Disillusion

One that got away: 

The Drama of The Raven

Remember Edgar Allen Poe's poem The Raven?

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, 

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore— 

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping 

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. 

'Tis some visitor, I muttered, tapping at my chamber door - Only this and nothing more....... 

First fear, then curiosity takes over. The knocking continues. Who's there? It turns out to be a raven that flies in and refuses to leave. Yet amazingly he can talk - although with only one word: "Nevermore". Was it a comment on the narrator's mourning of his lost love?

Inspired by this poem, in 2012 Toshio Hosokawa composed an intensely thrilling and scary monodrama for the mezzo-soprano Charlotte Hellekant and ensemble. I saw several video recordings of outstanding performances, but one thing appeared to be missing. A dramatic kinetic atmosphere to enhance the nightmare of the story-line. 

So in 2013, after my performances of kinetic painting Cloud & Light, with Toshio conducting, were so well received, and with a newly discovered affinity with Toshio's music, I proposed setting his The Raven to kinetic painting. I think he liked the idea. Thoroughly inspired, I got the score and hired a model simply to pose (not move) in a few abstract static studio projections (some of which you see here), mere "sketches" to illustrate my ideas. 

Multiple emails and international meetings with producers, agents, Charlotte and Toshio himself followed. 

And it all came to nothing. After all those efforts, the disillusion was intense.

You often never discover exactly why creative proposals (and there have been so many) don't come to fruition. There may be hidden agreements or contracts that are never revealed. Did the managers feel that their singer would be over-shadowed? Was it the production costs? Was it because I didn't have an agent negotiating essential support in the performance jungle? Or was my pitch on the dramatic potential of kinetic painting to music not good enough? In this case it might have been the decision of one man in a major venue, that closed the door on this proposal. I was left frustrated, baffled and somewhat bitter.

And that's just one example of a classic disillusion. I know, I know, I'm in good company of many creative artists through the ages whose ideas were not seized on by the right producers. You need the right connections, good timing and good luck. And then the courage not to give up.

But to end on a positive note, over the years I have in fact experienced glorious exceptions: those visionaries who "got the message" and who were also a joy to work with, including Yehudi Menuhin, The Netherlands Dance Theatre, Sir Simon Rattle, TV Director Jonathan Fulford for BBC, Hans Ferwerda for the Concertgebouw Orchestra, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Hyo and Kyung Kang of the Sejong Soloists, Ronald Vermeulen in Amsterdam and Bergen, Sven Tepl for the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, Daniel Hope, and now (next season) Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla with the CBSO. My heartfelt thanks to all of them.

Loneliness

The loneliness of creativity

This is an edited version of a blog from 2013. Today, every artist, writer, composer will still recognise these problems. 

"It must be lovely to be able to paint". Ha - you have no idea! Creativity is a lonely business. Hours and weeks of working alone in the studio. Succoured only by habit, by some sort of inner discipline, by the need to earn a living and by the encouragement of each little creative discovery. The fact is that very often, you feel at a loss to know how to start and nobody can help you. In your desperation you forget that this feeling is a creative prelude. You sweep the floor, drink coffee, eat chocolate, procrastinate, wonder why you became an artist, listen to music, mess around with sketches and colours, just playing, letting something happen…..until unexpectedly, interesting little things start to appear in the messy kinetic painting. Your coffee gets cold. An hour or two goes by before you discover this, then you realise that you’re in the flow. Read Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s brilliant book Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. It’s a long story, but “flow” is a state of deep satisfaction and drive, brought about by a synergy of factors, experienced from time to time by scientists, street-sweepers, artists, carpenters, writers – you name it. It comes from being totally absorbed in a search for creative solutions, then better solutions. And not allowing yourself to get distracted. There’s no easy recipe for how to get started, but once you find the “flow” you're up and away. 

Krishnamurti once said that true creativity can only happen in a “free fall” situation. A unconditional leap in the dark, letting go of the worries about what people will think of this piece, whether it will provide bread on the table next month, what the critics will say. You don’t know what you’re doing and the unknown necessitates creativity.

Sometimes I just follow my intuition, in a state of wonder at what is happening up on my rehearsal screen in the studio. A sort of ecstasy (from the Greek "standing outside yourself"), as though somebody else, or perhaps the music, is doing this. If this is difficult to imagine, watch some of my rough studio tryouts on YouTube. It's that ecstasy that makes me want to exclaim: "oh - you should see this!"

It's that ecstasy, those moments of creation, that I try to take with me to the concert hall, standing on stage in a performance with my overhead projectors and the musicians. Yes, I do have my visual choreography, a lifetime of painting skills, weeks of practicing, and I’m more or less following the music. Well, which is it? More, or less? (Both, actually). You have thousands of people, including television viewers, following the movements of your brush, wondering - what will it do next? You let the audience watch the sensual visuals evolve and dissolve - they may be closer to a unique creative moment than they’ve ever been before. I’m exposing my emotions, my passion and my vulnerability and as I paint, I can feel the reactions in the hall, sense their blushes, their joy or their angst. This is the ultimate form of my "flow", the therapy for my loneliness - the opportunity and joy of being able to share my kinetic works immediately as they take shape. The loneliness of the studio was, after all, a stepping stone to a shared emotion through performance.

On a screen of 9 x 6 m., my kinetic images to Scriabin's "Poem of Ecstasy" flow and shudder and fall apart like a prolonged gigantic orgasm. Oh dear, in front of two thousand people in the Amsterdam Royal Concertgebouw? Hey, it was Scriabin's idea! All the details are annotated in his score, the original of which carried the title "Orgiastic Poem".

The applause has died down and the series of “very nice” reactions have come your way. You go back to your dressing room and have to scramble to get out, because the hall is closing down. You’re no longer welcome. You’re lucky if there’s a drink afterwards or really lucky if you’re invited to dinner - if the restaurants are still open. Back at the hotel or home, exhausted, the adrenaline drying up (or whatever adrenaline does), you try to remember anything meaningful of the well-meant compliments on your performance. "You took me out of this world - I don’t know how you do it!” You tell me.

But what I really miss is enlightened discussion with fellow artists! I write blogs that seem to be read worldwide. But who comments? “I’m at a loss for words”, one sighs. Should I take that as a compliment? Write to me, you spectators, readers, composers, writers, artists! How does the creative process work for you? Let's help each other.
I challenge you: normanperryman@gmail.com!

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