transcendence, etc
last night was the boshi angel show and it was very beautiful. i didn’t get to catch the whole thing bc i was working door with d and danny for a while, but i went in for norma dream’s set and it was crazy crazy breathtaking T-T
i could spend paragraphs and paragraphs attempting to describe the show but i don't think i can do it justice. norma sang and played banjo from atop a 10 ft ladder. she wore big angel wings. camie was going so hard on the fiddle it was awesome (i'd never seen them play live before!).
something i’ve been trying to articulate in my mind since then is what exactly i feel in moments like the these, when i’m watching an artist perform their art in a way that is so completely present and transcendent. it felt in moments that norma was in a trance while singing, possessed by some higher power. there's something about witnessing someone be so completely transported that evokes a similar feeling within me, of being transported, of suddenly gaining access to a deeper plane of emotion and wonder. it makes me feel like everything i once thought possible might still be possible. it makes me feel like i don't have to just be myself; or rather, that the self that i am isn't as narrow as i thought it was, that my self is actually expansive and elastic, that i can have total freedom and that i can be anything, that i'm not constrained by this form and this container that just happens to be who i am in this moment.
does any of that make sense? lol.
part of me wants to keep pulling apart these feelings to examine their roots, but most of me thinks that they're best kept as is. i don't need to do too much psychoanalysis on myself.
there are a few other artists who make me feel this way. i felt like this the two times i saw sufjan live, and i feel like this when watching recordings of aldous harding on youtube (like damn, sometimes this kind of transcendence can even get translated through camera and internet and screen and still not lose its power). i think what all these artists have in common is an element of the spiritual and of the fantastical. and i think that has the effect of pulling me out of my regular life for a moment.
after the boshi show, danny was talking about how part of the magic of live shows to him is that musicians must be so present when they're performing, and that's a unique thing about performance-based arts. it's something i haven't thought much about in those terms, but i think it's what makes live shows feel special. as part of the audience, i am also extremely present, and the show is an encounter between performer and audience. and that encounter is completely unique, it will never happen again in the exact same form.