list.co.uk/festival Five Telegrams | FESTIVAL FEATURES
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After the success of last year’s opening event, the Edinburgh International Festival once again kicks off with an epic large-scale spectacle. Arusa Qureshi fi nds out more from the creative team behind Five Telegrams
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I n the year that we mark the centenary of the end of WWI, communities around the UK and beyond have been actively contemplating the impact and signii cance of the Great War, engaging with cultural events and activities to look back at the stories and lives of those affected.
With the centenary i rmly in mind, this year’s Edinburgh International Festival aims to connect future generations with the past, opening with an epic outdoor performance created by composer Anna Meredith alongisde 59 Productions, in a co-commission between the Festival, 14–18 NOW (the UK’s arts programme for the WWI centenary) and BBC Proms.
Featuring large-scale illuminations and projections on the Usher Hall and a new work for orchestra and chorus, Five Telegrams will kick off the city’s world-renowned festival season, while offering residents and visitors the chance to rel ect on the thousands of young lives lost in the war. ‘Working directly with Anna has been a really fun way to collaborate,’ says Richard Slaney, managing director of 59 Productions, the company behind many of the festival’s recent opening spectaculars. ‘Previously we’ve either responded to a musical work (e.g. 2015’s Harmonium) or made a soundtrack to our imagery (as in Deep Time in 2016). This year we’ve been working closely from the start of the process, and Anna has been gracious enough to take our ideas and requests into her composition. We’ve also extended our partnerships for this project – working with young designers from Edinburgh College of Art on costumes for the performance, as well as working with our commissioners at 14–18 NOW to research the First World War thematic ideas.’
In addition to being co-designed by young creatives to mark Scotland’s Year of Young People, Anna Meredith notes: ‘There are a lot of young performers who are adding the live element to the event. I don’t want to say too much about it because I think it will be a nice moment in the piece but I do think it’s important because many are the same age as the soldiers would have been at the time. On a practical level, to have something that’s live is really good – it’s not just a recording, it’s living.’ The i ve movements of the performance are inspired by ideas
of communication, exploring pertinent themes that draw parallels with contemporary culture including censorship, propaganda and reconciliation. ‘We were trying to i nd a way into this huge, very delicate and complex subject to try and rel ect the centenary in a way that felt current and relevant,’ Meredith explains when asked about her interaction with the i ve central movements. ‘We had these i ve themes: “spin” – the idea of news, hype and exaggeration; i eld postcards – little postcards that soldiers sent back from the front that were very controlled; redaction – where things were stripped back and removed, literally cut out or changed; codes – the idea of multiple overlapping number systems to try and make sense of numerical systems; and Armistice – this idea of how the end of the war was communicated and the heavy, weary feeling of the end of the war as opposed to l ag-waving celebration.’
Five Telegrams will close Lothian Road on Fri 3 Aug, with audiences able to catch the show from a dedicated arena in Festival Square. Both Slaney and Meredith are hopeful that this year’s opening event, with its live performance element and inclusion of hundreds of local young people, will give spectators a moment to pause and think about how events of the past connect to our present. ‘I think some of it is quite bold musically and visually,’ Meredith says, ‘and I hope that people will enjoy it. But there is dei nitely space in the piece for things to think about, that are provocative, and that still raise questions about our society today. It’s not just a piece that looks backwards, it dei nitely still feels current to where we are at now.’
Standard Life Aberdeen Opening Event: Five Telegrams, Usher Hall, 3 Aug, 10.30pm, free but ticketed.
Anna Meredith & Southbank Sinfonia, Leith Theatre, 11 Aug, 7.30pm, £20. Anno: Vivaldi, Anna Meredith, Eleanor Meredith, Pleasance at EICC, 17 & 18 Aug, times vary, £16 (£14.50).
1–8 Aug 2018 THE LIST FESTIVAL 23