Organisers could have done better
I have just come back from a press conference given by Spanish flamenco legend Joaqu?n Cort?s, the one whom top model Elle Macpherson described as “pure sex”. Well, I don’t know where Macpherson got her impressions from but no, sorry, it didn’t work for me. For starters, he had skinny legs, second he didn’t hold a rose in his teeth, and third he was shorter than his girlfriend.
“Pefkios looks sexier,” another journalist whispered to me when confronted with the sight of Cort?s hugging our minister of education and culture Pefkios Georgiades.
Still, the sex symbol mythology worked: the Hilton’s ballroom where the conference took place was full of female journalists, the dancer cracked jokes with our “sexier” minister, and the event’s organisers were, quiet rightly, very happy to have him there. After all, regardless of whether Cort?s’ flamenco is authentic or more of Riverdance sort, he is one of the best-known flamenco dancers ever and all tickets for his performance in Nicosia were sold out well in advance. Also, again no matter whether one likes flamenco or not, Cort?s’ participation in the Kypria International Festival 2006 was a major coup.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about all of the other events that Kypria is bringing to our shores this year. I have just gone through its programme and have no idea what the organisers are up to, in terms of both concept and standards. Common sense must surely dictate that 16 years into an event standards should steadily be improving and becoming more defined. In other words, it should be going somewhere. However, from what I see, Kypria is doing just the opposite. The festival looks more and more schizophrenic, scattered all over the place and frameless.
OK, it’s true, that apart from Cort?s, there are some other shows that will hopefully be interesting – Eifman Ballet’s interpretation of Mozart’s Requiem, Pontes-Dalaras duo performing Mediterranean songs or the Helsinki Chamber Choir among others – but on the whole what I see is too many non-entities that we could easily do without, especially given the fact that some of them take place in Cyprus anyway throughout the year, without being part of Kypria.
Let’s take Alkinoos Ioannides, a talented and well-known singer who I actually really appreciate. Cyprus-born, Ioannides has gained considerable fame in Greece, where he now lives and he tours both the mainland and his motherland regularly. He has concerts in Cyprus at least twice a year so why was this latest one included in Kypria? Wouldn’t it be better to skip him and bring somebody less frequently seen on the Cypriot stage, and therefore present more of a surprise and learning curve for the local public?
“Criteria for the selection of the acts, beyond their quality, content and character, were also how attractive they would be to the Cyprus public and the inclusion of Cypriot artists wherever possible,” the sexy Pefkios siad. Obviously this effort to include “Cypriot artists wherever possible” one can only define as honourable. However, is it really that attractive to all of us to listen to the Montpellier National Symphony Orchestra when led by the conductor of the Cyprus State Orchestra? Come on guys, we can see the man on the stage whenever we want so wouldn’t it, again, be better to bring over somebody else, somebody famous, new, different?
Amfictio Theatre staging Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis? Great, but the International Festival of Ancient Greek Drama only finished last month and we may have had enough of Euripides until next year. Surely, there are some other plays out there that the Cypriot public would find attractive as well?
Even the Pontes-Dalaras show. They have both been here before and done their “veni vidi vici”, haven’t they? So what is really new?
In its present state, Kypria is neither international nor local, neither innovative nor traditional, neither good nor bad. It is expensive – I have heard this year’s edition cost about £600,000 – and the PR leaves a lot to be desired. At least in previous years, the festival’s organisers would publish a programme from which one was able to glean some details. This year we just have leaflets with names of participants and dates of performances. Just to check, can anybody tell me what to make of ‘Jazz-Rock Concert. Four Electric Guitars’ taking place at Strovolos Theatre on October 10? I have no clue and neither anybody else. Apart from the organisers, they know but will not say.
