that. But I want to show that we can look at things differently and think differently. I find looking very important. Theatre is a puppet show in which you can create a whole world that you don’t know yet. That is the emotion of this show and that is Needcompany too. You do feel what the show is about.
The mushrooms that you and Lot Lemm made look lovely. Can you tell us something more about the form of the show?
Barkey: The form of the mushrooms is, of course, very important. The whole installation on the stage is of vital importance. But it is not just a set: it is alive too. The material is used by the seven actors, who are at once dancers and performers. They are mushrooms too. They too are on a trip and are looking for the freedom to make a different gesture every time.
(Photo in text © Phile Deprez)
THE RESIDENTS: AN ODE TO THE IMAGINATION
It was the album The Third Reich ’n Roll (1976) that Needcompany had in mind when work began on Mush-Room. For Grace Ellen Barkey, it is a superb record that “because of its hysterical transformation of pop music” goes to the heart of what the Residents are all about.
The iconic Californian avant-garde outfit was never just a band. The concept was always every bit as important as the music itself. In fact, they make music about music. Often, this meta-sound amounts to a critique or a deconstruction of (what we normally regard as) music. So there is a natural connection with Needcompany, which in the past has made use of the work of John Cage. The Residents now have forty years of a career behind them – their legendary first single, “Santa Dog”, came out in 1972 – a fact they will celebrate with a European tour, starting later this month, which will go by the not inappropriate name of Wonders of Weird. That tour kicks off on 24 April in Het Depot in Leuven. Even now, the members of the band won’t be showing their true faces. For down all those years, their anonymity has been an integral element of their vision, a necessity even, for making their concept work. By not focusing on individuals, they could concentrate entirely on juggling with their eccentric experiments, which find expression in grotesque humour, cryptic, surrealist lyrics, and a theatrical, often multimedia presentation. New technologies have always been embraced, as they have helped them to strike out in new directions. These days the members of the band do have names: according to their Facebook page, they are called Randy (the doddery singer with the old-man mask), Chuck, and Bob (the instrumentalists, virtuoso performers on guitar, but equally at home with iPad and MacBook). But don’t be deceived by that: after over sixty albums, countless video and film projects, and seven world tours, they are all still very much on the same wavelength of unbridled imagination. You could call their shows performances, even works of art…but not like any you’ve seen before. (TP)
MUSH-ROOM • 19 & 20/4: 20.30, 21/4: 15.00, €12/16, Kaaitheater, square Sainctelettesquare 20, Brussel/Bruxelles, 02-201.59.59, tickets@kaaitheater.be, www.kaaitheater.be
MUSH-ROOM • 19 & 20/4: 20.30, 21/4: 15.00, €12/16, Kaaitheater, square Sainctelettesquare 20, Brussel/Bruxelles, 02-201.59.59, tickets@kaaitheater.be, www.kaaitheater.be
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