POETRY? HELL YES! DUNCAN MACKINTOSH AND RUMI WITH A VIEW AT ZU STUDIOS, SONGS AND POETRY TO BLOW THE MIND…
“Out beyond ideas of wrong doing and right doing. There is a field ... I'll meet you there"
~ Rumi ~
Out beyond the centre of Lewes, in the middle of an old industrial estate, inside a great metal warehouse by the river, is hidden a real treat. A beautiful, fluffy, paradoxical, Tardis-like phenomenon called Zu Studios.
After a weekend spent with Mooji and a day alone on my boat digesting the experience, I felt that my heart was again searching for that truth I had felt so deeply aligned with in Mooji’s presence. Having received the Zu email update late in the morning, I had only a few hours to decide to cycle and train it to Lewes, up the steep hill from the station, across the high street, past the police station and into darkness, concrete, tarmac and metal.
Outside what I took to be the entrance, I overheard two gentlemen discussing the effects of growing up in nature, or not, as it was for one of them. As I locked my bike up I overheard one of them saying “I grew up in the city, so to me, the city is nature”. I smiled to hear such wisdom and considered the inconspicuous nature of the entrance, signposted with a smaller than A4 wooden sign with “Zu Studios” painted crudely on it, giving no hint of the magic, hidden, only metres away.
Inside, the contrast is bright and joyous; immediately the colours and shapes of the artwork and sculptures in the studio create a dreamy ‘Michel Gondry’ style walkway leading through into the bar, where the sofas, rugs and chai smell whispered “festival” and my ears were bathed in a pleasant hum of conversation.
I paid at a small table and in return, a beautiful smiling woman penned a red love heart on the back of my hand. I thanked her and headed to the bar and found some normalitea in amongst their good selection of juices and herbal teas. The whole place oozed creativity and cosiness I mused as the end of my biscuit fell into my tea with a plop.
On the way up to the performance room I was glad to see a few familiar faces and realised with incredulity that the Duncan on the bill was in fact the Duncan who I had known as my ex-girlfriend’s speech and language tutor. He had once given me a CD, on which he was speaking the poetry of Rumi over Tabla and other instruments. It was some months later I had actually listened to it and realised what a gem it was, thereafter often engaging in acts of guerrilla poetry sharing, excitedly inserting my iPod headphones into the ears of friends without warning. To experience this beauty live and to witness Duncan’s animated and engaging delivery in such an intimate environment turned out to be an inspiring and laughter inducing event.
I confess that even as a poet myself, and a student of the English language, there once existed in my mind a doubtful, critical voice, that in its darkest day, would see a “poetry evening” billed and would read instead, “boring, self-satisfying and watery endurance contest.” Perhaps you have been there yourself. But if any trace of this scepticism about the power of poetry still existed in the dim recesses of my consciousness, it ceased to exist this night. I listened as truth, ageless and timeless, in deep and booming tones, found me, and more than once brought tears of joy to my eyes.
Rumi with a View, the American duo who played in between poems had a kind of “Crosby Stills and Nash” quality, Blake played guitar and sang pleasantly throwing his own brand of wit into the mixture, the woman, Radhe, adding harmonies which found more strength as the evening progressed. Somewhere around the middle of the evening they played a couple of drinking songs which were well received, comically punctuated with a “hell yeah” from their son stood in the audience, whom the couple had previously introduced, mentioning that he had spent most of the day in the pub!
A Turkish man, introduced by the duo as their master (I assume whirling dervish master), sat Zen-like in the corner under a cowboy hat for most of the proceedings until he requested the duo play the “ocean” song. The duo eventually played this as a finale, a great thumping ballad which lit up the room with a good solid rhythm and some pretty soulful harmonies and eastern sounding chants, ending all too soon, but with great applause, and the evening was rounded off with a trio of short Rumi poems.
Zu studios seems to me a difficult sort of place to leave. So it was, that after putting on my coat and bag, taking some pictures and socialising, I found myself going back up to the performance room where a friend of mine was playing to a smaller audience who had stayed, and I was glad to have caught the end of one of his songs before I left, a heartful melody which reminded me somehow of Jeff Buckley’s album Grace. I unlocked my bike and cycled to the station with a smile, riding the hill downwards way too fast, enjoying the exhilaration and nearly skidding over in the rain.
Email info@zustudios.com to be added to the mailing list, or for information about events including a gig by Luke Concannon formerly of Nizlopi (think JCB Song!) this Thursday (22.09.11)!
Visit http://www.rumitour.co.uk/profiles.html for more information about Duncan Mackintosh or http://www.forestrowfestival.org/?page_id=33 for information about Duncan’s “An Evening of Rumi” on October 1st as part of the Forest Row Festival!
You can listen to Rumi With A View at www.myspace.com/madmenhaveseen or sample/buy their album at: https://www.cdbaby.com/cd/madmenhaveseen
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