Back to top
8.
The Bird Ballet: a cosmic dance-drama.
Original programme and script for The Exploding Galaxy’s performance of David Medalla’s ‘The Bird Ballet’, staged at the Roundhouse, north London during October 1967. Sm. oblong 8vo. Two sheets stapled once and folded to make 8pp., incl. cover. Illustrated on the second page with a collage by David Medalla.
The event included thirty performers appearing in the guises of sixty-two real or invented birds, poems “sinewed into the sound-structures”, kinetic dramas and pop groups (the programme lists The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, Graham Bond and The Soft Machine as participants, with different ones “in every performance”, and Paul Keeler acting “as the eyes-and-ears for the exploding explorations”). Described by Jill Drower as the “most exciting of the Galaxy’s productions”, initial rehearsals (‘explorations’) for ‘Bird Ballet’ were held in All Saints Hall in Notting Hill, Middle Earth and the Arts Lab in Drury Lane.
The programme’s penultimate page prints a brief history of The Exploding Galaxy, lists its “transmedia creators”, past presentations (including at UFO, the Electric Garden, Parliament Hill, Arlington Mill and Middle Earth), and future presentations.
Short lower left corner crease to back cover, o/w about Near Fine.
