2007-2008 - Cracks in the

The FOYER is our home, a tall order ...anywhere we feel safe , where we feel free to have fun, be happy and express ourselves. Sometimes, for some time, rarely, it exists ...We will tell you, you tell us, our common experiences...

My life was divided in three areas that I usually share with my close friends or colleagues (the outside world, my inner art, and work - where I 'painfully' have to be).

Suddenly, in less than 2 years, all the (my) places of the outside world are being attacked by these dinosaur people controlling the power: physically first and now against our senses and mind. ALERT, I felt the same in a communist country where I lived for twenty years.

Now, the agony is creeping up with another crack. The Bush Theatre was for me another safe brain haven. Introduced to me by a friend, it became the only theatre I really enjoyed. Please do sign the online petition in the The Bush Theatre website .

It was daunting knowing that sometimes I was going to find there something very special. And it happened many times.

I agree with The Times chief theatre critic Benedict Nightingale. Labour, like many other Labour Parties I knew before, have this 'massification' in mind, killing in the process any freedom or anyone that knows what's necessary to create that freedom that put them in power in the first place. Levelling by the mediocrity then, next stepp will be theatres for the 'boys', the supreme leaders, the ones that represent the People's Party, the only ones that 'know' what the masses can see, like and do. Vade Retrum Satanas! (forgive my Latin).

Other place where I always felt good, and one where you can have a real (or near) English Breakfast is the Kenwood House (buses 193 and 210), from Harrow (LONDON). The Kenwood park and the neighbour Hempstead Heath park are places of real enjoyment.

The summer concerts were suspended in 2007. They will be back in a small version. Good for all, I hope! A little snack of what all the Gordons Crown in this world eat every day?

THE CRACK at The TATE MODERN -Doris Salcedo
23-01-2008
It surprised me, not for the meaning the work comes with but because of my experience with 'cracks' in bad engineering works. I believed it was one. BUT no, and this element of surprise, is more important than the meaning it comes associated with. A CRACK is A CRACK!

While I was filming THE CRACK I had to camera-jump some children that were in the way. Then, an overzealous carer or teacher told me off in front of those children she had to protect (as making someone angry protects) "-Don't you know you cannot photograph children?"

Another crack, this one real - in the seams of this society where anyone can harass anyone in the name of anything that is on the news. Please, people, stop being little 'dictators'!

Sorry young guys, you are being educated to be bad educated, when adults tell each other off in front of you, about things you do not know yet'

Salcedo's work and political meaning is 'Shibboleth' - you are not ours if you cannot pronounce it (a 'method' used by biblical 'enemies').

We can be a baby
, a todler, a tweeny, a teenager, a young adult, married, not married, mums, dads, alone, families, mature, a bit more mature, healthy or not, self-reliant or needing support, the FOYER is what a community should do or all, looking to the wide human culture, be tolerant and living in acceptance.

FEAR is the realm of the enemies of the FOYER.

Tango in the Foyer
Some years ago there were free events everyday at at lunch time, then from Wednesdays, now, the free events have a distant side. When they exist, they do not belong to us, or we are not part of them.

During eight years it was the best place in the world to be.

All type of events, music, some enjoying any type, USA rock, swing, jazz, Italian jazz, Brazilian modern Bossa, Argentina tango, Turkish delights ... even the Magalhćes percussion resident nice kids.

Entering in the old FOYER
with music and happy people was magic.

No pressures from the security (tell me about them now - mainly if you do not look the part - no feeling of being wrong or outsider, knowing that eight years were eight years of friendship... to the foyer, no place like any other.

We met people coming expressely from Paris to the enjoy the spirit of the FOYER.

We took the spirit of the FOYER as granted.

Royal Festival Hall

is a great place, still our favourite place, but it is limping now.

It was created for all, the architects did it well. The ivory tower people finally are planting the seeds to make it an institution, where people are accepted as a privilege, merely.

Bygones... all free events at lunch time would cherish anyone living around: the local community, retired people, old or young jazz lovers, groups from homes, elderly or not, mums and children, lots of todlers, unusually behaving well, but the most important thing many were poor people that could not afford anyplace else. Thye loved the place, the confort freedom gave them ... and not being alone, at least for some hours.

Holidays were lived with the assurance that the FOYER was there to make one happy.

Many agreed and during some years a very special culture was created.

People of all sorts would enjoy and dance the moment.

Royal Festival Hall

still is a great place, our favourite place, but it is limping now.

It was created for all for us, a place where no one felt apart.

It also was a place where people would meet to work or after work.

After work, many people would turn the FOYER in a pub. Not a kettle of fish for many but, Friday nights, JAZZ alive, ties and clivages competition, are London's bent trends.

But before noon or afternoon,. before this rush of adrenalin, groups of writers, groups of tellers with any common interest, would meet in the FOYER, freely.

Royal Festival Hall

Is great, I am proud of being a humble seat there, even though a new broom is changing its spirit we, for so long, have enjoyed: more than eight years, not only the evenings but the lunch times events, even a glass half full.

Memorable concerts (bad sound or not). It was affordable but our feelings and senses were rich, equal to those of anyone else.

It was a place to go for a night out.

RFH privileged us with immense variety of different cultural events that filled up our roots.

And our roots are difficult to define,

ecletic,

since I have drunk many cultures from all over the place.Videos of the Foyer of the Royal Festival Hall - 1994-2005