Sound Oddity - Annotation
This post discusses a sound document (part of a video):
Kostas Michopoulos, Giwrgos Poulios. “The Great Tamer.” festival-avignon.com, 2017, http://www.festival-avignon.com/en/shows/2017/the-great-tamer.
The soundscape of this promotional video for The Great Tamer at the Festival d’Avignon arranges the soundscape of the show in such a way that shows off the play’s elements of circus and acrobatics disrupted by oddity and reality. The video uses a highly recognizable waltz, “The Blue Danube”, which is among the most popular and often considered best waltzes that have been written. It is often considered a joyous waltz, but in this version is slowed down and is slightly off in tone, so that the recording reminds the listener of a polished, classical waltz which is not quite right. That feeling of discomfort and of something not being quite as it may seem is exacerbated by the intrusion of a high pitched ringing sound, the mechanical tone of which contrasts yet matches the instrumental waltz. Both of these components are interrupted by the foley sounds made on stage by the actors; the pulling of roots from the stage, the plywood scraping against itself, and the cracking of a plaster cast serve as examples. By doing this, the soundscape of the promotional video casts the show in a position of oddity, of weirdness, of mystery and the unexpected. The audience feels compelled to pay attention, to discover or figure out what is going on. This element of discovery makes the soundscape of this video a valuable resource, since that is very much the goal of the show: to investigate, to discover, to look at the world in a different light--perhaps a strange light-- and see what one finds. As well, the foley sounds breaking through the technological sounds bears a calls on the question of humanity, simple human action, breaking through the obscurity of distraction and into human life. This soundscape is an extremely valuable record, especially as it pertains to the question of how to portray mental illness on stage. This notion of normalcy or rehearsal brought on by the waltz and the abnormality in the tone of the waltz and the ringing perfectly encapsulate the feeling that something is wrong, and the breathing of the astronaut as well as the foley sounds on stage bring an element of humanity to the mix. Also, many of the foley sounds are of something banging or crashing, and the sound of deconstruction points to discovery, dismantling, searching, and diagnosis. The knowledge of this soundscape can be applied to other plays and performances with similar themes including mental health and discovery.
