We were gutted to hear that Kanna and Kagu Ra had a spot of bother with immigration. It seems that our border officials were unconvinced that this was merely a flying visit to London to run a workshop and for their début UK show at The Blitz Factory last Saturday. Consequently, they were turned back at the airport. Hopefully, another visit can be arranged soon. Our disappointment was somewhat mitigated by the fact that they had taken the trouble to video a special performance for just for us which was rushed over in time for Kinbaku Dreams, which as to be Kanna Dreams until the untimely news. This was projected to an enraptured audience at the end of the evening.
Blitz Factory is a great venue and Murakawa made a superb job of decorating it in his inimitably eclectic style with accessories from God’s Own Junkyard, creating a delightful atmosphere. In spite of Kanna’s absence, it was a wonderful and convivial evening of very creative shows. It made a change to have so such different performances. Although I love the visual beauty of traditional style shows, not a kimono was to be seen but Onesies, cat masks, 2″ diameter rope and Jack’s 4″ thick “warm-up cane” all made a showing. In fact, there was something of a preponderance of cats with Miumi-U’s Xmas themed show culminating in a carol mewed by a choir of cats that brought the house down. Could this the start of a catbari or kittibaku craze?
I have started posting the videos from the evening in the Members Area, where they will remain free of charge to everyone for a limited period . Even though these aren’t to be the historic record of Kanna’s first UK show that I had hoped, there are some superb performances. I’m very pleased with the way the videos are turning out. I finally seem to be getting the hang of the new video kit with much faster and more accurate focusing, stability and quality. I’m doing my best to capture as much as possible with attention to close-ups so you can see what’s going on. Whilst the videos are in no way tutorials, there is a massive amount that can be learned from watching skilled riggers at work. Don’t try to work out each step of the ties as it takes a massive amount of skill to reverse engineer and it is impossible to do so from this type of video. However, there is lots to be learned about rope handling, demeanour, lifting techniques and so on.