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Defixiones: Orders from the Dead brings audience to their feet

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  • Defixiones: Orders from the Dead brings audience to their feet

    Defixiones: Orders from the Dead brings audience to their feet
    by DANIEL ARIARATNAM

    The Record (Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, Canada)
    May 2, 2005 Monday Final Edition

    "We should guard our dead and their power, lest by some hour our
    opponents disinter them and take them away."

    Those were the opening words of a morbidly toned theatrical spectacle
    that culminated in a standing ovation.

    Saturday night's Defixiones: Orders from the Dead concert at Zion
    Church saw singer Diamanda Galas engulf the sold out audience with
    her death obsessed avant-guarde art.

    Galas is known for having one of the most unique voices in new
    music. It is neither the voice of a virtuoso pop singer nor that
    of a conservatory trained opera singer. It is the expression of
    a relentlessly personal vision: a vocalization of solitary inner
    expression that forces the audience to confront the music and message.

    The tone for the show was set in the opening numbers and from then
    on there was virtually no dramatic or musical variance.

    Instead, every last drop of life was squeezed from the static death
    tone. This mono-dramatic aura completely drove home and blanketed
    the audience in the ambience and message: the injustice and human
    casualties suffered through the Armenian, Assyrian and Anatolian
    Greek genocides.

    Musically, the night consisted of several numbers blended together
    in a flowing structure that created a cohesive singular whole. The
    performance was one long composition consisting of a virtuoso voice
    accompanied by tape and occasionally live piano.

    Proving less is more, Galas has created a highly theatrical show
    by completely stripping down production elements. The music on tape
    consisted of ambient soundscape accompaniments, chanting and singing
    in exotic languages and repetitive percussive industrial music loops.
    The arrangements were neither lush nor cluttered, but orchestrated
    to allow the few sonic elements to receive undivided attention.

    The stripped down minimal nature also carried over to the drama.

    The show was blocked to allow Galas to take only four positions:
    stage right, stage left, at the piano and front stage centre. All
    her actions, which included walking between the four positions and
    putting on sunglasses, were executed to heighten the tempo of the mood:
    a grave atmospheric largo.

    As a performer, Galas has a carefully crafted presence.

    Costumed in a black dress and a black hooded cape, the singer
    symbolized a physical manifestation of death. Most dramatic of all,
    was when she soloed from centre stage, allowing only her face to be
    lit by a single light shone from directly overhead.

    Of visual interest was the effective setting of the church sanctuary,
    which provided a built in set highlighting Jesus and Mary iconed
    stain glass windows and an omnipresent huge wooden cross.
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