Arts & Entertainment, Dance, Music, Theatre

Whim W’him, The Esoterics, and St. Helens String Quartet’s Exquisite “Approaching Ecstasy” Blends Genres, Bodies

“Approaching Ecstasy,” an exuberant genre-combining production by Whim W’him, The Esoterics, and the St. Helens String Quartet at the Intiman Theatre, sets the poetry of fin de siècle gay Egyptian writer Constantine P. Cavafy to music and dance. Constantine Cavafy, who died in 1933, spent his life hiding his sexuality, but his poetry–and this performance–hold nothing back. Eric Banks translated the poetry from the original Greek into “singable” English, set the love & lust poems to music he composed, and conducted the St. Helens String Quartet. He met Whim W’him choreographer Olivier Wevers through mutual friends four years ago and proposed this project. “Approaching Ecstasy” is worth the wait. Continue reading Whim W’him, The Esoterics, and St. Helens String Quartet’s Exquisite “Approaching Ecstasy” Blends Genres, Bodies

<em>Approaching ecstasy</em> Pours Cavafy’s Poetry into Liquid Bones in Suits

Arts & Entertainment, Dance, Music

Approaching ecstasy Pours Cavafy’s Poetry into Liquid Bones in Suits

There’s no question that Cavafy is a major poet, but his reputation had to wait until society caught up to him. Though he worked as a nondescript ministry clerk for years, Cavafy made of his poetry a treasure house of the erotic, sensual, visceral–every fleeting thing that shot through the body, he trapped not in amber but in ink, refusing (as Auden later wrote of him) “to pretend that his memories of moments of sensual pleasure are unhappy or spoiled by feelings of guilt.” Continue reading Approaching ecstasy Pours Cavafy’s Poetry into Liquid Bones in Suits