apr 18 now now soon always The Complicité’s acclaimed production is based on the life-changing experience of impact a photographer lost in the rainforest. The different reactions it provoked around the world reveal the power of its messages, says co-director of The Kirsty Housley. Encounter Complicté’s Simon McBurney interacts with the binaural head, affectionately known as ‘Fritz’. © Robbie Jack 1 barbican.org.uk now soon always Since it was first performed at the Barbican in to put headphones on people: it’s a real 2016, Complicité’s The Encounter has travelled contradiction because it’s a collective the world. From Broadway to Berlin, it’s met experience, but it’s also an individual one.’ people of different cultures and backgrounds What is Yet no matter where it’s been performed, one and provoked some interesting responses in thing comes through clearly, says Housley: those who’ve seen it. ‘Most audiences have more in common than For this is no ordinary production. they have differences, which is really what the show is about.’ binaural It is the story of National Geographic photographer Loren McIntyre, who in 1969 Directing the work had a significant impact on found himself lost among the people of the Housley, she admits. remote Javari Valley in Brazil. It was an ‘It’s something that was already in me, but as a encounter that was to change his life. sound? result of the show, I’ve tried even harder to adapt my lifestyle to be as ecologically sound as possible. I try to be conscious of what I Binaural recordings People in different countries consume and how I consume it. I don’t buy reproduce sound the respond in different ways anything new. You become aware of what you eat, what you buy, how you travel and just the way human ears hear it. sheer quantity of everything. That’s the real It creates an illusion To tell the tale, Complicité founder Simon problem – we consume too much. McBurney asks audiences to don headphones of a distinct and ‘These tribal people and indigenous and transports them to the world of the communities understand what we’re doing to 360-degree sound. rainforest, through binaural technology. The the planet and what we’re doing wrong. It’s results are powerfully intimate. led me to produce work about climate change ‘People in different countries respond in because I think it’s the most important question different ways,’ says co-director Kirsty Housley. of our times. ‘The reaction from audiences in Australia and ‘But there are lots of themes in the story and New Zealand was quite extraordinary. There’s that’s just one of them that spoke particularly a theme in the work about how indigenous to me. If you’re pre-disposed to notice that and populations are treated which resonated very you’re already thinking about it, it jumps out at strongly with those theatre-goers. you. But at the heart of it is how we live and ‘Interestingly, it didn’t have the same reaction why, and whether there’s another way for us in the USA. to live.’ ‘In the UK, people often key into the narrative about how we communicate with people who The Encounter are different to us. 14 Apr–5 May See page 9 for details ‘There’s a certain way of looking at consciousness that’s very Western, very individualistic – and that’s why it’s interesting Simon McBurney with the binaural head To make such lifelike sounds, it requires a special microphone which simulates a human head. Two microphones are built into its ear canals, which allow it to detect the location of noises around it in the same way a human ear does. This means you can hear sounds as if they were in front, behind, left, right, above or below you. If someone whispers in the ear of the head, it’s like they’re whispering in your own ear. Binaural recording itself isn’t new – there were performances of binaural stereo in some shape or form as far back as 1881. Then in the 1970s the special dummy head microphones became commercially available; they’ve been used since in some radio plays and by a number of playwrights and musicians. But a buzz has really picked up recently with the increasing interest in Virtual Reality headsets. Kirsty Housley © Helen Murray April 2018 2 now courtesy of the artist Another , 1977, The Disquiet The Kind of Life , from Untitled Igor Palmin, Featuring LGBTQ communities, outlaws, Our new exhibition romantic rebels, survivalists, the economically highlights the work of dispossessed and those who openly flout social convention, these works present the 20 photographers who outsider as an agent of change. From street share deeply personal and photography to portraiture, vernacular albums to documentary reportage, the show intimate portraits includes Bruce Davidson, Casa Susanna of people from collection, Paz Errázuriz, Seiji Kurata, Mary disenfranchised Ellen Mark and Dayanita Singh. communities. Another Kind of Life: Photography on the Margins Until 27 May Part of The Art of Change See page 7 for details 3 barbican.org.uk now soon always How to perform a huge orchestral piece on just two pianos Musician and composer Timo Andres explains that by stripping back a work, it reveals hidden subtleties. The sheer physicality of The Rite of Spring is one of the reasons for its reputation. In the hands of a full symphonic orchestra, the rhythms feel like the thunder of the pagan gods to whom the dancer is sacrificed. So isn’t playing this monster of a piece on just two pianos akin to covering Iron Maiden on the recorder? Absolutely not. In fact, Stravinsky played piano versions of The Rite of Spring for trusted colleagues during preparation of the orchestral score. He also wrote piano arrangements of all of his ballets for use in planning choreography and in rehearsing dancers. So when Timo Andres and David Kaplan perform The Rite of Spring on two pianos, it’s actually the blueprint upon which the orchestral arrangement was built. But how much of a difference does it make to the music when it’s stripped back like this? ‘One does hear different things when it’s played by pianos because you take out the element of sustain,’ says Andres. ‘So what you’re hearing is a greater degree of transparency and harmonic clarity. That allows the harmony, which is sometimes obscured by the orchestra, to come through. It means you can hear the inner working of the music. ‘I’ve loved The Rite of Spring since I was 14 years old, but there’s no room for a pianist Timo Andres © Michael Wilson in the orchestration so it’s incredibly satisfying to be able to get the music and get my hands music: it can translate to different mediums – on it.’ it doesn’t so much depend on just sheer volume or massed sound. There’s another important benefit of playing it this way, he says: ‘I can’t hope to be as loud as ‘This work has different subtleties on the piano. a full orchestra, but I can be much softer, For me, it sounds much more rational in its which works out to be a powerful experience. instrumentation, it’s not total chaos, it’s actually That’s one of the things about a great piece of very clearly put together.’ Barbican The Rite of Spring & Rachmaninov’s Recommends Symphonic Dances 27 Apr Want to know what our staff are listening See page 14 for details to as they bring you some of the world’s greatest artists? Our Barbican Recommends Playlist is updated every month and features what we’ve been listening to in the office. No Britney, we promise! April 2018 4 now The Latin American musicians who transformed Hollywood Did you know that many of the most recognisable film themes were written by Latin American composers? The role of Latin American musicians in arranger in the 1950s. People loved him and really sound like Esquivel, but the fact they Hollywood is what’s been called an ‘open would say he was “the only gringo composer asked an experimental Mexican record secret’. It’s not hidden in the sense that it’s who gets Latin music”, but his name was composer for this work says a lot about been suppressed from the top down, but actually Juan Manuel Cascales, and he’d his value as a composer.’ certainly it’s not talked about openly. changed it to be more Western in order to ‘Something else that’s not as well-known is just be accepted.’ Professor Josh Kun of the University of how many Latin American musicians have Southern California researched the strong ties Lalo Schifrin played in some of the biggest groups in the between the most famous centre of Western ‘Composer of the Mission Impossible theme. world. Musicians such as Alex Acuña, played film and its immigrant musicians for This piece of music couldn’t have been created with the likes of Elvis, Diana Ross, Paul Sonorama!, which celebrates the work of these by anyone who didn’t have a knowledge of McCartney, Whitney Houston and many more.’ key cultural influencers. He picks some of his South American musicians or percussion.’ favourite composers… Juan García Esquivel Sonorama! Johnny Richards ‘Often simply known as Esquivel, he was 20 Apr ‘His story is one I’d never heard before. People chosen by Universal Studios to create the See page 8 for details will know him because he wrote a song called unique two-second sound blast which ended ‘Young at Heart’ for Frank Sinatra; he also all their television programmes.