Taliesin - Audience Feedback
In conversation after the show:
‘It was difficult at first because I didn’t understand the language and I couldn’t read the translation in the dark but when I let go of that and made my own meaning of the sounds and images I enjoyed it.’
‘It felt like a chill out room at a Festival.’
‘I enjoyed the moment the lights and screens went dark and you wondered around the space playing a slow melody on the violin.’
‘The instrumentals between the poems could be longer and the poems shorter.’
‘The show was a tad too long.’
‘I loved the stripped down beats the first time they appeared……. too many of them later on.’
‘The musical arrangements got too complicated towards the end.’
‘The swimmer moving from screen to screen was beautiful.’
‘The reeds were beautiful.’
‘I thought the bubbling cauldron images a bit boring
It took awhile for the images to get going at the beginning of the show.’
‘Fantastic material! visual and musical but it needs fine tuning.
I thought the solo violin bit was the end it felt like a closure so I was surprised when you started singing again.’
‘Needs to be less than an hour.’
‘The sound balance wasn’t right at the beginning but got better throughout the show.’
‘ It would be a nice idea to speak some of the poetry to add variety to the performance.’
‘Extraordinary ! Amazing! The images have stayed in my mind:
The horizontal figure in space, the figure sitting down and slowly moving, the swimmer,
The reeds.’
‘The drawings and the prints need to have more of a presence on the screens.’
‘It would be a good idea to have a leaflet that gives the background to Hanes Taliesin that the audience could read before seeing the show.’
‘More writing and drawings and less video.’
‘More space between things.’
‘Sometimes it was like a preacher declaiming.’
Thank you for your performance this evening, I really enjoyed it. I think your voice is wonderful and the fiddle was gorgeous. There were moments when I felt I understood the story a bit more : the fire images with drum and base and your soaring melodies, the image of you in the water, the stones being born, coming out of the water all clean and new.
Do you think a knowledge of the Hanes Taliesin would deepen an audience’s connection with the piece ?
Just to say again that I thought that the Taliesin work in progress was very inspiring; it’s a really good piece of work in the making. It was a good idea to give copies of the whole written text – thanks. Personally I loved hearing it all, though I know that some cutting and or re-focussing of the structure might be needed to strengthen the overall shape and dynamic.
It’s a big task to learn the text, but it would be great if you did!
I enjoyed your performance very much. I thought you had a great stage presence perfect in the black and red. the sound was superb and the structure was effective and did carry a lot of emotion and atmosphere. Great material Perhaps the show was a bit long.