Monday, March 18th .....

We’re in the middle of Ten Days on the Island, an International Arts Festival which was launched in Tasmania 11 or 12 years ago.  The premise is to invited artists and performer from other island, in celebration of island life, so in the past we’ve had people from Iceland, the Shetlands, New Zealand, Singapore and so on.  The first Artistic Director was Robyn Archer; Leo Schofield took it on for a few years and currently it is Jo Duffy.  It’s run every second year and the directors always manage to find extraordinary acts from around the world.

The festival runs right across the state and it’s not unusual to see a performance under a tree in Zeehan, or on a beach at St Helens.  Deloraine always has two or three events which are all well-attended.  On Friday, we had 21 Circus Acts in 20 Minutes, performed on the riverbank with hordes of kids from the local schools and last night was a Corsican group called A Filetta in the local church. 

A Filetta is a group of 6 men who sing a capella in their own language and in French.  They look more like a bunch of navvies than singers but their voices are angelic.  They choose to perform in historic churches as they believe the atmosphere and acoustics enhance their sound.  Certainly, the audience (congregation?) was astounded by what they heard.

First, though, we had the problem of actually getting to the show.  We didn’t read the instructions properly or we would have known that we were expected to book our tickets on-line before the night. Happily, we weren’t the only ones who were derelict and a dozen of us had to wait until everyone who had done the right thing had arrived and taken their seats.  Another dozen chairs were then squeezed in and we were accommodated. 

The six Corsicans filed in and, from the first note, we were enthralled.  One of the men looked like Mr Punch with a hook nose and a nutcracker chin coming up to meet it.  Unlike the others, who stood calmly and sang their parts, Mr Punch leaned forward, girning and gesturing with his hands in front of his face.  Probably, he was conducting in an eccentric Corsican way.  Every note he sang seemed to be squeezed out with great effort while the others made it look so easy.

It was something of a one-trick pony.  Many of the pieces were short, almost like practice pieces but one item had a traditional structure like a song and it was easily the most enjoyable.  I thought I recognised it as a Celtic song but as it was in French, I really couldn’t tell.  Several times during the performance, Mr Punch spoke to the audience obviously explaining what was going on.  However, as it was in Corsican and/or French, we were none the wiser.  We managed to pick out some individual words: tres bien, merci aussi, and so on.  I thought I heard the word ‘muerte’ as well but that’s Spanish.

Anyway, we’ve had our dose of culture for this week and that’s positive.