I’m listening to Antony and the Johnsons. The new one. It’s a year old, why did I not seek it out then? I think I didn’t want to risk in any way spoiling the previous albums, which I just love so much… But this is perfect – neither just like, nor completely different. It’s marvellous.
Antony says, “The Crying Light is dedicated to the great dancer Kazuo Ohno. In performance I watched him cast a circle of light upon the stage, and step into that circle, and reveal the dreams and reveries of his heart. He seemed to dance in the eye of something mysterious and creative; with every gesture he embodied the child and the feminine divine. He’s kind of like my art parent.”
Now, this statement is wonderful – if only in that it illustrates perfectly a thing that I noticed long ago, when I first listened to Antony and the Johnsons. He gets away with stuff verbally that no one else could possibly get away with. You listen to his songs and you think, My God, this is wonderful! (You ask yourself: How did I get here?) Then you think, wait a minute. That should be crap. How did he do that?
Kazuo Ohno is 102 years old. According to Wikipedia: “A late bloomer, he only began studying dance formally in 1933.” His very presence is called “An artistic fact.”
Well, see this picture. (What was he here? 55? Look how beautifully fifties those colours are.) (And you just know I’m about to start talking about Jean-Louis Barrault again.) So beautiful.
Click on the picture, by the way, to be taken to the Flickr page of the photographer, Marco Tambara.
But anyway, Antony. He’s great. My cousin Morgan almost went for a drink with him once…
(Photograph of Kazuo Ohno by Marco Tambara(aka lightversus) under Creative Commons)
I think he is one of the greatest feminists of our time.