The Father and the Assassin, currently on at the National Theatre, is a historical drama centred around the murder of one of India’s most beloved figures – Mahatma Gandhi. The play is provocatively narrated by Nathuram Godse, Gandhi’s assassin. Shubham Saraf’s Godse addresses his audience like a stand-up comedian, bursting with wit and charm; yet as the show continues, it becomes harder to reconcile the good humour of this anti-hero with his increasingly hateful beliefs.

Anupama Chandrasekhar’s writing is clearly inspired by Salman Rushdie; indeed this show builds on many of Rushdie’s signature moves and adapts them for the stage. The play’s protagonist is a villain, who narrates his own story in retrospect; as a narrator, he is unreliable; the play moves back and forward in time, in concordance only with Godse’s train of thought. Tightly woven into this memoir is an extraordinary political moment that sees the Indian fight for independence, the retreat of the British, and the bloody partition. In keeping with the growing canon of Anglophone Indian literature, the question of national identity is at the heart of this play.

I was astounded at how Indhu Rubasingham, the play’s Director, took many of the literary gestures infused in Chandrasekhar’s screenplay and injected them with theatrical life. Godse’s unreliable recollection of events becomes, in classic post-modernist style, a metaphor for the partiality of truth and memory; this is trademark Rushdie. Chandrasekhar highlights this notion every time she has Godse narrate an event, then re-narrate and narrate it again. Under the vision of Rubasingham, a multi-roleing chorus makes ample use of physical theatre to amplify the discrepancies in each version of events. Against these juxtapositions, the audience is inclined to wonder which depiction of the past most resembles the truth. Likely each has been distorted by will and mis-memory.

In the beautiful programme accompanying the show, Chandrasekhar describes the play, not as a ‘whodunnit’ but as a ‘whydunnit’. Teenage Godse worships the figure of Gandhi, his philosophy of ahimsa (non-violence) and his acceptance of all peoples and faiths. Yet amidst his adolescence, something rankles in Godse, who as an adult becomes afraid and bitter. His faith in Gandhi morphs into resentment over personal dreams unfulfilled, then curdles into loathing. Adult Godse wants a partitioned India and Pakistan – a Hindustan for Hindus and a Pakistan for Muslims – which is the antithesis of Gandhi’s vision. For apparently betraying his loyalty to the Hindus, Godse avenges his people with Gandhi’s murder.

The play beautifully, tragically, illustrates the lost potential for a free, united India; and instead, Godse gleefully depicts the creation of India and Pakistan, the displacement of roughly 20 million people, and the deaths of two million Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims. Narrating these events is, of course, a politically loaded choice that knowingly bears resemblance to contemporary politics, in the particular rise of Hindutva in India, and the type of Islamophobia very much still present in India and, in another form, throughout the Western world. Our audacious Godse is eager to point out comparisons to Brexit, which caused ruffles amongst the predominantly white and middle-aged audience. Neither Godse nor Gandhi will let the British get away with much in this play.

The audience, in fact, maintains quite an ambivalent position throughout the show. Sometimes we are included in the revolutionary spirit of protest, addressed as part of the crowd gathered in defiance of British rule. Other times, the audience becomes the colonising force so vehemently rejected by the Indian people. It makes for a powerful watch: the British audience is allowed to feel the excitement and joy of newly claiming one’s land and heritage as one’s own, yet also forbidden from forgetting its own particular imperial past.

The only criticism I can make of this play is its sometimes farfetched depiction of Godse’s obsessive hatred for Gandhi, and motive for killing him. True to real life, this Godse has quite an unconventional childhood: born to Brahmin parents whose other sons died as babies, Godse is raised as a girl in order that this same fate is avoided. His parents believe him to have some kind of oracular power, or connection to the goddess Lakshmi, a gift that is according to folklore only bestowed upon women. Teenage Godse realizes he is a boy; and it is an encounter with Gandhi, who sees Godse for what he is, that gives Godse the self-belief to begin living as his authentic self. Fast-forward to the day of the assassination, and Godse comes out with some gobbledygook blaming Gandhi for taking away his uniqueness, the femininity that enabled his connection to Lakshmi, leaving him average, normal. He also attacks Gandhi with the accusation of being a bad father, a theme unexplored by the rest of the play and mentioned strangely flippantly. After this slightly bizarre and unbelievable psycho-babble, Godse shoots Gandhi.

Watching Mahatma Gandhi being shot, albeit on a stage, was horrific. And yet I also felt oddly sorry for Godse on the day of his hanging, standing there alone, jeered at by two entire nations and loved by no one. However, the tragedy of both deaths is an effect on which Chandrasekhar chooses not to dwell; for Gandhi and Godse take to the stage once again in a fantastical depiction of the afterlife. Gandhi laughingly claims that Godse, try as he may, cannot be rid of his once-idol. Godse tries to retake control by leaving us with a terrifying call to turn on our neighbours and attack our enemies before they attack us; but by this late stage in the play, it is Gandhi’s ideology to which we firmly subscribe.

Inventive, luminous, erudite and yet inclusive, the Father and the Assassin gets an almost-five-star review from me.

For more info and tickets: https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/the-father-and-the-assassin

Photograph: Marc Brenner

Sophia Sheera is a writer interested in migration, cultural citizenship, displacement and queerness with a focus on Central Asia and Northern India. Sophia is inspired by talking to the people whose stories are sidetracked by sensationalist headlines, and as such aspires to share those counter-narratives through political journalism.

One thing is certain, it is impossible to remain impassive in front of Mozart’s “Requiem for a dream”. No matter what show it is accompanying, the score will send a shiver down the spine of anyone in the public. The forever unfinished masterpiece has gone through the hands of many composers, and yet Kyle Abraham’s A.I.M manages to distinguish itself from the bunch. The rising-in-fame choreographer and his company explored the cyclicity of life, death and rebirth in a show of swirling white costumes, futuristic lights and an afrobeat remix of Mozart’s score.

The show opened with a chilling unedited version of Requiem, as the troupe of dancers harmoniously performed choreographies and poses that could have belonged to the most dramatic Renaissance paintings. However, the performance was already far from being conventional: the set design’s futuristic lights and the creative pairing of costumes, that went from classic tutus to draped robes, were already a hint of the creative liberties that the dance was going to take. The dance’s full expressivism exploded when Jlin’s remix started kicking in – a mix of afrobeat, electro and the original classical score. More than a modern take on a classic, the performance entirely detached itself from convention and temporality to rewrite itself as an atemporal, gender-fluid and ethnically-diverse spectacle. Both single and group performances were animated by an energy and a seemingly uninterruptable flow that mimicked different aspects of life – community, death, birth, and love.

The central theme of cyclicity was omnipresent in the narrative of the choreography, starting from the ever-present glowing ring of light on the wall. By “recycling” a classic and mixing it with a modern and culturally different beat, Abraham played with the canonical and mixed past, future and present. The fact that Mozart never finished the score opens the door to any possible interpretation and rewriting. And by playing with the conventional, this show created a universe where nothing is fixed, and human concepts such as time and gender simply evaporate. What was left was a beautiful representation of human life, stripped of all social conventions, and shown for what it is at its very essence: a constant flow of life and death, where the only certainties are community, love and repetition.

Get your tickets for more upcoming shows at Sadler Wells – https://www.sadlerswells.com

Photograph: Peter Honnemann

Reviewed by Céline Galletti – Celine is a volunteer writer for Abundant Art. Originally from France and Italy, she follows her passion for writing and art by studying Comparative Literature at UCL, London. As an international student living in London, she is determined to fully experience and understand the city’s vibrant arts scene, and be a part of its creative storm.

ativador office 2016

Loneliness, grief, horror, death, alienation: name any of the darkest and most intimate feelings ever felt to man, and Edvard Munch will probably have painted them at some point.  Through a few vivid brushstrokes, intense colours and eery shapes, the Norwegian artist communicates something uneasy and profound, a representation of life at its uttermost horrorful and nostalgic. And yet, despite being best known for his “The Scream”, one of the most humane and yet monstrous paintings in the history of modern art, there is more to the artist than pure tormented angst. The new exposition “Masterpieces from Bergen” at The Courtauld explores his artistic evolution: from his more peaceful and luminous early works to his more tormented breakthrough years, to the newfound colourfulness of his later period. Thanks to a collaboration with the KODE art museum in Bergen (Norway), the Courtauld’s collection showcases 18 works of the artist from the collection of Rasmus Meyer, a Norwegian art collector, philanthropist and personal friend of Munch. The display’s features pan over several decades and paint a complete picture of the psychological and artistic journey of the emblematic artist.

The luminous sunbeams reflecting on white dresses, the gracious feminine figures and the glittering shores of Munch’s early paintings are very distinctive from the rest of his later paintings. The artist was still finding his voice, and the strong influence of impressionism, social realism and naturalism are still quite visible in his canvases. And yet, you can already catch a glimpse of Munch’s characteristic style through the swirly and strong brushstrokes of the waves and the overall contemplative and nostalgic nature of his subjects. When the artist later drops this more conventional type of painting, his signature style will only increase in singularity and bizarreness: candid young women become naked and sexual vixens; the timid ripples of water become tornadoes of colour and movement; and faces contort into skull-like expressions. Most of these paintings are part of Munch’s “Frieze of Life”, a collection of artworks that represent his gritty and gelid vision of existence. Only later in life will his canvases find a brighter palette and a less anxious brushstroke.

Another central figure of the exposition, Rasmus Meyer was an art collector who donated his entire collection to the public at his death. His carefully chosen selections created a true documentation of Norwegian art, thus consolidating the artistic culture of a young nation that was still building its cultural identity. Similarly, his Munch collection tells a lot about the painter’s own story, in what is a thematically biographical and yet extremely universal set of paintings. One thing is for sure: the skull-like expressions and hollow eyes of the paintings will follow you long after you leave the gallery.

Get your tickets to this unprecedented event in the UK at https://courtauld.ac.uk/whats-on/edvard-munch-masterpieces-from-bergen/

Reviewed by Céline Galletti – Celine is a volunteer writer for Abundant Art. Originally from France and Italy, she follows her passion for writing and art by studying Comparative Literature at UCL, London. As an international student living in London, she is determined to fully experience and understand the city’s vibrant arts scene, and be a part of its creative storm.

London future pop star Rachel Chinouriri’s journey to a headline slot at Hackney’s EartH has been a curious one. Having attended Croydon’s BRIT school, she was writing and recording music by herself before she was old enough to legally drink. After releasing her debut EP, Mama’s Boy, in 2019, she was signed by Parlophone, who released her sophomore Four° In Winter in 2021, and Better Off Without, which just came out on the 20^th of May.

Although it might seem that major label backing is responsible for her success, stepping back and looking at the wider picture reveals several other moving parts. While she is gaining momentum, her popularity has not grown in the instantaneous way that most major label artists and industry plants do. Part of Chinouriri’s appeal is a keen sense for and commitment to social media – she is very active on Instagram and Twitter, and she broadcasts her unfiltered thoughts and reactions in a refreshing, personal way.

Her organic growth can also be ascribed in part to one of her songs, ‘So My Darling’, going viral on TikTok. But even this is no happy accident. The sound went viral after a TikTok of a lone guitarist playing the song was stitched by Chinouriri herself; she recorded the vocals on her phone with all the harmonies.

Monday’s EartH performance, which sold out only a few hours before she took the stage, was therefore a long time metaphorically coming. The auditorium was arranged in tiered wooden benches, with a standing area at the front, leaving ample space for everyone. This gave the whole room an intimate feel, which is decidedly challenging in a sold-out venue of EartH’s size – it holds up to 1200 people. Supporting were the relatively unknown Toni Sancho and Etta Marcus, and the crowd was in turn supportive. The show felt like a genuine opportunity for these artists to reach a wider audience.

Chinouriri’s performance itself was great. Her voice is in excellent form, and her unchoreographed shapes gave the impression she was just enjoying herself on stage. Her band are all withdrawn but proficient musicians – possibly session – and their understatement gave Chinouriri the physical and figurative space to run free.

The moodier tracks from the first two EPs were lived in, delivered with confidence and comfort. ‘Give Me A Reason’ was powerfully emotional, and she involved the very willing audience in a call-and-response rendition of ‘If Only’ (which is still stuck in my head). In between songs she often told a story about the origin of a song or shouted out a loved one in the audience: ‘So My Darling’ began life as a ‘platonic’ love song for a boy she had a crush on. This was at risk of feeling corny (and it was certainly soppy) but the execution felt closer to sweet authenticity than concerted cringe. I felt as if she was slightly creaking open a door to her life.

The new songs from Better Off Without were filled with joy, and a different kind of excitement came over Chinouriri when she played them. Disregarding the generic shift – the EP is far more poppy and less moody than the first two – the atmosphere of the room genuinely changed when she played them. Great things are on the horizon for Chinouriri, and Better Off Without has finally made the wider cultural world of mainstream music pay attention to her. This may be the last time she plays a London venue this small.

Check out the video ‘Happy Ending’ here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzEp4pwYMaY

Rachel Chinouriri / Photography by Martina Martian

Cian Kinsella is a Classics teacher and part-time pub quizmaster living in London who is primarily interested in music but is also interested in theatre, literature, and visual arts. He is particularly intrigued by the relationship between art, criticism, and the capital forces always at play. Furthermore, he believes that subjectivity – which is ultimately at the heart of all artistic and cultural criticism – should not be concealed, but probed and perhaps even celebrated. Who decides what we like? How do they construct widely held beliefs about what is good? These are two of the questions Cian looks to address.

‘Kabul Goes Pop: Music Television Afghanistan’ is Waleed Akhtar’s debut play, currently being performed at the dapper Brixton House Theatre until 1^st of June. The show dramatizes the real-life story of Farook (Arian Nik) and Samia (Shala Nix), two rebellious teens-turned-TV-presenters of Afghanistan’s first pop music show. The play is told in retrospect, with Farook and Samia performing for us their versions of the past. The first half of the show is easy-going in tone, invigorated by the naïve excitement of Farook and Samia: in the wake of the US invasion, both are obsessed by Western pop music, with Britney Spears being their firm favourite. But as power is slowly reclaimed by the Taliban and its allies, favour turns against the once-celebrated pop-acolytes. Hints that the play will come to a tragic ending are slowly littered amidst the dialogue of present-day Farook and Samia as they look back on their former lives as TV icons. We watch helpless as public adoration morphs into hatred, and eventually, the show, known as Vox, collapses entirely.

The set design captures the zeitgeist of pop music in the 2000s brilliantly: behind the actors are nine square screens, arranged in a retrograde Sudoku-style, the resolution gloriously pixelated. At times, the production team plays clips from famous music videos across the screens; at other points, flashing lights evoke the pace and glamour of the presenters’ former lives as television stars. The theatre is big, the ceilings high: Farook and Samia’s hope that they are creating a new Afghanistan feels boundless.

However, what repeatedly struck me during this first half of the play was just how Westernised it was. To some extent, I understood Akhtar’s intention to make his show accessible to a British audience, an intention clearly backed under the direction of Anna Himali Howard, but the balance didn’t sit quite right. Farook is undeniably camp in a way that is simply not tolerated in Afghanistan; meanwhile, Samia has a working-class London accent and the unlikely aesthetic of Avril Lavigne. Their infatuation with Western pop is relatable to a British audience, and indeed makes a salient political point; but we didn’t hear a single song in Dari, or learn anything about Afghan culture more generally. Aside from somewhat vague references to the Taliban that become more prevalent in the second half of the show, ‘Kabul Goes Pop’ barely even attempts to illustrate life in Kabul.

I also took issue with the branch of feminism that Samia vehemently expresses. Samia is unapologetic in her behaviour, she openly challenges men, and refuses to be told what to do. During one episode of Vox, she even unveils herself on screen; Farook and their shared manager are understandably shocked. Whilst I liked Akhtar’s emphasis on female agency in Afghanistan, this portrayal of Afghan feminism didn’t resonate with me. In fact, Samia’s uncompromising manner reminded me more of second-wave, white feminism. Lastly, I’m a tad bored of Islamophobic narratives that equate taking off your hijab to feminist emancipation, as if Islam and feminism can’t exist on the same plane.

Samia’s refusal to conform to the expectations of those in power brings her to an untimely death. In the second half of the show, Farook and Samia fall mightily out of favour; they start receiving hate-mail on their mobile phones and their families are verbally threatened. Near the show’s end, the US retract the funding that sustained Vox, leaving the show in the lurch. The manager, a fellow Afghan, is nowhere to be seen. Farook takes refuge inside the studio, but it is already too late for Samia, who is abducted and killed. These events are narrated by the present-day Samia, who we come to understand exists only in Farook’s imagination. Samia relates her death on her own terms, restoring a level of dignity to her character.

It is only in looking back that Farook begins to understand the gendered nature of oppression in Afghanistan: Samia, he says, suffered so much more than him. Whilst it’s powerful having a male character admit this onstage, I would have liked Farook to do more than simply reflect upon female oppression. In other words, I wanted to see more on Afghan masculinity, something left largely unexplored by both the text and Arian Nik’s overly camp portrayal of Farook. On this front, the show again didn’t quite capture for me the rigidity and complexity of gendered dynamics in Afghanistan. It felt dumbed-down, a little two-dimensional.

What I did enjoy about the play was the way it began with joy, hope, and fun: it’s not often that depictions of Afghanistan in the West are associated with these words. Then, we watch as Farook and Samia’s romanticisation of Western culture is slowly displaced by gritty reality. The US is neither elevated nor villainised, but it certainly doesn’t come off well. By the play’s end, Farook is an asylum seeker in Norway. He is alone and silent, unable to vocalise the question on the tip of the audience’s collective tongue: where is the mighty West, with all its apparent attempts to ‘save’ the Afghan people, now? Moreover, our knowledge of Farook’s vibrant past, in contradiction to his bleak present, illustrates that asylum seekers, too, are people: some even with illustrious histories. If a few members of the audience come out of the show moved by this realization, then it’s a job well done for Akhtar and Himali Howard.

Akhtar’s play vibrantly reimagines real-life events in a way that a British audience can understand. But it is very much a reimagination, evocative of the author’s own cultural background more than it is evocative of Kabul. I’m not convinced Afghans would sense much cultural familiarity from this play; but nevertheless, the show hopefully encourages its British audiences to rethink its assumptions about Afghanistan.

For more info/to book click here – https://brixtonhouse.co.uk/shows/kabul-goes-pop-music-television-afghanistan/

Kabul Goes Pop at Brixton House. Photograph: Toyin Dawudu

Sophia Sheera is a writer interested in migration, cultural citizenship, displacement and queerness with a focus on Central Asia and Northern India. Sophia is inspired by talking to the people whose stories are sidetracked by sensationalist headlines, and as such aspires to share those counter-narratives through political journalism.

Four giggling and playful witches gather around tea and biscuits in their cottage house to celebrate the New Moon. They make fun of the public and play around as they introduce themselves to us, warmly sharing the complicity of their group. It is through this witty and cosy setting that the play ‘Everyday’ tackles the question of domestic abuse on deaf women and non-binary people. One after the other, the four witches share their stories that Director and writer Paula Garfield crafted from real testimonials of deaf survivors that were interviewed for the project. This powerful play celebrates the 20th anniversary of the British Sign Language theatre company Deafinetly, the first deaf-led company in the UK that works bilingually between BSL and spoken English. Their beautiful projects are accessible both to the deaf community and people who do not practice BSL, and mix the two languages in an extremely creative, visual and compelling way.

Every single one of the four stories had a different tone and style of conveying emotion, and they all succeeded at delivering gut-wrenching testimonials to which it was difficult not to shed a tear. Shadow’s (Cherie Gordon) monologue in BSL, dubbed in spoken English, was able to transmit all the angst of a child that witnesses her mother being abused. Pan (Bea Webster) told their story through a silent re-enactment of how their grandfather sexually abused them as a child. Their silent struggle and repetitive desperate body movements acted like a bewitching and terrifying dance that told the most unthinkable of stories. Lady Aine’s (Fifi Garfield) story of surviving a violent marriage was full of tension and suspense and will have you tense from beginning to end as you hope that she will manage to escape her house. Finally, Aislinn’s (Zoë McWhinney) story about an abusive boyfriend shows the rapid decline that a loving seemingly loving relationship can take. The witches conclude their story by getting back to their party and sharing one last powerful message: “if you need our help, let us know”.

The theme of the witches could not have been chosen better, as not only does it have a singular aesthetic that gave a lot of personality to the play, but also because of what it represents. The witches were the women who were burnt at the stake and who were only met with feminicide and violence, and yet they have now become a symbol of community and feminism. Similarly, the four people in the play have survived male violence and thrive in a new environment of sisterhood and community where they “perform witchcraft” by raising awareness on the subject and telling their stories.

Overall, the play created a beautiful and cosy experience while still tackling an immensely heavy subject. It gave a voice to the many deaf women and non-binary people who are twice as likely to be victims of domestic violence, in a period post-Covid where statistics on abuse have increased. The play will be on tour at New Diorama Theatre (16 May – 11 June), Birmingham Rep (16-18 June), York Theatre Royal (21-22 June), Northern Stage (24-25 June). Get your tickets at https://newdiorama.com/whats-on/everyday

Cherie Gordon, Fifi Garfield, Zoë McWhinney and Bea Webster in Everyday. Photo by Becky Bailey.

Reviewed by Céline Galletti – Celine is a volunteer writer for Abundant Art. Originally from France and Italy, she follows her passion for writing and art by studying Comparative Literature at UCL, London. As an international student living in London, she is determined to fully experience and understand the city’s vibrant arts scene, and be a part of its creative storm.

In Southwark, the curious facade of the Fashion and Textile Museum attracts the eye of many curious passers-by. Typical of its creative yellow and pink exterior, the Fashion and Textile Museum offers continuously diverse programs and exhibitions and has set itself as a place of expression for designers and fashion artists around the world. This season, they are offering us a historical outlook on the Royal School of Needlework (RSN) in their new exposition “150 years of the Royal School of Needlework: Crown to Catwalk”. The exhibit retraces the rich historical story of the school and explores the re-emerging art of needlework through some of the most memorable pieces of the archive of the RSN.

The RSN, which is now celebrating its 120th birthday, was founded as a non-profit organisation in 1872 by Lady Victoria Welby. The goal was not only to revive the lost art of needlework but also to give work to educated women by creating an industry that was mainly run by female workers. The school has been accepting commissions from the Royal Family from its earliest days and has managed to perdure over time by building a reputation of variety and versatility in their work. The assiduity of the school can be well resumed by their mantra: “when in a rush on a job, never a seat shall go cold”. Their frenetic rhythm has made them able to perform some admirable miracles, such as the last-minute creation of Queen Victoria’s sublime funeral pall. Many other stunning royal garments produced by the RSN can be seen at the museum, from wedding ornamentals to coronation regalia.

History enthusiasts will enjoy this exhibition as much, if not more, than fashion lovers. In addition to the historical origins of the school and its participation in many memorable events of the Royal family, the exhibit explores other moments from the past of needlework. We are shown how in the First World War, soldiers were given embroidery kits as part of their occupational therapy, thus starting a long tradition of using needlework to improve mental health. Other archives include religious robes and vintage lingerie, showcasing once again the versatility and the range of the work of the RSN.

The second floor will not only bring you to another epoch but to a whole other level of experimentalising and modernity. The collaborations, the runway pieces, the international features and the current projects of the students prove not only that needlework is not dead, but that it is more vibrant and creative than ever. This orientation towards the future and the space of expression that is left to new generations was extremely inspiring and refreshing to see.

Get your tickets for this historical yet innovative take on needlework at https://fashiontextilemuseum.org/exhibitions/150-years-of-the-royal-school-of-needlework-crown-to-catwalk

The Red Dress worn by Natasha Faye Hopkins / Dave Watts Photography

Reviewed by Céline Galletti – Celine is a volunteer writer for Abundant Art. Originally from France and Italy, she follows her passion for writing and art by studying Comparative Literature at UCL, London. As an international student living in London, she is determined to fully experience and understand the city’s vibrant arts scene, and be a part of its creative storm.

Download Software Para PC

The British Museum presents Feminine Power: the divine to the demonic, the first exhibition of its kind that takes a cross-cultural look at the profound influence of female spiritual beings on global religion and faith. Over 80 unique objects have been drawn from the British Museum’s collection including sculptures, paintings, sacred artifacts and contemporary depictions of deities, goddesses, saints, witches and demons from ancient and medieval cultures across the globe. All are brought together alongside modern and contemporary artworks to create a thought-provoking look at the diversity of representations and complex meanings of the divine female over time. It reveals how female authority and femininity have been celebrated, feared, and revered, shaping our understanding of the world.

Spanning 5,000 years of belief and disbelief in human history, the female being has been synonymous with wisdom, nature, desire, mercy and justice and her rich, often contradictory traits, still determine how we understand femininity today.  Shaped into clay figures with prominent tights, stylised breasts, and pubic triangles, the female form has been often associated with the abundance of the land and the sea. The female image merges with nature and animates its creative and destructive forces: embodied in the figure of Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of volcanoes, who erupts and destroys everything in her path, but paves the way for a new life in the process.

Alongside beliefs about creation and the fertility of the earth, the exhibition explores some of the many ways in which passion and desire have been spiritually associated with feminine influence. Tlazolteolt, the Huaxtec goddess of purification, is known to the Catholic missionaries of the 15^th century as ‘the mistress of lust and debauchery’ and eats filth to cleanse transgression. The Bolivian embodiment of lust is perfectly rendered in the demonic figure of China Supay who wears a fierce and obscene mask. In art, female sexual power came to be expressed through her nudity. Such is the case of the Greek Goddess Aphrodite, an emblem of the ideal of female beauty whose power resides in her ability to inflame passion in all its forms from love and sexual ecstasy to rage and despair, bringing about both reconciliation and conflict.

The seductive power of women is the subject of almost all tales presented in the exhibitions. The Hindu goddess Radha is worshipped as the embodiment of beauty, love, and devotion. Her story charts the anguish and ecstasy of sexual desire culminating in Radha’s triumph over the god Krishna as she lies on top of him during sex. Similarly, the first woman to be created by God and first wife to Adam, Lilith, refused to lie beneath him during sex asserting equality with her husband. For such defiance, however, she was forced to flee Eden and had been long vilified by future Christian readings. What’s made explicit in these narratives with striking clarity is the undeniably large extent to which sex and desire underpin civilization and still influence modern views on female authority.

Female demons, witches and monsters permeate mythology and folklore from across the globe. For all, they are feared and believed to inflict madness or death on anyone who crosses their paths like the figures of Circe and Medusa in Greek mythology.  Like Lilith’s one, their stories are often linked to suffering. They are widows bent on vengeance or women who died in childbirth honoured for their bravery and sacrifice in the same way as warriors who died in battle like the Aztecs, of Mexico, Cihuateteo. Now as then, women pay dearly for their independence by defying expectations of submissive female behaviour encouraged within certain cultures.

What the exhibition reveals with extreme audacity is that the many ways that female power has been perceived in cultures and spiritual traditions around the world still guide our own views on femininity and human experience. The attitude to such feminine powers is often paradoxical. Images of the Virgin Mary are soft and caring and her figure has been uniquely important in the daily lives of Christian worshippers. However, this reverence has not necessarily translated into a higher status for women themselves. Some cultures pray for female beings as the source of authority and leadership, and like the Hindu warrior goddess Durga they are often associated with outstanding physical strength. Their role is often to bring about justice. The Ancient Greek goddess of war and wisdom Athena is still admired today for her supreme wisdom and fearlessness which continues to evoke strength, intellect and order in the collective imagination.

The show is overwhelmingly ferocious, beautiful and creative. The themes are certainly difficult to understand and can discourage those who are not well versed in the humanities disciplines, or religious and anthropological studies. To overcome this inconvenience, the British Museum has invited five special guest academics and comedians to respond to the themes of the exhibition. Their personal and professional points of view guide viewers through the different sections. The exhibition concludes with an area for visitors to share their thoughts and impressions on the themes of the exhibition.

For more info/book tickets – https://www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/feminine-power-divine-demonic

19 May 2022 – 25 Sep 2022 Daily: 10.00–17.00 (Fridays 20.30) Room 35 The Joseph Hotung Great Court Gallery Tickets: Adults from £15, Members and under 16s free.

The Creation, Judy Chicago, USA, 1985, coloured screen print in 45 colours on black paper. Image © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Reviewed by Rachele Nizi- After completing her MA in Reception of the Classical World at UCL, Rachele joined Abundant Art as a creative writer. Her British and Italian origins have inspired her to want to study Art History and European Literature, with an interest in the afterlife of antiquity in the Western tradition.

This May, the Peacock Theatre was taken over by German Cornejo’s Wild Tango in a show that overwhelmed the senses with Argentinian tradition, artistic innovation, colourful costumes, charismatic dancers and gravity-defying acrobatics. Whether you are a novice to tango or already a connoisseur and fan of German Cornejo and Gisela Galeassi, this show will find a way to delight you by creating an immersive experience of Argentinian culture and dance. This vibrant atmosphere and spirit on stage were only matched in energy by the enormous standing ovation received at the end of the show, to which the dancers had to come back to the stage and perform one last dance for the public.

The dance show started by introducing us to the origins of Tango, according to which men practiced among themselves before being ready to dance with women. The predominantly male duos of dancers offered a performance that blurred the gendered and heteronormative division between leaders and followers, and even then only three women would often dance between themselves or be the leaders when paired with a male partner. While the first act drew a lot from the typical sensuality of tango, with costumes of lace, leather and masks; the second half was a refreshing and surprising explosion of neon colours and modern experimentalism. Overall, the performances were a well-mixed cocktail of tango, urban dance, malambo, contemporary and circus that, combined together, definitely justified the “Wild” in “Wild Tango”.

Rising tango power couple and stars of the show German Cornejo and Gisela Galeassi were visibly thoroughly invested in this project, both as directors and performers. The dancers too were extremely magnetic, and their technique and engagement in the dances were even more remarkable than the choreographies themselves. The chemistry between everyone was palpable and has me looking forward to seeing the same dancers reunited in their next London-based show, Tango After Dark. The band was also a notable element of the performance, as the music was played live by a quartet of voice and guitar (Luciano Bassi), bandoneon (Matias Rubino), drums (Jeronimo Izarrualde) and piano (Ovidio Velazquez), which added to the immersive and spontaneous aspect of the night.

This Wild Tango was a great introduction to (or rediscovery of) tango for English audiences, all within the beautifully pleasant venue of Peacock theatre. The show truly transports you to another universe of rhythm and passion that makes it difficult to sit still while watching it. Tickets for upcoming shows can be found at https://www.sadlerswells.com

Wild Tango / Leo Mason photography

Reviewed by Céline Galletti- Celine is a volunteer writer for Abundant Art. Originally from France and Italy, she follows her passion for writing and art by studying Comparative Literature at UCL, London. As an international student living in London, she is determined to fully experience and understand the city’s vibrant arts scene, and be a part of its creative storm.