This lunchtime I was down at the South Bank at a Japanese Festival at County Hall. There were stalls and a couple of stages with martial arts and Japanese music and a karaoke competition and a moving exhibition of photos and artifacts from the tsunami.
My favourite bit though was a dance put on by 3-5 year old kindergarten kids involving sticks and drums. There were a couple of dozen of them and they all looked very cute in their traditional costumes and most of them were very good at it, but I liked it because one of the little boys who came on first started bawling his eyes out the minute he stepped on to stage and didn't stop for the entire five minute performance. The music played, the other kids and accompanying adults went through their dance, moving from the back of the stage to the front, banging their drums, mainly keeping in time and the crying boy just stood still, his drum and sticks by his side, tears rolling down his face, ululating, hoping his protestations would get him whisked off stage. But it was all to no avail, everyone else just ignored him and got on with it. And whilst it was impressive seeing the 3 year old kids who had learned this complicated dance, it was a lot more fun watching the one kid who was having a horrible time. And you know, I admired his honesty. Sometimes when I am on stage I feel just like crying my eyes out and not doing what I am supposed to be doing. But I keep up the phoney pretense that I am happy and try my best. I think next time I might just go into a massive strop.
All art is phoney - dance itself is generally just an attempt to ignore the basic bleakness and tragedy of life by pretending it's enjoyable, so this young artistic genius was holding up the mirror of truth to us all.
It was very hard to ignore the kid doing it completely wrong, even with the girl at front and centre who was tiny but brilliant. The other kids were boringly getting it half right, but I wasn't interested in them. I liked the girl who was good at it, but I preferred the boy who wasn't even trying. Ideally at the end, when everyone else went down on their knees he would have finally joined in, but his resolve was strong and he cried even on his way off stage. All the work that had gone into this and he was the one I will remember. That's show biz.
